Apostolic Visitation Announced for the Legionaries of Christ

The Legionaries of Christ today made public a letter from Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone informing Legionary Director General Alvaro Corcuera that Pope Benedict XVI “has decided to carry out an Apostolic Visitation to the institutions of the Legionaries of Christ through a team of prelates,” in the aftermath of the scandal surrounding Rev. Marcial Maciel, the Legionary founder. Intentionally or unintentionally, the letter was dated 10 March 2009, Maciel’s birthday, which the Legionaries used to celebrate as a feast day of first rank.

“Apostolic visitation” is technical Vatican language for an investigation by an outsider to the congregation. The appointment of visitators, then, does not represent a judgment by the Church on the Legionaries, but the recognition that something is wrong in the congregation that must be investigated as preparatory to putting it right.

The stated purpose of the visitation will be, in Bertone’s words, that “with truth and transparency, in a climate of fraternal and constructive dialogue, [the Legionaries] overcome the present difficulties.”

The Legionaries also made public a letter in response from Corcuera, dated 29 March, which welcomed the visitation with gratitude and promised cooperation. Corcuera also said, “We are deeply saddened and sorry, and we sincerely ask for forgiveness from God and from those who have been hurt through this.”

According to the Legionary website, the team of senior churchmen who will serve as visitators has not yet been named, will commence work sometime after Easter, and will continue work for some months.

Some official Legionary or Vatican response to the scandal has been awaited since after it broke February 3.

It is significant that the matter is being handled by Secretary of State Bertone, and not by Cardinal Franc Rodé, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which oversees Catholic religious orders, and who would have been expected to take the lead. But Rodé apparently forfeited his objectivity by serving in the past as a partisan supporter of the Legionaries.

Rodé’s initial intention, reported February 8, had been to let the Legionaries work the scandal out for themselves without intervention. Rodé was then involved in the Legionaries’ attempt to issue an independent statement about their future on February 24, an attempt that was rebuffed. In early February both Germain Grisez and George Weigel called for an investigation independent of Rodé’s Congregation, which they thought could not be trusted with it.

The only way to read courtly Vatican documents is with exquisite nuance. Several things to consider:

Bertone praises the Legionaries and signals their survival in terms similar to those used in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Communiqué suspending Maciel from public ministry in May 2006 (“Independently of the person of the Founder, [their] worthy apostolate… is gratefully recognized.”): “I am pleased to remember that many people benefit from the works of education and apostolate which the Legionaries of Christ carry out in various parts of the world, moved by your desire to establish Christ’s Kingdom according to the demands of justice and charity, among intellectuals, professional people and those engaged in teaching and social action…”

He also signals that serious problems will be addressed. The visitation will promote “broadmindedness and an unsullied heart” and require “truth and transparency.” The post-scandal Legionary talking point: “There are some people who, out of respect, sensitivity, Christian mercy, profound gratitude, etc., don’t want to go into details about Nuestro Padre’s behavior…. We should respect and encourage this attitude, as much in ourselves as in others. The starting point is the acknowledgment and gratitude for all the good we have received.” seems now superseded.

Corcuera used the word “charism” in his letter, praying “that [God] will grant us the grace to continue to seek the holiness to which He is calling us, and that we will be able to bring to its fullness the charism He has entrusted to us.” The Legionaries have maintained that the approval of their congregation and recognition of their charism represents an infallible judgment by the Church, a judgment they rely on for institutional survival, but something the Visitation now must itself judge.

Bertone himself avoided the word “charism” in mentioning whatever be distinctive to the Legionaries: “Pope Benedict encourages you to continue seeking the good of the Church and society by means of your own distinctive initiatives and institutions.” The post-scandal talking point: “Cardinal Rodé [told us], ‘the Holy Father told me: “Tell them that I know them, I esteem them, and I appreciate them. Tell them that my blessing accompanies them; tell them to follow with great conviction the path marked out by the charism given to the Regnum Christi Movement, and to be great witnesses of Christ and of his Church in today’s world.’”’ has now been refined.

Also significant is Corcuera’s reference to “the grave facts in our father founder’s life that already were the object of the investigations by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which were concluded in May of 2006, and those which have come to light more recently.” At the time the Legionaries maintained publicly that Maciel had not been disciplined, but effectively cleared, as the Church had declined to conduct a trial. The post-scandal talking point: “There never was a trial, however, and the competent authority did not issue a verdict.” is more unrealistic than ever.

The Legionary website explains that “during the time of the Apostolic Visitation our life and apostolate will follow their ordinary course.” Business as usual, in other words, something the Legionaries have become good at, while ignoring the serious issues that have swirled around them for decades. The visitators may make that a little more difficult.

