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An old friend who was in Regnum Christi, the lay arm of Maciel's Legionaries of Christ, writes about the Maciel mess. I post this with her permission:
Much has been said about the way RC members are conditioned not to criticize superiors and how this created a culture where so many remained loyal to Maciel. I agree with this completely. But there was another more subtle way in which The Founder "covered" himself. From the time I met the Legion in the late 1980's (I was in college), my formators, who were mostly Consecrated women, would speak in hushed tones about Fr. Maciel's prediction that he and the Movement (as we often referred to the Legion and Regnum Christi) would suffer terrible persecution. People would spread lies about him and the order, etc. Later, I remember, it being said on several occasions that, although John Paul II was a great supporter, the Legion had enemies and that there might be a future pope who would not be favorable to the Movement. I don't know how widely these stories or predictions were circulated, but I'm sure I was not the only one who was told these kinds of things. More concretely, the Legion published a small book in the mid-90's, I believe it was called Founders, which was a collection of biographical sketches about founders of orders and the ways in which they were misunderstood and persecuted. At the time I heard and read these things I was still quite in love with the idea of Regnum Christi and these mysterious predictions served to make the Movement seem like a heroic task. It also made me associate Maciel with other great leaders from Church history. It also created a sort of "mental circle" that I found hard to break. As rumors and accusations became public in the late 90's, I realize now that I had been conditioned to dismiss them. Not, only that, the accusations actually served to strengthen my belief in the greatness of Maciel and the institutions he created. Hadn't he predicted all this? It was only after I had been out for a while that I could see clearly that the rumors about him could be true.
I don't know how many other members and former members out there were told similar things or where encouraged to read the Founders book, but at least for me, these experiences created an inability to believe the charges just as much as the culture of not criticizing superiors did. Many people may be shaking their heads at how naïve Maciel's followers have been, but that is because they do not understand the subtle and powerful conditioning that took place especially at the second degree level of RC.
This is poignant, and important. If you have the idea that Regnum Christi members were brainless conservative Catholic automatons, this whipsmart and sophisticated woman would shatter that stereotype. And she was deceived by this classic cult conditioning behavior. I hope we hear more testimonies like this from current and former LC/RC members in the days to come. It's critical to our understanding of how the manipulation worked, and how we can avoid it in the future. What Maciel and his men did was by no means unique. It's an old, old story -- but the people who knew what Maciel was all about, and covered for him, and the people who ought to have known but chose to look the other way and slander his accusers ought to be held to account for what they helped to perpetrate.
In that regard, I want to address those who, in comboxes below, complain that I've framed my own remarks with reference to the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus's blistering 2002 defense of Maciel against charges made in particular by the journalists Jason Berry and Gerald Renner. I agree that Neuhaus's defense is by no means the central issue here. But we don't yet have a sufficiently complete account of who in the Legion and in the Church hierarchy knew what and did what to promote the Maciel cult. That will come in time, and there will be commentary on it.
The reason I bring up Neuhaus -- who, regrettably, is no longer with us -- is because he was such an important figure in American Catholicism, and played a key role in providing cover for the Legion. Among orthodox Catholics, at least intellectually engaged orthodox Catholics, Neuhaus was the man. He had an immense amount of trust and respect among influential leaders and opinion makers on the Catholic right. For him to use the full force of his moral power, and his formidable talents as a polemicist, to defend Maciel and to disparage his critics, was an incredibly potent act. I invite you to read Neuhaus's article in full to understand how far he went. Though Neuhaus backed off somewhat in 2006 after Pope Benedict, peace be upon him, sidelined Maciel, he offered no concessions to Berry and Renner, and let his calumnies against them and their work stand.
I bring this up not to "dance on his grave," as one of you has suggested, but to point out how and why Maciel and the Legion got away with it for so long. They had useful dupes like Fr. Neuhaus in the bag. I can think of no single figure more important to the Legion for their purposes than Fr. Neuhaus. They used him to confirm the cover story that they used to seduce my friend above: that the Founder was a saint who is persecuted by enemies of the Church for his fidelity to Catholic orthodoxy.
Again, Father Neuhaus is dead, and cannot, of course, make amends for what he did. But it's a grave error to turn our eyes from it out of some sense of charity or respect for the dead. His defense of the Legion is an important artifact in helping us understand the scandal, and how viewing the events as part of an ideological struggle waged between factions within the Catholic Church led even brilliant men like Fr. Neuhaus into serious and consequential error.
If it can happen to him, it can happen to any of us. If my faithful and intelligent friend could have been manipulated for years by these people, it could happen to any of us. And not just in church, please understand.
Comments (58)
This is mind control:
"... Consecrated women, would speak in hushed tones about Fr. Maciel's prediction that he and the Movement would suffer terrible persecution."
LC/RC members: You have been lied to. It was a professional con job. There is no sin for you to leave now, nor was there ever. You have our prayers.
Rod has posted another good whamo:
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/02/the-good-ncr-and-fr-maciel.html
The LC-owned National Catholic Register has covered up the queer priests/bishops scandals for many years now, and has likewise covered for Fr. Maciel. Rod's point is that NCR should become a real Catholic newspaper now if they hope to survive.
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