From a posting comment on Life-After-rc.com by a current RC member.Can a leopard change its spots?
Good ole' "Mystique" pops it's head up again.
Formators conferences that I've attended in past years would have "mystique" talks centering on some aspect of RC - mostly "Nuestro Padre". Here is but a sampling of what I wrote down at some of these, along with the person who gave the conference:
"My vocation is linked with NP. I understand a lot about the founding of the Movement as N[uestro] P[adre] understands it because I am a co-founder. There will be a huge difference betw. me and others who incorporate after the founder dies because I am a co-founder. We are founding the Movement shoulder to shoulder with the founder." (Monica Trevino)
"Know what means we need to achieve the ideal in our life. The "how" of trying to reach the ideal. NP had the ideal of the priest he wanted to produce. The means was to take them to Europe. Impossible to do - but he did it." (Fr. James Larsen)
"See PRAYER FOR THE FIDELITY OF LEGIONARIES AND MEMBERS OF RC:
We are here in the beginning. If you are faithful you will pass on the real charism." (Maricarmen Perochena)
Others will recall the "Jubilee Study Circle" AKA "Mystique (or Mistica) Study Circle" which consisted entirely of questions based on the writings of MM.
So you see, "mystique" was really all about getting into the founder's mind, heart and thinking - seeing the movement the way he wanted to create it and the way he wanted us to live it. It was really all about imitating the founder.
Now I understand that Fr. Evaristo Sada has come up with a DIFFERENT definition, separate from the founder? I wish him luck trying to pass off that one to anyone, including the "docile" and "obedient" membership (or those who are left of it). There are just too many years of equating formation in "mystique" to formation about the founder.
Like the word "integration" - which used to mean "understanding the heart of the founder" but now has to be redefined, according to one RC'er who works for the US territory - they are coming up with a new definition for "mystique".
Posted by: Still RC - For Now, Anyway | August 19, 2009 at 11:03 PM
19 comments:
Instead of being such dumbasses, if they had just come out and apologized and repudiated the founder immediately, and admitted they didn't have all the answers but were honestly searching with help from the Holy See, they probably would have stood a chance of surviving.
Totally agree...I am not sure it is dumb as much as it is pride that this organization is the best and not matter what it has to last.
I'm in agreement with the first comment, and I would add "apologize to the victims and offer restitution."
One of the reasons Fr. Berg escaped with his integrity and reputation intact is because he very quickly apologized to victims, and offered them his prayers and acts of reparation, even if he couldn't name them.
The Legionary spirituality is a type of insanity that deftly inverts the hierarchy of values, subtly but really placing all at the service of itself, i.e., the Legion. While MM was still alive, the Legion and MM were identified. Funny. I remember one of my first "History of the Legion" classes in our novitiate (Cheshire, CT), imparted precisely by Fr Damien Karras, then brother, who told us almost word for word, "The History of the Legion is, at least in its first few decades, the biography of NP", that is, MM. Now, that spirituality is as dead as MM or any mummy under the hot sands of Egypt.
I respect your opinions, Mr Vere, but asking the LC to concede MM is what he is... But what can I compare this to? It's like asking one of those mummies to resurrect and do calisthenics, or asking a quadriplegic to win the Olympic gold medal in the decathlon. It's unreal. Not within the possibilities of reality. Our leadership is morally incapable of uttering it, of thinking it, of even understanding what one says to them in vain attempts to call them back into the moral world of men and sinners.
Now here is the mystery that piques me: what called so many really excellent men to join this MM in his creation of the LC? What keeps some of them here? Just deception and fear? Time will tell. If that's all there is to it, the LC will implode even if the Pope does not suppress it. But so far as I am concerned, I did not come to be a clone of MM. He never really inspired me. I never "integrated" into the "love of NP". I really wanted, and still want, to love Christ and make others love Christ. Not a spirituality, but a good ideal. I am open to every possibility, and to the dissolution of the LC without a whimper (alright, only a slight whimper), but shall wait to see what Benedict says. And I shall for the rest of my life wonder, what could have brought us all together, and for so long deluded us into thinking we had formed some sort of brotherhood in Christ. I shall find it difficult to accept that 100 percent of it was lies, and that 0 percent was authentic Christian ideals. With my respects to all who hurt and see in the LC the absolute of iniquity. ER
PS. By the way, a good smearing of our reputation is just the kind of humble pie that will heal of us our endemic arrogance and help us repair for the evil to which we are associated. Bring it on, for love of Christ!
