At Sandro Magister’s place there is an article about what is going on with the correction of the Legionaries of Christ. Here is the preamble:
ROME, December 16, 2010 – The order is binding. All the houses of the Legionaries of Christ must be emptied of photos of the founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado, the man of “foolhardy, wasted, bizarre” life whom Benedict XVI called in his recent book-interview “a false prophet.”
Not only that. They must no longer call him “Our Father.” They must no longer celebrate his anniversaries, but only pray for him on the anniversary of his death. They must no longer display or sell his writings. In Cotija de la Paz, Mexico, where he is buried, his grave must no longer have any distinguishing marks. Next to the spiritual retreat house there must be built “a place dedicated to reparation and expiation.”
These provisions were issued on December 13 to all the Legionaries in the world by their director general, Álvaro Corcuera, by the order of Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, the pope’s delegate to get the congregation back on the right track.
[…]
You can read the rest there…if you want.
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Chancy is lowering the boom.
I have known some lay families involved in Regnum Christi. As I was in a lay community in my youth for seven years, I understand to some extent how these groups work. I was not comfortable with the conformity of mindset I met with in the community of Regnum Christi, which some of my fellow home schooling families were involved, in a large city, name withheld. It seemed to me that some of the type of people who persist in group identity sometimes fall into an anti-intellectualism and denial. It must be hard for some very good people to realize what a horrible man the founder truly was.
To continue as a seminarian and a priest in the order will take great humility and obedience
to Rome, virtues which I am sure some of the members of the order and the lay community have. However, not all people can face disillusionment. How grateful we must all be to our present Pope for leading us in these matters. One cannot be holier than “Rome”.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=11724994
It’s still not enough. The damage is too great and the name is utterly and irrevocably tarnished forever more. The Legionaries should be suppressed and refounded under a new name. Any and all memory of Maciel should be purged from them.
These are important and needed changes. Please pray for Card. de Paolis and the Legionaries of Christ, so that with God’s grace all the needed reforms will happen. Although God moved me to leave that community, I still respect and appreciate the many fine men who have stayed, and I hope and pray that those who are called to be a part of this much-needed transformation of the congregation will have the patience, wisdom, objectivity and docility to the Holy Spirit and to the Holy See that this process requires.
I’m not very educated but have always gone with my gut. The Legion and Opus Dei are kind of creepy. Of course, I am not making any judgments that matter in the slightest to anyone but myself.
This is nowhere near enough. We need this order suppressed, and now. We need its liquid assets returned to the donors, the founder buried in an unmarked grave in an obscure cemetery, its priests laicized until they receive formation and take vows in another order, its properties turned over to the dioceses in which they are situated, etc., etc. In other words everything done to distance the Church from this man, his memory and his works.
I have to agree with the Legionaries who are upset with the papal delegate for appointing known proteges of the current crop of Legion leaders to replace the leaders themselves instead of cleaning house like he should have.
I have no problem with the delegate taking the slow and steady approach and I would say that financially, it just might be too complicated with all the Legion’s business dealings to just wholesale close it all down and start over. But I do think that the delegate should definitely be appointing people who have no direct association and familiarity with the Legion’s inner circle.
“The Legion and Opus Dei are kind of creepy”
Regarding Opus Dei, I would recommend John Allen’s book about it.
“This is nowhere near enough. We need this order suppressed, and now. We need its liquid assets returned to the donors, the founder buried in an unmarked grave in an obscure cemetery, its priests laicized until they receive formation and take vows in another order, its properties turned over to the dioceses in which they are situated, etc., etc. In other words everything done to distance the Church from this man, his memory and his works.”
Just throw out the baby with the bathwater? His Holiness the Pope speaks very pastorally about this issue in the new book-length interview. The members need real pastoral care. This would be like the Franciscans discovering that St. Francis led a horrible double-life. I pray for the members of LC & RC.
Working at my parish, we have an ex-Legionary priest who joined up with our archdiocese. He’s a good hard-working priest, and we’re very lucky to have him.
There’s been plenty of times when good people have had evil leaders, who were eventually exposed and removed from power. The Legion isn’t the first or the last. God said to Jeremiah, “”My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains… But I will bring Israel back to his pasture….”
“The Legion and Opus Dei are kind of creepy.”
You overlook one critical difference: the founder of Opus Dei is a canonized Saint.
IV. Concluding reflection of the Cardinal delegate DePaolis to the Legionaries Oct. 2010
It seems to me that we can and must expect a positive path of renewal. There are so many signs on the horizon that give us good hope for a positive outcome at the end of the journey. The shock caused by the Founder’s actions had tremendous impact, on a scale capable of destroying the Congregation itself, as many in fact predicted. Yet it not only survives, but is almost intact in its vitality. The great majority of the Legionaries have been able to read the story of their own vocation not so much in relation to the Founder as to the mystery of Christ and the Church, and renew their fidelity to Christ and the Church, in the Legion.
Their ability to read their situation in a supernatural dimension allowed them not to go astray or become lost. The guiding star of fidelity to the Church and obedience to the Pope saved them from easy discouragement and abandonment. . Some even thought of leaving the Legion to join a diocese. But all in all, only a few have opted for that path.
Jknott,
Scary. Reason enough to wonder if they are obeying Rome at all.
Thank you, Cardinal De Paolis.