Can the Pope Save the Legion? • ¿Podrá el Papa salvar la Legión?

Can the Pope Save the Legion of Christ?


June 2009

That was the implicit question set forth at the end of our New Oxford Note "The Self-Destruction of a Cult of Personality" (Apr.). We shall soon find out the answer.

Pope Benedict XVI has ordered an investigation of the Legion of Christ, whose founder, the late Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, fathered a child some twenty years ago and faced a slew of allegations of sexual abuse of seminarians. The investigation was announced by the Pope's secretary of state, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, in a March 10 letter to Fr. Alvaro Corcuera, general director of the Legion. The investigation will take the form of an apostolic visitation by a "team of prelates" who have yet to be named. The Holy Father, wrote Cardinal Bertone to the Legion, "is aware of the noble ideals that inspire you and the fortitude and prayerful spirit with which you are facing the current vicissitudes, and he encourages you to continue seeking the good of the Church and society by means of your own distinctive initiatives and institutions." Cardinal Bertone assured the Legion that it "can always count on the help of the Holy See, so that with truth and transparency, in a climate of fraternal and constructive dialog, you will overcome the present difficulties." Cardinal Bertone's "truth and transparency" clause is key: The Legion has long been known to operate in a shroud of strict secrecy, a charge leveled even by an American archbishop, and has been accused of obfuscating the truth about its methods and finances, and the life of its late leader.

Unlike the apostolic visitation of women's religious orders in the U.S. (for more on which see our New Oxford Note "Song of the Boo-Birds," May), which is being supervised by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL), the visitation of the Legion is being overseen by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). The reasons are twofold: The CDF carried out the original investigation into the accusations against Fr. Maciel -- which ended with his being sent out to pasture in 2006 to do "prayer and penance" for the brief remainder of his life -- and is therefore in a better position to organize the logistics of the visitation. More significantly perhaps, the CDF is handling this assignment to "avoid perceptions of bias," according to John L. Allen Jr. (National Catholic Reporter, Apr. 17). Franc Cardinal Rodé, prefect of the CICLSAL, has in the past been a public supporter of the Legion, and employs at least one Legionary priest on his staff. There are currently no Legionaries serving in the CDF.

Reaction to the investigation among Legionary priests has been characterized as one of relief. "Collectively, we're thrilled this is happening," an unidentified Legionary priest told Allen. "Our view is, the sooner the better." Allen reports that "some Legionaries have come to see an independent Vatican investigation as the lone ‘exit strategy' from their recent woes, potentially allowing the order to move forward despite being forced to admit serious misconduct by its founder, and despite a long history of denying that misconduct." Fr. Corcuera, in a statement, thanked the Holy Father "from my heart for offering us this additional help to face our present vicissitudes related to the grave facts of our founder's life," and said that the Legion will "fully and gratefully participate" in the visitation: "We are ready to welcome the visitators to our centers and institutions with faith and supernatural spirit, cooperating with them and facilitating their mission."

Reaction to the investigation among outside observers has ranged from skepticism to guarded optimism. David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told the Sacramento Bee (Apr. 1) that "it's hard to feel hopeful that any ‘visitation' will have any real impact on reforming such a secretive and unhealthy organization." Prof. José Barba, the Mexico City-based legal representative of eight former Legionaries who initiated court proceedings against Maciel in 1998, and who claims to have been abused by Maciel himself as a teenage seminarian, said that what the CDF will have to investigate is "to what extent the evil, the gangrene was spread through the Legionaries of Christ and didn't end just because Father Maciel died" (Reuters, Apr. 1). Barba claims to possess "testimonies that there have been other Legionaries who followed Maciel's examples."

Longtime Legion-watcher Jason Berry told The New York Times (Mar. 31) that "the Vatican is -- in an exquisitely cautious way -- trying to decide whether to keep the Mexicans who are running the order and to determine whether the Legion is a kind of cult." Legion priests, in addition to the traditional three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, take a fourth vow, swearing never to speak ill of the Legion, its founder, or their superiors. They also promise to inform on anyone who does. "Unity is the supreme good for the movement...," Fr. Maciel once wrote. "The director represents the authority of Christ the head, and the subject the redemptive obedience of Christ."

Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore, one of the Legion's few outspoken critics in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy, was interviewed by the National Catholic Reporter (Apr. 3). When asked if he were confident the Legionaries are truly ready to cooperate with the visitators, he replied, "I really do hope so.... It just takes a few to try to block it and to mislead. I hope that the Legionaries will realize that in the long run, this is going to help them." When asked what specifics the visitators should focus on, Archbishop O'Brien said, "In the first place, they have to look at Maciel himself. What are the facts, who knew them, when did they know them, and why did it take so long for them to become public?... Then, they need to look at the structure Maciel created. There was a good deal of secrecy in his own life, and there's secrecy in the structures he created. It would be helpful to know why there is such secrecy.... I think it begins with Maciel, with the cult of personality around him, the secrecy. The saints don't need that." Legionaries and members of Regnum Christi, their lay affiliate, venerated Maciel as a "living saint," even after his 2006 censure by the CDF.