ER - Someone on Giselle's blog recently noted that everything wrong with LC/RC is unique to LC/RC, and everything right with it is basic Catholicism. So no, it was not 100% lies -- it was a core of lies wrapped up in a package of truth to make it look appealing.
"What keeps some of them here? Just deception and fear? Time will tell."
Yes, time and another what, 1000 vocations, lives of good men lost in a struggle to achieve an illusion, while the superiors go on laughing, globe-trotting and spreading a lie smearing the name "Catholic".
Hey no big deal, right? Just let time sort it out.
USE THE BRAINS GOD GAVE YOU! If it is evil, you cannot sit idly by and wait for time to tell. Apathy in the face of relievable human suffering is radical evil.
They are afraid to stand up to the superiors. Not even to say that something about all of this is just not right. Not in public and not even in private.
If what you say is true, ER, then the Legion must fall (or go into schism). For it is clear from your words that Maciel was not made for the Legion, but the Legion for Maciel.
Yes. The Legion is/was Maciel's garden of carnal delights, pleasure palace, stud farm, money generator... harem.
"Es para la Legión que Dios me quiere."
I (mis)translate this dictum of Maciel thus:
"I was born in a brothel and I live for the brothel!"
For me it is simply a truism now, that the Legion was MM´s pederast farm. But was the Legion the same thing for all the other Legionaries? It was not that for me. I don´t think it was that for most of us. It was the place we came to offer ourselves to God. I hesitate to identify our naïve but honest intention with the iniquitous designs of MM. I hesitate to unilaterally identify every person in this house with Macielian evil. At bottom, this type of thinking is one of the characteristics I found most repugnant in Maciel, even while he was alive and reputed a "saint": his despicable penchant for absolutist judgments of others. Some Legionaries simply swept these declarations under the rug, as received by MM in some mystical vision where he peered into the black souls of treasonous Legionaries and revealed their horrid perfidy for all to see, of course, for the good of the Legion. These declaration offended me on account of the brothers and fathers impugned, whom I would never have treated that way. Examples of him doing this in my presence come to mind. Perhaps you can spare me writing about it? It would take me off point.
My point is that the reasonings that you folks are making with the best intentions are also absolutist, and unilaterally identify evil with the whole on account of evil in one of the parts. But this is not a clear conclusion. Insofar as the spirituality, I grant, no, I rather insist that your are right. LC spirituality is rotten and wicked at the core. But that all the LCs are so evil, or that their mere staying in the Legion justifies attributing such wickedness to them is, well, a bit much. It reminds me of Maciel's way of demonizing "the enemy".
Let's see what the Church says. We can leave in a few months instead of a few weeks. There are a few superiors that will corrupt the brothers, I can see them often enough imparting "spiritual direction" on the walk, down below my window. But the damage they will do is minimal in just a couple of months... if the Pope follows what I shall be writing in my reports to him, some of which have already reached Versaldi and Bertone. I like the idea that these superiors may be reading this website, and trembling.
St Thomas was not ready to call Satan absolutely evil. Satan is fruit of God´s creative act, which includes not only the creation in time but Satan´s conservation in time (or aevum, spiritual time). The creation is a continual act by which creatures are without pause being thrust into existence by the Loving Creator, in whom "We live and move and have our being" (cf Acts 17). St Thomas therefore says quite rightly that the devil is "good insofar as he exists". He may sin all day every day, but insofar as he exists, he is God´s creature, and since God's act of creation is good, the devil is good insofar as he exists -- not insofar as what he does, mind you. He sins and that is evil. But he also is, and that is of God. That's safe doctrine of St Thomas.
And you want to tell me that the Legion is more evil than Satan, that everything about the LC is purely evil? No way.
Respectfully, Edmond Ritter
Peter Vere: Thanks for the link to the website to your paper on 20 signs of cult-like religious organizations. It shall prove helpful in my report writing. Yours, ER
Edmond,
I agree with you completely. Let's hope that the good priests such as yourself can find new ways to truly serve the Catholic Church, not the parallel Church created by Maciel and his machinations.
Anon
Well, Mr. Ritter, it's obvious you enjoy wallowing in mud and devicing complicated justifications. You must be incredibly important if your reports reach His Holiness, no less! Know what? You sound totally surreal. Are you sure you exist?
Well good luck to you ER. I'm praying for you.
