Vatican Probes Disgraced Order's Cultish Lay Group

MSNBC created that headline!





Only about 900 are consecrated — nearly all women, but also a handful of men. They give up possessions and ties to their former lives much in the way nuns or priests do. They adhere to Vatican-approved statutes that require them to "voluntarily renounce the use of their capacity for decision-making" — pledging unswerving obedience to their superiors.

"I feel like I was brainwashed," said J., an American who joined the movement shortly after graduation from a Catholic university in the late 1990s and asked that only her middle initial be used. Like most of the women who spoke to the AP, she did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation from the Legion.

"I really thought it was a mortal sin to break any one of the little rules that were laid out by the statutes or the directress," she said.

"Members are not allowed to question or think outside group-think," she said. "I know that members totally dismiss any discussion of the Legion and Regnum Christi as a cult — I did when I was still part of it — but it sure looks like one once you get out."

Restoring the Catholic Historical Imagination

Had to post this finely written piece by a good friend of mine, Rollin A. Lasseter, R.I.P., Catholic historian, educator, writer and poet.

http://www.catholicliberaleducation.org/newsletters/2010_september/news_newsletter_article_3.htm

Excerpted from a paper by Rollin A. Lasseter

“Restoring the Catholic Historical Imagination” -- my title for this paper -- is itself problematic. Why should anyone want to restore an imagination of history, that record of what J.R.R. Tolkien called “the long defeat”? At first glance, ancient history seems a recycled tale of building up and tearing down -- conquest, persecution, intrigue, and betrayal. Then, modern history -- often marked as beginning with the guillotine -- is defined by the death camps at Auschwitz, the darkness of Hiroshima, and the mass murder that is abortion and genocide. What is there in history, if anything, that we would want to pass along to our poor children? How do we, leading our children, get out of this cycle of death and domination? Is there a way out? Can we imagine any history with a happy ending? Or do we follow the pagan imagination, expecting loss, defeat, and death, and declare: “Call no man happy until he is dead.”

The problem for parents and teachers today is the current malformation of our own and our children’s imaginations. The imagination of our time is on a wide scale formed, or malformed, by some one else’s nightmare: movies, pornography, popular fiction, music, and ideology-driven TV. We see what we have been trained to see. We image what we have been taught to image. The modern imagination is an imagining of despair and increasingly, as a people, we cannot imagine a happy ending.

We have to be able to imagine Heaven, if we are to believe what Our Lord promised: “that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.” From the Old Testament we hear the promise of the Deuteronomist’s words, “And underneath are the everlasting arms.” From the Gospels come assurances spoken by Our Lord himself, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world”; and “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

The Catholic imagination has a great tradition of images to defeat the nightmares of despair. And the telling of history from a Catholic point of view is to see that human beings are, first and foremost, religious creatures who are given, what we call in our Catholic Schools Textbook Project textbooks, opportunities in time for choosing “grace-filled” change, providential evolution, if you will. One perception builds on another. One discovery makes way for another. Each inspiration leads to a purer understanding of mankind’s destiny: begun, continued and ended in God. Catholics are preeminently the people for whom history matters.
The Catholic imagination is not a closed, political view of a social utopia with a “preferential option for the poor,” -- though a free and just society is what we imagine as a Christian society. Nor is it defined by bitter polemics of Catholic isolation in America -- although a bit of Catholic triumphalism is not unbecoming. Nor is it that meager view represented by collections of overly pious saints-lives and sweet devotions -- though they may have grown out of the Catholic imagination.

The Catholic imagination is the good, the true and the beautiful -- vast and deep -- a world view that rests on two certainties: Man, as the Crown of Creation, and God, as the ever-present source of our life and hope -- the natural and the supernatural. A Catholic imagination sees all events of human life as participating in the Divine plan for Creation, the providential story being told by God.
They fail us not, the ever-suffering arms,

Nor careless, drop us from the trembling stage

Despite our petty sorceries and charm.

We rest enfold in comfort not in cage,

Still underneath, the Everlasting Arms.

