While there is much to be said about the final disposition of this case, we start by expressing our sincere sorrow to members of the Legion. We know all too well how we have pressed for judicial proceedings against Maciel on these pages, convinced that the truth would not be served unless the victims were given full and fair hearing at the highest levels of the church. We are aware that we have been highly critical at times of the Legion’s defense of its founder and of some of the tactics it has employed in establishing itself in new ministries in the United States.
That said, we know that those differences notwithstanding, we all profess the same faith, and we love and claim membership in the same Catholic community. No division, then, is deep or wide enough to prevent a sincere expression of our concern for those who have dedicated their lives to the mission of the church and who now have to deal with the news of the Vatican finding.
In the long trajectory of this scandal and in all its manifestations it seems that most often we arrive at the awful truth slowly and unwillingly. The Legion now has to face the question of what will ultimately define it, the human frailty of its founder or the way the order handles that reality. It might well, in the end, provide an example for the rest of us, especially for our bishops, of transparency, responsibility, compassion and humility. This time of trial could inspire the order’s finest hour.
What is said beyond this point is secondary to the solidarity we express with all in the Legion as you live out, in real time and more publicly than is fair to ask of anyone, the Paschal mystery.
NCRegister (owned by LC, editorial written by Fr. Owen Kearns)
There’s another reason the Register is not covering it in the common journalistic way: the example of Father Maciel.
He has been a sign of contradiction, starting with expulsions from seminaries, intensifying when he was a priest in his 20s, and continuing all throughout his long life. So it has been for many other founders.
He has always reacted the same way: seeing the cross as coming from God, refusing to defend himself, bearing malice toward none, continuing to do good, trying to serve the universal and local Church with many well formed priests, courageous lay apostles and vibrant works of apostolate.
Vindication has always come, because the Judge’s instructions to the jury have always been the same: “By their fruits you will know them.”
The vocation of a cofounder is to continue the good works of the founder. The Legionaries will continue this as they also accompany their founder in this new stage of his life.
As Father Maciel has taught us, we see this cross as coming from God, the only Owner of our vineyard. Evidently, he has decided that we needed to be pruned in order to bear more fruit.
From an anonymous LC priest, who blogs:
3. What about the internal image of Fr. Maciel as founder and inspiration of the LC/RC and its spirituality? One can argue, as the CDF statement so painfully observes, that the congregation and the lay movement can be considered and even revered independently of the person of their founder. Anyone who belongs to the LC/RC knows that this kind of mental separation is not only impossible, but flies in the face of everything we’ve lived and been taught in the Movement since the beginning.
I, personally, feel a great debt of gratitude to Fr.Maciel – not because someone’s brainwashed me, but simply because I have received so much. He is venerated in the LC/RC and often allegiance and fidelity to one’s vocation are confused with personal loyalty to him. His story is told and retold; the LC/RC history with him at its core has been written and rewritten; he becomes, for all our members, a figure that is larger than life. Critics call it a personality cult. I prefer to think of it as a mix of institutional exuberance, cultural folklore and youthful hype…
For all of this and many other ways in which the person of our founder is inextricably enmeshed in the very fiber of LC/RC life, the CDF statement is an industrial-sized fly in the ointment. What are we supposed to do now? Pretend it doesn’t matter? Tell the story up to May 17 2006, then close the book quickly and say "…and they all lived happily ever after"?
Or perhaps we’re being challenged to make the act of consumate honesty: to say with our hearts, our words and our continued service to the church that the LC/RC never really was about Fr.Maciel (even in the throes of our over-enthusiasm!). That the congregation and the movement really are ‘of Christ‘ as their names imply. That even the blemishes or eventual failings of everyone from the founder right down to the newest member don’t undermine what HE does and will continue to do through us…
Do go read the whole thing – and I’m closing comments down below, so you can continue the discussion up here, if you like.
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