Nasty Sir:
Versaldi's and the other visitators addresses, faxes, and emails have been public on this and other websites for at least a month. You can therefore write them and ask them if you exist.
Versaldi, by the way, has taught Canon Law many years at the Gregorian and among his students are some Legionary Fathers here who are specializing in Canon Law. His personal email is available to some of us here. But his public email corresponding to his diocesan office up in Alessandria is also available on this website.
As for Cardinal Bertone, speaking to him is as easy as walking into the Vatican through what they call the Golden Gate and telling the Swiss Guard that you wish to make an appointment. He will direct you to an office on the right. You may leave your written request for an appointment. If it is about the Apostolic Visitation, he may receive you or refer you now, that Versaldi has been appointed, to him.
If you are nice, I think you may be surprised and treated like a human being. If you are nasty, you may be even more surprised if they don't treat you as you deserve. Maybe they'll even send you over to compete with Donny Clod for best spiritual director. Could you be any worse?
Oh, by the way, I have had a personal audience with Cardinal Ratzinger some while back about my work. No, that does not make me better than you. I am that without the audience. Ain't hard.
Yours respectfully, Edmond Ritter
If the Vatican does for the Legionaries what it has done recently for Miles Jesu, it may be possible for the Legion to be resurrected. Everything then will depend on the Holy Spirit. We do not have a spirituality, we need a new infusion of life because we are dead. But who says that God cannot breath life into us? Let's wait and see, and perhaps we will be privileged to be his witness who marvel at his works and sing his praises. ER
Dear ER:
My prayers are with you. I think that the truthful testimony of a current Legionary such as you on what's really going on inside (with the psychological, spiritual, and moral manipulation taking place, along with the utterly unchristian hypocrisy of the higher ups, etc,), will have much greater impact on the visitators than that of any seemingly "disgruntled" exLCs and exRCs such as myself -- even when we are trying to act fairly and truthfully, and seek the best for the Church and the good people involved, inside and outside LC/RC.
Press on and God bless.
Ritter-
You got the quote wrong.
"Soy por la Legion que Dios me quiere". It's gramatically incorrect- but that only adds to the "mystique".
I have yet to see anyone say "look Hitler was a bad guy, yes, but he did some really smart things and we should continue those traditions. I mean look at the youth groups!". Hitler only killed people. MM stole souls. That's worse. Former LCs I know (you know) are drug addicts, porn stars (yes, truly) and totally separated from the Church.
These are whom I think of when I read Sada's attempt to preserve the "mystique" of the Legion. Will this mystique save their souls? Give them back their lives?
For this I reiterate my cry: fuck them all. Fuck the Legion and its heirarchy and its mexican mafia priests and its bullshit brainwashing methodology and its hacer hacer and its frutos frutos frutos.
The Church MUST pull it down.
Precisely!
Every time I hear LCs/RCs and their defenders say: "Who are you or we to judge Fr. Maciel?" I respond: And who are we to judge Hitler, and Stalin, and (put your favorite world-class criminal here)?
We are not judging Maciel in terms of his eternal salvation (at least I am not).
But we are DENOUNCING him -and we must do so- for the fraud he was and the profound damage he did, and for the damage his institution continues to inflict on the mystical body of Christ, on the Popes, on his own disciples, on his followers, and on every Christian.
And we are now DENOUNCING the LC leadership for COVERING UP the truth, for CONTINUING to defend Maciel with "deep gratitude and filial love," and for betraying their Christian calling to love and protect the Church above their misguided love for their Dear Leader. Frs. Alvaro, Luis and Evaristo have proven that theirs is not the Legion of Christ, but the Legion of Maciel, and they have absolutely no intention to come clean with the truth, because their hands are DIRTY, DIRTY, DIRTY. And in hiding the truth, they are adding to the scandal and hurting the Church even more.
Denouncing and making everything in our power to stop their abuse, lies, manipulation, and hypocrisy is not our prerogative; it is our DUTY - the DUTY of those who know the truth, who have been hurt, and whose lives have been damaged, and who still have some conscience to stop this madness from hurting others.
Mr. Ritter,
So, Versaldi has taught Canon Law at the Gregorian -not at your marvellous, unique, über non-university. Let's hope he's instilled some sense in those LC forced to tread those Jesuit halls...
And yes, you are a pompous, self-important typical LC product. Keep on churning out your nonsense, please; it's most useful for better insights into that pathetic sinking concern of yours.
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