A Petition for Legionary Transparency

A petition on ipetitions.com calls for a thorough review of the Legionary organizational charism and full disclosure in a public statement.

High points and discussion points in Archbishop Collins’ interview

Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins answered questions on Tuesday night March 24 on Salt and Light Television’s Catholic Focus about the Maciel revelations.

Some high points:

"Cardinal Ratzinger was the main one responsible for rooting this out and getting his officials to deal with this issue before he became pope, to his extraordinary credit, for the good of the Church."

Very much so. Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, has acted deliberately over more than four years in the matter of Father Maciel, reopening the case as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in December 2004, concluding it in May 2006 with Maciel’s suspension as a priest, and doing away with the private Legionary vow in 2007. But if we credit Ratzinger do we inescapably debit Pope John Paul for having honored Maciel?

"The whole culture of the place seemed to be a little bit strange, very controlled, and there’s some policy issues you had in terms of who could hear whose confession and about criticism of the founder, which were very problematic in the group."

The Archbishop confirms his knowledge of other abuses in Legionary life to be investigated aside from the founder: coercive spirituality, the private vow (now abandoned after Vatican intervention) never to criticize a superior and to report on those who did, and required sacramental confession to a religious superior (a serious violation of canon law).

"I think certainly at the minimum there has to be a massive reordering of the Legionaries of Christ for the sake if nothing else of those good and true and wonderful Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi people, who have put their trust in this and have done great work for the Lord, and who have been betrayed…. there’s something not just personal in Maciel, but this whole thing needs to be looked at. It just needs to be brought to the light…. Another possibility [for the future] would be to shut it down and start anew. That’s been suggested, I don’t know if they’re going to do that."

and

"We’re servants of Jesus. Jesus is God. These people who are his servants must be transparent. And they must not make themselves the center."

The Archbishop calls for transparency and full disclosure of the scandal and a radical reappraisal, even abolition, of the order, open to the possibility that the approval of the Legionary constitution was not an infallible recognition of charism by the Church. In this he joins Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O’Brien and Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell.

Some other points:

"This structure set up by Maciel provided some opportunities [for Regnum Christi members to do good apostolic work]. These are the good things within the Legion. I think there’s an enormous amount of good there."

and

"I’d be very concerned about the structure they set up that would make it possible to live such a double life."

This inconsistency points to the larger question: how can a “fraud” have communicated a holy way of life to his institute?

"I feel very sorry especially for those wonderful good people who have sought with earnest hearts to serve in Regnum Christi and as priests of the Legion, just to serve Jesus, who have been betrayed by this."

But many of the same people enabled the abuse and perpetuated its effects on the members.

"I can’t think of any, but I’m sure there’s been a founder in the past who went off the track."

Can anyone, historian or theologian, tell us whether or not in the history of the Church there has in fact been a founder of a viable religious order as thoroughgoing a hypocrite as Father Maciel?

"There’s something unhealthy about that kind of [hero worship of the founder] at any time. We should honor great people and we canonise great people and we look to them as heroes. It’s fair enough for Jesuits to love St. Ignatius, and Dominicans to love St. Dominic, and Franciscans to love St. Francis, but there’s a limit. This is simply a saint."

In light of the Maciel scandal, what exactly should be the proper Catholic limit to adulation of a charismatic founder in other new religious movements as well?

Thanks altogether to Archbishop Collins for his cheering words.

Toronto Archbishop Collins's remarks

Toronto Archbishop Thomas Collins on March 24 on Salt and Light Television’s Catholic Focus addressed the Maciel revelations in these words:

There have been real concerns about Father Maciel for years. And I have always been interested in this, because the Legionaries of Christ are quite significant in many different ways within the Church. And I’ve been trying to find out what’s been going on. This particular type of problem I’ve not been aware of. I was trying, as bishop out west, to get information on this. I had some extreme reservations about Maciel.

For other reasons, there seemed to be something wrong there. And in fact Cardinal Ratzinger was the main one responsible for rooting this out and getting his officials to deal with this issue before he became pope, to his extraordinary credit, for the good of the Church. So I think there’s clearly a problem there and the whole culture of the place seemed to be a little bit strange, very controlled, and there’s some policy issues you had in terms of who could hear whose confession and about criticism of the founder, which were very problematic in the group.

