The pending canonical visitation may be a Pentecost of sorts for the LC. A promising wind is blowing and I can only pray that it will shake the whole house to the foundations. Hopefully the cowering disciples will shake off their fear and indifference and give into the mighty impulse of truth and transparency.
The PTB will smile bravely and offer the usual platitudes about what a blessing the Vatican intervention is and how willingly the institution will collaborate...But it is up to the rank and file to seize this opportunity, this open forum that the Spirit has initiated, and speak from the heart. The legitimacy of the continued existence of our religious family is on the line. The future of our congregation and its works of apostolate, the credibility of our vocation as LCs depend on what we do now.
Do not wait to be called. Demand to be heard.
Recently the Superior General wrote us a long, sentimental letter about his trip to the Holy Land as part of the entourage of Pope Benedict on his historic visit. Instead of waxing poetic on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, perhaps a straight forward, no-spin letter about something that actually matters to the members of the congregation might be in order.
I suggest a letter about the tremendous historical event we are about to experience: the visitation.
What is a visitation? Why is the LC being submitted to this extraordinary canonical process now? What precise finality does the visitation seek? How can we prepare for it? How can we all participate in it? Who can we write to? Who can we speak to?
Certainly the shredders on Via Aurelia have been churning fast and furious since the ball of twine began to unravel, making new revelations more unlikely.
_________________
The visitation is about us, the LC and its inner workings... everything from silly norms of urbanity to finances, from the competence of its superiors to the freedom of conscience of its members...If this is the moment of truth, it is also the moment of grace.
_________________
A Legionary priest, working in a women’s center of RC in South America, recently responded to the anguished questions of the Movement’s members about the fraudulent life of Fr. Maciel by saying, in short, that “as a man he had his shortcomings, we should not be judgmental and we should look to the good that has come from the Legion in its works”.
His ‘shortcomings’?
That’s like saying that Caligula had his ‘quirks’... or that Amy Winehouse has her occasional ‘bad hair day’.
If we are to believe that Fr. Maciel was somehow a ‘flawed saint’ or simply ‘an imperfect instrument of God’, how do we defend the fact that he perpetuated the lie of his double life and drew so many ingenuous, enthusiastic followers into a spider’s web of wanton deception that lasted till his death?
___________________
He chose to lie and he slaved tirelessly to inflate an image of sanctity, of inspiration, of leadership and of relevance for the Church throughout his entire despicable career. He diligently hid his secret life from the acting LC superiors over the years so that the realistic appearance of the illusion he was spinning would be flawless.
It is the lie that kills me.
I know he was a sexual predator. I know he was morally corrupt. I know he duped, popes, bishops, authorities both civil and ecclesiastic.
But the lie that he seduced me with and with which he held me compliantly captive for thirty years smolders in my gut, invades my dreams and sullies my experience as a priest.
His was a masterful and heartless betrayal of that which was noblest in us.
We are all damned fools and the sorry, hapless remnant of a vicious fairy tale.
He has made cynics of us all.
3 comments:
When is he going to follow his own conclusions?
Speaking from the point of view of someone who spent a significant time in the Legion, it is clear that he understands the Legion well enough to know that there is no way to follow up on those conclusions. The Legion is a family that amputates the members who have tried to show it the error of it's ways. Once you know the truth, you have no place there. To the extent that any of us committed time and effort to the Legion, bought into the lie of Nuestro Padre, and participated in what can only be described as a cult during our years of "formation", the only thing left for us is to discern for ourselves what it all meant. How could God allow so many good people to be duped, used so that the the territorial directors could show Maciel how many "vocations" had come in that year? How could so many people who only wanted to strengthen the church become a source of its pain and embarrassment? Is cynicism all we have left? Or is this the beginning of a truth many times more beautiful than what we thought we had discovered the day we joined the Legion?
If you search for answers, then you should know by now that the Legion doesn't have any and never did? They will never apologize for what they've done because that would mean that they understand what they've done. How could an organization call what is founder did "imperfections" and still pretend to understand sin? They promote their own brand of catholicism, and they always have, pitting the bishops who liked them against the ones that did not, and still calling it unity at the end of the day.
No judgement that the church could hand down after this visitation could ever answer for me why it was ever allowed to happen in the first place. The future of the Legion was determined before many of us even joined, and though it will always be our past, it does not have to be our future. We suffered for it, but I for one refuse to die with it.
The truth has set us free.
No judgement that the church could hand down after this visitation could ever answer for me why it was ever allowed to happen in the first place. The future of the Legion was determined before many of us even joined, and though it will always be our past, it does not have to be our future. We suffered for it, but I for one refuse to die with it.
The truth has set us free.
Amen! Anon in STL
Post a Comment