As for the formation of Legionary priests, Archbishop O'Brien said, "Why is there such an effort with their seminarians to limit their exposure to the real world out there? What are their recruiting strategies for vocations to the priesthood? How above board are they?" When queried about the Legion's impressive numbers -- they claim to have over 800 priests and 2,500 seminarians -- he replied, "Numbers are hard to come by.... I hear there's a large drop-out rate.... Does that reflect something in their formation?" That drop-out rate can only increase, as a result of the revelations about Fr. Maciel's predilections.

In fact, the exodus from the Legion may have already begun. In a late development, Legionary Fr. Thomas Berg, executive director of the Legion's Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, announced on May 7 that he will be leaving the Legion to join the Archdiocese of New York as a diocesan priest. He made haste to say, however, that his decision was not based on the "profoundly disturbing" revelations about Fr. Maciel; his decision to leave, he said, "has actually been in the making for nearly three years." He released his statement to the press in order to "preclude unnecessary and unwarranted speculation" about the reasons for his decision to leave. But allow us one minor speculation on the timeline of events: It was three years ago that the CDF, after weighing the abuse allegations against him, handed down its punishment of Fr. Maciel. Nevertheless, Fr. Berg, perhaps obedient to his fourth Legionary vow (and, we imagine, not the type to turn his back on his Legionary friends), had nothing but good words to say about his 23 years in the order. (Fr. Berg will continue as director of the Westchester Institute, but no longer under the Legion's sponsorship.) He did say, however, that the "serious issues within the congregation will require its thorough reformation if not a complete re-foundation." He hopes that the visitation will be the "first step toward a new beginning for the Legionaries and members of Regnum Christi." It will also be a new beginning for Fr. Berg of "a very active ministry" under new Archbishop Timothy Dolan. How many Legionaries will follow his lead?

Back to the interview: Archbishop O'Brien also said that the visitators "need to examine who the victims are, and what's being done to meet the needs of those victims.... So many have been devastated and misled, and it will be good to see how it all came about." The Legion, he said, "seems to have such a hold on people. I don't know of any other organization that has created this atmosphere of suspicion.... I don't know of any religious orders founded by somebody like Maciel, or if they were, they didn't last very long." At "the core" of the Legion, the Archbishop said, "there's been an unnecessary and unhealthy secrecy."

He also suggested that the visitators "look at the financial dimension" of the Legion's operation.

When asked whether he thinks the abolition of the Legion should be on the table, Archbishop O'Brien responded, "I think everything should be on the table. Of course, the ultimate hope is that what is good [in the Legion] can be preserved, so that it grows into a stronger movement." But, he said, "there may be something endemic in the whole thing that will not allow that to happen." The bottom line is: "I don't think it necessarily has to fold, because it has some elements that have contributed to people's holiness. If we can preserve that, we'll be better for it."

Can the Legion survive the discrediting of its founder? If it can, it won't be by virtue of the disordered charisms of the duplicitous Fr. Maciel; rather, it would likely be by virtue of its massive financial structure. Despite Fr. Corcuera's public hand-wringing, at the Legion's management level "business as usual" is the order of the day. In accord with the Pope's blessings to continue its "own distinctive initiatives," on April 20 the Legion announced its impending acquisition of a controlling interest in Southern Catholic College (SCC), a small liberal arts college in Dawsonville, Georgia, that opened in 2000 and has been struggling to stay afloat. (The Legion also operates the University of Sacramento, another small liberal arts college that opened in 2005, and the only other college it controls in the U.S.) The Legion claims to operate 15 universities, 50 institutes of higher education, and 176 schools worldwide. Legion executives are known to "target" certain young men and boys for the priesthood, and others for membership in Regnum Christi, from an early age. With more than one college under their control, they would be able to maintain hold of their charges into adulthood by ushering them from one Legion institution to another -- i.e., limiting their exposure to the "real world out there."

As the Catholic News Agency (Apr. 21) reported, "Father Scott Reilly, LC, territorial director for the Legion, said the Legion can accelerate its desire to offer a ‘greater contribution' to higher education in North America by working with SCC." Fr. Reilly was quoted as saying, "Southern Catholic is a great college and there would be considerable sharing of best practices with our existing institutions. I expect that SCC will experience significant growth in student population in the years ahead, with added growth coming from Legion-affiliated secondary schools in North America." These aren't the words of a man worried about the future of his order or its recruits, or about the reform of its institutions and practices. The timing of the announcement -- a mere three weeks after the news of the visitation broke -- is bound to raise a few eyebrows. The intent seems to be to send out an "all is well" smokescreen: Yeah, the boss may be sending someone from downtown to look under a few rugs, but we're gonna carry on as always.

The full version of the question set forth in the title of this Note is: Can the Pope save the Legionaries of Christ from themselves?

As Archbishop O'Brien said so aptly, the disturbing, tragic saga of Fr. Maciel's Legion of Christ should be for all of us "a lesson about holiness in the Church." It is the perennial lesson of the corruptibility of power and money, and how the insatiable desire to acquire these transient material goods displaces the holiness of even the most "saintly" of men.