On the other hand, people are attracted to it, good people, good young priests. I’ve met many Legionary seminarians and priests, who want a strict religious order, faithful to the Holy Father, earnest, zealous, giving their lives for Christ and I’ve met many, many, many, wonderful Legionary priests who are just doing that and in Regnum Christi, the lay movement, I’ve met with people who are there and I used to get to know them when I was out in Edmonton, who do wonderful things. Their only desire is to serve the Church, to try to be faithful and true. This structure set up by Maciel provided some opportunities to do that. These are the good things within the Legion. I think there’s an enormous amount of good there.

But as you get in towards the center there with the founder, there’s some massive problems and now about a year after his death all this comes out about how he was clearly leading a double life, there’s no denying it.

I feel very sorry especially for those wonderful good people who have sought with earnest hearts to serve in Regnum Christi and as priests of the Legion, just to serve Jesus, who have been betrayed by this….


I can’t think of any [precedent for a sinful founder]. You think of the great founders of orders, frequently they’re canonised; it’s the integrity of their life. But God can write straight with crooked lines. If somebody who is leading a double life and is disreputable in his own personal life can speak, love Jesus, serve the Lord, give yourself to Christ, and people respond to that, well, they respond to that, but truth be told, there’s a lie there in terms of the person’s integrity, the person’s life. But what people are responding to are things which are in themselves noble and worthy.

That’s the good thing in this whole reality. But I would be concerned not only about the problems with the founder, because that can happen -- I can’t think of any, but I’m sure there’s been a founder in the past who went off the track. The problem is if someone’s leading that kind of a double life, I’d be very concerned about the structure they set up that would make it possible to live such a double life.

So that whole thing has to be totally reviewed and cleaned up. And I would wonder too how a person could lead a double life, without the community being aware. I think certainly at the minimum there has to be a massive reordering of the Legionaries of Christ for the sake if nothing else of those good and true and wonderful Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi people, who have put their trust in this and have done great work for the Lord, and who have been betrayed….


I would say [the ones questioning their involvement in the movement] might consider leaving Regnum Christi, that would certainly be one thing, or priests in the order, good and faithful priests, I’m sure that many of them will consider leaving the order and starting fresh in an order or in the priesthood in a way that doesn’t have these real questions over it.

On the other hand, I think that the work they do is good. And the work they have done is good and they should be proud of that, but there’s something not just personal in Maciel, but this whole thing needs to be looked at. It just needs to be brought to the light….


O yeah, that’s a major problem [over emphasis on the founder]. It’s a natural thing, they find somebody they think is a legitimate saint, somebody -- you read their writings, o my! this is wonderful, and you go around saying, this is only thing there is. And that’s excessive, even good people, there’s a problem there. When you get a cult of personality that’s over the top, that’s not a healthy sign. There’s something wrong there.

Even in legitimate groups where it turns out the founder is a perfectly good person, I think it’s always not a bad thing to tone down the cult of personality. Only Jesus walks on water. We have a Messiah. All of those founders who are canonised or not yet canonised saints that’s precisely their view of themselves and they look upon themselves as humble servants serving the Lord. And it’s a natural hero worship among people to go over the top in that. But it’s always dangerous in the Church when any leader is treated with that kind of approach.

They [set themselves up for a fall]. It turned out that this man was a fraud, in terms of his own life. There’s something unhealthy about that kind of a thing at any time. We should honor great people and we canonise great people and we look to them as heroes. It’s fair enough for Jesuits to love St. Ignatius, and Dominicans to love St. Dominic, and Franciscans to love St. Francis, but there’s a limit. This is simply a saint.

We’re servants of Jesus. Jesus is God. These people who are his servants must be transparent. And they must not make themselves the center….


I don’t know [where we go from here], I’ve just been learning about this in the newspapers. I don’t have any inner knowledge of what steps are being taken. I really don’t know what is being planned. There are several things that could be done. One of them would be to send in someone to take over the order, to appoint a papal representative to simply take over the order and clean it up for the sake of the good people in it who deserve to have their order fixed. So that’s one thing that could be done. Another possibility would be to shut it down and start anew. That’s been suggested, I don’t know if they’re going to do that.

Sometimes in cases like this, this is where it’s good to have the pope and to have the Holy See. When there are problems in a local area, sometimes they can fix themselves, and we hope that might be the case. Subsidiarity is one thing we have in the church where we always start with the local level first. But if they can’t fix themselves, then you go to a higher level and some way of doing that needs to be done. I don’t really know what’s being planned.

***

Archbishop Collins has in the past been friendly to the Legionaries both in Edmonton, where he was archbishop from 1999 – 2006, and in Toronto since then.