(From the Hymn: The Everlasting Arms)

Therefore, I want to invite you to think about history and the teaching of history not as a clinical record of the facts of the past or as meaningless events in the sequence of ages, but as a lifting of a curtain on a great drama, an invitation to step--with imagination, thought and will--into the revelation of God in human history, to lift the curtain on the greatest drama in the cosmos: Salvation history. For it was not in myth or in “Once-upon- a-time in a galaxy far, far away,” it was not in some “Land before Time,” but instead at a moment in our own, our real human history, that God took flesh in the womb of His blessed mother, Mary. Lived. Spoke. Suffered, died, and rose from death for the salvation of all mankind. In this drama of salvation history, we see the hand of God in all ages -- His hand in the advances of human technology and science and in the everyday joys, sorrows, and miseries as well. In every moment of salvation history, God is present and does not abandon his special creation, made in His own image, “male and female created He them.”
To restore the Catholic historical imagination --so that students, and ourselves, can look at history as something other than nightmare and Death -- we need only to call attention to God’s intervention in the human story – God’s hand in events, in society, and in our own lives – to remind ourselves and our students of the interaction of providence with the story of human achievement, courage, and creativity. Human stories become true history when told as God-stories.

How is imagination formed? Through meeting with great souls and great visions. Not by philosophy or doctrine, for the young mind is not moved by doctrine, but by images, the images of divine reality. Images of virtue, images of faith, images of love, images of Hope. An imagination that cannot see hope is an imagination of death. It is not the imagination we want for our children. The imagination of hopelessness can be, must be, transformed.

Through the story and the romance of the past we can create an imaginative grasp of the world we have been given, so that our young people will know that “underneath, are the Everlasting Arms.” “And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

Our Father on Jack Keogh's Blog

this is me at San Simeon, not Jack

Thanks to Jack Keogh, who published only the second English language memoir of life in the Legion, Our Father got a bit of plugging when he blogged about "Another book about Fr. Marcial Maciel.".

Read my super interesting comments!

Irish Reporter interviews Lennon, Vaca, and Kineke

The blogger, author of Our Father Maciel who art in bed, with his parents in Rome, September 1969

"Legion of Crisis",
an article by Niall Stanage, US correspondent for The Sunday Business Post quotes former LC/RC members Lennon, Vaca,  and Gineke, mentioning the memoir "Our Father, who art in bed

Why Ratzinger/Benedict went after Maciel/Legion?

Maciel giving Holy Communion to Paul Lennon in the '80s

Hello, dear reader.
an interesting article came accross my desk today which continues to shed light on Ratzinger/Benedict's action re Marcial Maciel and the Legion of Christ; it is an interview with Monsignor Scicluna, the Vatican "Attorney General" who personally carried out the 2005 investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by Fr. Maciel, founder and superior general of the Legion of Christ order.
In the interverview Scicluna suggests that during his time at the Defense of the Faith Congreation/Department then Cardinal Ratzinger had to review the cases of clerical pedophilia and became increasining distressed. Ratzinger/Benedict followed through when he became pope and "nailed" several powerful clerics who had gotten off scot free "during the previous adminstration"
=====
While Pope Benedict XVI has been accused of mishandling abuse cases, as an Archbishop in Germany, and also as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, Scicluna rejected those charges.


The Maltese Vatican official, said those who worked with the future Pope in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith were full of admiration for him and his “courage and determination” in dealing with the crisis.
“I am a direct witness to the compassion, the frustration and the anger that these cases instilled in Cardinal Ratzinger, the man, Joseph Ratzinger,” Scicluna said.

While Scicluna seems determined to avoid using the term “crisis,” he insists on calling sin by its name, and crime as well.
“People call this a crisis,” he said. “It is certainly a challenge to the Church, but it is an opportunity. It is an opportunity to call sin sin in its face, and do something about it. It is an opportunity for the church to show itself determined in its fight against sin, against crime.”

While the sexual abuse of minors clearly does not take place only in church circles, Fox asked Scicluna if he thought the Catholic Church should be held to a higher standard.

“I think so,” Scicluna responded. “Because we do stand for a very clear message which should be a light to the world. So we do complain about the headlines sometimes, but the headlines are a reflection that the world takes what we say very seriously, and is scandalized when what we do does not correspond to what we say.”

Scicluna, whose official title is the Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said a priest who abuses makes a “mockery” of his vocation.

“There is a sacred trust which has been violated,” he said. “The priest has been ordained to be an icon, a living image of Jesus Christ. He is another Christ at the altar, when he preaches. Now when he abuses, he shatters that icon.”

He said the Church has to face up to the truth, even if it’s not very nice: “There’s no other way out of this situation, except facing the truth of the matter.”

Vatican should remove Statute of Limitations for Child Abuse Cases say English-Welsh Bishops

As reported today on NCR Online English-Welsh Catholic Bishops recommend that Vatican remove statute of limitations for crimes against children

Lennon's Amazon Review of Former Legionary Jack Keogh's "Driving straight on Crooked Lines"

Maciel interfacing with Paul Lennon, Salamanca, Spain 1962, the year Jack Keogh joined

Buddy Holly in the Legion of Christ,

June 9, 2010

I say Buddy Holly because my first impression of Jack was Buddy Holly in a cassock: gangly, with horned-rimmed glasses, who could sing and play the guitar.

