"Difficult, not impossible' for Legionaires to recover"
By JOHN ALLEN, JR., NCR Staff
Published: Feb. 5, 2009
Editor’s note: the news Feb. 4 that the founder of Legionaries of Christ, Fr. Marcial Maciel, had lived a double life, having a mistress and fathering a child, has come as a devastating blow to members of his order and all others who held him in high esteem.
Fr. Alvaro Corcuera, director general of the Legionaries, acknowledged some of the hurt in a newly released undated letter that states, the order is "living a time of pain and suffering."
The letter was sent to the 65,000 predominantly lay members of Regnum Christi, a support group to the Legionaires. Corcuera did not specifically identify the actions of the Legionaries' founder, but wrote: "It is true that we are going through much suffering and a great deal of pain. As in a family, these pains draw us together and lead us to suffer and rejoice as one body. This circumstance we are living invites us to look at everything with much faith, humility and charity. Thus we place it in the hands of God, who teaches us the way of infinite mercy."
Maciel, already disciplined in 2006 for sexual abuse of boys and men, died last year at the age of 87. This week news surfaced that Maciel fathered at least one child with a mistress.
What will the impact be on his religious order? What can members and supporters expect in the years ahead? Is the damage irreparable? NCR Senior Correspondent John Allen asked the religious leader and spiritual writer Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Father Ronald Rolheiser to assess the situation. Rolheiser is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. He received his doctorate at the University of Louvain and is a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America.
What’s the nature of the relationship members of a religious order have with their founder, especially after the founder is gone?
I think it varies order by order, and also individual to individual. In general, there’s a distinction I find valuable, even though sometimes it’s subtle and unconscious, which is the distinction between the founder and his or her personality, and the charism of the order. bron
When you join a religious order, particularly when the founder is already dead and you don’t know the person, it’s often really the charism of the order that attracts you.
For example, I know that many Oblates were not at all drawn by our founder’s personality [St. Eugene de Mazenod], but by our charism and mission. One Oblate once told me, “If I had met the founder a century ago in France, I probably would have fled by two continents and taken my chances with Jesus!” It was the same with me. It took me years to process who he was. The man had a very fiery temperament, and sometimes he would unload on people. When I studied his life early on I tended to think, “This probably isn’t a guy I would like, or who would like me.” It took his canonization for me to look again, and to come to understand that he was a complex person, a truly zealous person, and admirable in many ways – even if he’s not necessarily the guy you would want beside you at a barbeque.
The average person who joins the Dominicans, or the Oblates, or the Jesuits, may think they’re relating to the founder, but in reality it’s usually more to the community, the work the order does, and its charism.
Can an order survive without being able to venerate its founder?
I think it makes it difficult, but not impossible. With time, you become aware that so many other people who joined the order, many of whom are sincerely great men or women. Their generosity, their faith, gives substance to the order. Obviously there would be certain disillusionment if we were to learn something about this about our founder, but it wouldn’t be fatal. We know so many other Oblates who lived and died for our charism and for the faith – just in the last ten years, we’ve had martyrs – so we know these are the real goods. Of course, it’s more difficult for a younger order that doesn’t have the 700-year tradition of, say, the Franciscans, but it’s the same principle.
What a number of great founders or re-founders did, like Francis or John of the Cross, is that they self-marginalized before they died. They wanted to make the point that it’s not about them, it’s about Jesus. If the order is founded on a valid charism, this will be what stays, despite the faults of the founders.
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Open letter to Legionaries by Dr. Germain Grisez, theology professor at Mount Saint Mary's University in Emmitsburg, MD: ..." identify those complicit in Father Maciel’s wrongdoing and its concealment until now, and work closely with faithful, professed members in carrying out an orderly termination of the existing Institute, election of a small group to serve as founders of its replacement, and the preparation of an entirely new and reformed body of particular law for the new institute."
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All founders have had their faults. It’s only a question of which ones in any given case. If it were a Legionary, I think this would be a huge source of pain for me, but it wouldn’t necessarily be a vocational crisis. What’s happened doesn’t invalidate their charism, their good work, or for that matter even this man’s generosity.
Is there a sense in which being able to be critical of the founder is actually a sign of maturity?
In my opinion, yes. With all forms of maturity, part of the picture is that we stop demonizing and stop ‘angelizing,’ and can look realistically at people.
In human terms, my dad’s been dead now for 30 years, and I’ve had to come to terms with who he really was. He was a great man, but the danger is that I idealize him. I have to be able to look at him and say, ‘There are areas where he wasn’t a saint.’
I think this is particularly important for religious orders.
You know, Jesus himself shows us many examples of shrinking from unqualified adulation. Uncritical adulation is just as bad as unqualified criticism. Neither is real, and neither does a favor to the person or to the order. Whether it’s the Dominicans, the Oblates, the Carmelites, or whoever, we all need to able to look at our founders and admit their faults.
It seems that there’s often an arc to the development of groups in the church, whether it’s religious congregations, lay movements, or anything else. They tend to be born in a fit of enthusiasm, which can sometimes breed a certain cult of personality around the founder. Over time, a more balanced appraisal sets in. Does that seem right to you?
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Laat de drama's over Marcial Maciel Degollado én die Pius X excommuncatie en dat wat over beide naar buiten moest barsten dan maar de volgende méér dan noodzakelijke stap zijn in de bescherming van kinderen binnen die Kerk.
Naast de erkenning van vroegere kinderen in die Kerk en haar zorg.
En hún kinderen.
In plaats van de minachting getoond door Marcial Maciel en die Pius X figuren, nu verstopt achter fopneuzen van het gedwongen zwijgen van niet christelijke en volkomen verkeerde, niet bruikbare procedures en verjaringstermijnen! En gewauwel van een katholieke élite.
Meer dan tijd voor het eind van die incestueuze kerk.
De gedemonstreerde wereldwijde afkeer, en zeker in Europa, van dat anti-semitisme kán een goed teken zijn.
Maar zolang de kerkelijke hierarchie, de gelovigen (de verschillende staten) en hooggeleerden die zich uitspraken ook dát verleden van de kerk(en) blijven ontkennen
is al die afkeer anti-semitisme geweest.
Wat nu maar al te makkelijk islamobische redenen heeft.
Die paus? Die zou wel eens heel goede regie kunnen hebben. Niet voor het eerst.
Anti-semitisme noch de holocaust of de ontkenning ervan, kwam niet plotseling uit de lucht vallen. Net zomin als de overige fobien en ismes ook binnen die katholieke kerk.
Goed dat die paus een 80+ Duitser is. Dan heeft die Pius X club bewezen dat het kán:
NEE zeggen, het is genoeg geweest.
Want die paus zou weleens een heel goede regie kunnen hebben. En niet voor het eerst.
Die ontkenning van de RKK van het Recht op respect voor ieders Leven in veiligheid gestopt kán worden.
Er kan NEE gezegd worden! Er kán geheeld worden. Het kán anders.
Maar die wetenschap moet je inderdaad wél willen geloven.
Zonder dat Geloof kun je er inderdaad maar beter uitstappen of in de dorpskerk wat aan wauwelen voor je salaris.
Elie Wiesel: Het tegenovergestelde van liefde is niet haat, maar onverschilligheid.
't Is goede verkoop gebleken: de vraag is maar wil je kikkers met 4 of met 5 poten.
Het is het klimaat van vandaag, de bomen van gisteren en de vruchten van morgen.
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