In January 2005 he told the Edmonton archdiocesan Western Catholic Reporter that he met regularly with Regnum Christi and that the group is doing good work in the archdiocese. "The Regnum Christi people have been most cooperative; very, very cooperative. And they are very zealous, active parishioners and I have great admiration for their work.”

The Legionaries were the subject of numerous positive accounts in the Western Catholic Reporter.

The Regnum Christi website covers his May 2007 visit visit with members of Compass, a Regnum Christi university apostolate, at the University of Toronto.

Father Bannon's remarks

Legionaries of Christ Director of Vocations, Rev. Anthony Bannon, LC, with the first few minutes of a teleconference “town hall meeting” on March 18 at 8pm Eastern, addressed the Maciel scandal in these words:

The unexpected events that I mentioned have to do with the news about the serious failings of our father founder, that came to us as a total surprise, that have been very difficult to accept, but accept them we must.

This phone conference is not a news conference on these events. The time is not yet mature for such a conference, because the Legion is in constant contact with the Holy See. There are elements and facts that still need to be investigated, and any steps in this regard have to be taken very prudently without rushing. But I just wanted to assure you, for those of you who had questions or were wondering about it, we are working on it.

I do want to express emphatically that we are deeply sorry and apologetic to anyone who’s been hurt by these actions, hurt or scandalized. We are sorry for any victims. We know that our directors are quietly trying to get in touch with possible victims. We are deeply sorry for any scandal that has been caused.

Many of you in this regard over these past few weeks have gotten in touch with us to tell us you’re praying for us specially at this time so let me express my extreme gratitude to you for your support and your prayers over these past weeks.

One of the main reasons many of you have supported the Legion is our fidelity to the Holy See. I want to assure you, that that point of our spirituality is not about to change, nor will it never change, I hope. Especially in this situation, anything the Holy Father sees appropriate to ask of us, anything he wants of us, we will do that and we will do it happily.

So this brings back to the first point I wanted to share with you today. As a matter of fact, our trials have been a blessing. You and our supporters have always been very kind to us, many people who have seen the formation we give our young men praise us. Over the years we’ve received many accolades from many quarters, from people in authority in the Church and in public life. Our apostolates have been growing tremendously. All of this is good, but we are only human and therefore all of this is also a danger. The danger is that we focus on ourselves, we get overconfident, that we begin to feel superior, in a word, there’s a real danger of us losing our focus.

The present situation has helped to bring us back where we belong. This new experience of our weakness has brought us right back to the center, the core of what we are as priests and religious, and what we’re doing in our seminaries. It has made us review our actions to make sure that we keep Christ and no one or nothing else at the center of our lives. There is a greater and more specific awareness that it is Christ that we are following. It is him we are seeking and no one or nothing else.

Our constitutions were approved 25 and a half years ago. At that time it was like the Church took what we were, our constitutions, our charism, out of our hands. It was seen as a charism that came from God, but it was taken for all practical purposes out of our hands and out of our founder’s hands. For the 25 years that have gone by not even he could change them, without going through a process. In other words, what the church has guaranteed as a valid charism, it also protects, and the Church has said it’s a valid charism, a valid path to holiness, and a valid work of apostolate.

Our apostolic movement Regnum Christi was approved explicitly 4 and a half years ago, in a similar fashion, which means that both in the formation of our seminarians and in our communities of apostolate we will work from and toward what the Church has approved in order to make it a reality in our lives. It means an even greater effort to examine ourselves to make sure we are what we are supposed to be, what the Church expects us to be, in precisely what the Church has approved. This is very beneficial for us, as I was saying.

Independent Legionary statement is now unlikely

This is a piece I wrote on March 15.

The new scandal involving Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, which broke on February 3, divided among themselves both Legionaries and senior Catholic churchmen over the future of the order. Now six weeks later, the side that wanted an order still independent and reliant on what it took to be an infallible Church approval of its charism is ceding to the side that wants Vatican intervention and radical reform. Some Legionaries now understand that their own statement of full accounting, promised but overdue, is now unlikely to be made, because the order is no longer in a position to decide on its own authority how much to reveal about the founder’s secret life or to determine its own future.

The “pro-independent Legionaries” side was set back on February 24, the day their statement about founder and future was expected and then failed to appear. The day before, February 23, Cardinal Franc Rodé, head of the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, which oversees Catholic religious orders, and longtime Legionary supporter, had encouraged Legionaries by video.

That same day Catholic News Agency reported the imminent release of a “major statement,” information leaked to them by Vatican officials. CNA, relying on an unnamed official from Rodé’s Congregation, had on February 8 previously reported Cardinal Rodé’s initial intention to let the Legionaries work the scandal out for themselves without intervention.