This memoir is a must read for the Catholic public, former Legionaries and members of Regnum Christi, their friends and relatives -not to mention priests, bishops, Apostolic Visitators and Commissioners. Let me humbly state that I am one of the people best qualified to write this review. I, too, am a Dubliner, and joined the Legion a year before Jack Keogh. His claim to fame is being the first Irish Legionary to set foot on Mexican soil; mine of being one of the first eight Irishmen to begin Novitiate and take vows in Salamanca, Spain, in what would become the fastest growing and most prestigious order (more precisely "congregations") in the Catholic Church.

Not that Jack and I became bosom buddies. As he explains, Legionaries don't discuss any personal thoughts or feelings among themselves even if they are living side by side. Friendships are not allowed. The memoir shows how every Legionary is an island -of silence, solitude, and secrets- and, for the most part, an island unaware of its own needs. Jack mentions moments of getting in touch with his own Eros -he was more alive than others. Occasionally, Jack pulls back the sunny curtain to reveal sadness, leading us into the mystery of Legionary life. The less enthusiastic and optimistic will find that "Most Legionaries live lives of quiet desperation." Legionaries and Regnum Christi members hide their real selves behind a solid rock happy face façade. "Mom, I'm fine. Everything is wonderful here!" The tragedy is they bury themselves alive.

Former Legionaries can be divided into three groups: those who had a good time/experience with Fr Maciel; those who had a bad time and/or were abused by him in some way; and those with little direct contact with him. Jack belongs to the first group. Marcial Maciel had the uncanny knack of zeroing in on a person's gifts/needs/weaknesses, exploiting them for his own (the Kingdom of Christ's) ends. Jack wanted to figure and do something worthwhile. Maciel sent him to found the Irish Institute in Mexico City among the rich and famous.

Bro. John, our Jack, was always upbeat. I can still recall this gregarious six-footer trying to boost the morale of the troops "in the community", his large frame skipping along the Travertine corridors at Via Aurelia, Rome, as he joined us after one of his expeditions into the outside world, regaling us with a joke, a funny story, or an edifying tidbit about Nuestro Padre. Jack, like the rest of us, tried very hard to be a good Legionary. Everything he says is true. Ours is the same tune, played on different instruments; or wearing different colored glasses, pink, blue, red or black...He the motivational speaker; I the skeptic.

As the "Feeling Introvert" (see Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) I thought a lot about leaving the priesthood, daunted by the practical perspective of life outside the monastery walls. Jack, the "Thinking Extravert" went into action quickly, chose a wife, got married, had a daughter, and entered the business world. We must not minimize the contribution of the woman who joined her life to his at that moment: Collette, an atractive, kind, intelligent, and supportive wife, helping to put "Humpty Dumpty" together again.

Jack is at his best when he drops the breezy debonair, baring his heart; as in the illness of his native African friend, Dominique; or good bye to his teenage sweetheart, or his friendship with confreres such as Juan Manuel Amenabar, the ebullient Spanish padre who was director of the Irish Institute without speaking a word of English.

Jack renders a great service by describing what other former members overlook as the obvious but which outsiders ignore and are curious about - the details of daily life -giving a peek into what it is like in a Legion house of formation or apostolate, the various activities, the routines, the rules, the customs of the religious life: our duties as time-keeper, porter, laundry-worker, sacristan, mechanic, driver... He also gives a face to many unknown unselfish Legionaries whose names and stories would have remained in oblivion. Thank you, Jack, for going to the trouble of telling your tale, for taking the risk of sharing your intimacy, for helping to fill in the blanks in the Legion chronicles, and for giving us your personal perspective, for trying to be "objective" and dispassionate about a very passionate subject.

One of the final triggers for Jack's departure from the Legion was when Fr. Maciel cruelly mistreated Jack's fellow exile in Gabon, Luis Lerma. Jack's compassion kicked in and liberated him finally from the yoke around his neck. One of the final triggers of my leaving the Legion was furtively learning -through a mutual lay friend, Angelina - how Maciel mistreated Luis and Jack. Years previously I had picked up on something that destroyed my admiration for Nuestro Padre, and in my mind disqualified the Legion Founder from being a holy man or a saint: Maciel's inhumanity to man (and scorn for women).

J. Paul Lennon, author of Our Father (Maciel) who art in bed, a Naïve and Sentimental Dubliner in the Legion of Christ.