Instead, the Legionaries’ statement was deferred and on the next day, February 25, Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O’Brien in his archdiocesan Catholic Review called for a review of the “very basis of the Legion movement.”

The Legion likes to cultivate Vatican patrons. Two senior Legionary supporters have been Cardinal Rodé, who for more than two years after Father Maciel was disciplined in May 2006 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the body with responsibility for investigating charges of abuse by priests) has often publicly declared his belief in a valid Legionary charism communicated by Maciel, and Cardinal Angelo Sodano, former Secretary of State and dean of the College of Cardinals, who in 1999 sought to impede Cardinal Josef Ratzinger’s CDF investigation of Maciel and whose secretariat in 2005 issued an unsigned document denying an investigation was even underway.

Mexico City Archbishop Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera has also long been a Legionary friend. He defended Maciel in 1997 as the victim of a conspiracy and in 2006 supported the Legionary misinterpretation of the CDF’s suspension of Maciel. As primate of Mexico, he would likely be involved in any future for the Mexican order.

O’Brien had decided in early 2008 to ban the Legion from Baltimore for their “lack of pastoral transparency” and the “undue pressure” sometimes applied to recruits “in a context of secrecy,” but was talked out of it by three Vatican cardinals, as he told National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen last June. But now Sydney Archbishop Cardinal George Pell has joined O’Brien on the “pro-intervention and reform” side. Pell called publicly for Vatican intervention while in Oxford, England, March 5-6, it was reported this week in the (London) Catholic Herald.

As the first cardinal to say this publicly, one also rumored on Catholic blogs to be under consideration for appointment as head of a Vatican Congregation, Pell lent added seriousness to the notion of an independent investigation or Vatican takeover of the Legionaries.

Pell is also someone who knows from experience about accusations and judicious procedure for resolving them. In 2002 he was himself accused of having abused a child and was exonerated.

The seeming ineptitude of Rev. Alvaro Corcuera, the order’s Director General, and the order’s senior leadership has contributed to the failure to keep the Legionaries independent of Vatican intervention. What Corcuera wrote, for example, in a February 4 letter on the scandal, “I am grateful to [Father Maciel] for being the instrument God used to give my entire life meaning… it would be impossible to find enough words to thank him." seemed inappropriate to the occasion and angered some Legionaries. Some, including American Rev. Thomas Berg, wanted immediate, full public disclosure of Maciel’s wrongdoing, which even now has been admitted to only in the most general terms, and an independent investigation.

Maciel picked Corcuera to succeed as Director General in January 2005, after Maciel declined reelection and stepped down. This was a month after the CDF reopened the investigation that would lead 18 months later to Maciel’s suspension as a priest. Corcuera, it was suspected at the time, was intended as a complaisant surrogate through whom Maciel might still direct the Legion from exile. Now, however congenial, he is thought entirely overmatched by the crisis.

Vatican intervention could take several forms. Rumors of a “visitation” surfaced in Italian and Spanish press 10 days ago. “Apostolic visitation” is technical Vatican language for investigation by an outsider to the order. This could be entrusted to Rodé’s Congregation, within whose immediate responsibility the matter falls. However, Rodé’s objectivity is compromised by his past support of Maciel and the visitation might be organized elsewhere. More radically, a “pontifical delegate” could be appointed immediately without further investigation, technical language for the complete takeover of the order by a chosen representative of the pope.

A Vatican decision on the Legionaries’ future may take time. The Church will consider the preservation of lay Legionary apostolic networks in Latin America, which are among the few it has there, and the personal destinies of some 700 Legionary priests, 2000 seminarians, and thousands of members of Regnum Christi, the affiliated lay association.

Add to that the unwelcome media response to two recent decisions -- the appointment of a bishop to Linz and the remission of excommunication of an SSPX bishop – and the Vatican will be thoughtful in how it proceeds.

Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, has acted deliberately over more than four years in the matter of Father Maciel, reopening the case in the CDF in December 2004, concluding it in May 2006 with Maciel’s suspension, doing away with the private Legionary vow in 2007, and he may well continue to be slow and sure.

My pieces on Spero News

Since February 3 five pieces have appeared on Spero News:

“Legion of Christ delays explanation of Rev. Maciel” on March 9.

“Legion of Christ's Lenten journey towards Truth” on February 27.

My reaction to the February 25 remarks of Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O’Brien on the Legionaries of Christ on February 26.

My review of Jason Berry’s Vows of Silence documentary on February 26.

“The Shame of the Legionaries of Christ” on February 10.