THE PRINCE OF TRUTH! - "How YOU WERE CONNED by Maciel, Legion and Regnum Christi" - #39 in the series How to get a Loved One out

Were you taken in by the Maciel tango?

Fr. Longenecker, "Standing on my Head", wrote

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Catholic Con Men

As the sordid revelations about Fr. Marcial Marciel--the founder of the Legionaries of Christ--keep emerging the faithful ask, "Why were so many taken in by him?"

What very few people stop to consider is the complex psychology of religious belief. Religious faith is the greatest adventure and brings forth the very best of human beings, but we have to be honest and admit that it brings forth the very worst as well.

Why do people fall for priests who turn out to be such stinkers? It's pretty complicated, but it goes like this: first of all, the bad priest himself is usually a complex character. He has deep flaws and serious sins deep down in his life. To compensate he tries very hard to be good, and what better way to be good than to become a priest? Becoming a priest helps him to cover up his flaws. He puts on a uniform everyday which proclaims that he is a holy man. The uniform allows him to play a part. He is comfortable being a good pastor, a caring person, a wonderful preacher, a man of prayer. It makes him feel better about himself and if he is not careful, he soon starts believing his own priestly image.

If he is charismatic, charming, debonair and dynamic he is even more attractive. If he is wise and wonderful and eloquent and compassionate and caring and almost Jesus himself, then he becomes even more popular and the real deep down problem is only made worse by the imposture, not better. Have you ever noticed how often it is the priests and pastors who seem the very best and most wonderful who are the ones who fall? Every asked yourself if the reason they were so wonderful is linked with their crash?

Furthermore, the whole church establishment from pope to people encourages him to merge his identity into his priesthood. He is not a man doing a job. He is to become what he was ordained to be--a self sacrificing priest. Now this is a great ideal and it is one which, when it works, makes for a wonderful transformation. However, the dark side is that all we get is a man in a priest outfit playing a part. The real monster still lurks below. If the inner problems are not resolved, the man soon starts living a double life. On the surface he is Father Fantastic. Everyone loves him. He's good at everything. Indeed he is "the best priest we've ever had..."

Furthermore, the whole dynamic of parish life contributes to build up the false image. Everyone loves Father Fantastic. Everyone looks up to him. In fact they invest an awful lot of spiritual capital in him. They put him on a pedestal. In fact, the people, rather than learning to love God (which is hard work) love the priest instead. They idolize him and he can do no wrong because they actually want an idol of a priest who can do no wrong. He epitomizes for the their whole religion. All this false religion does is to make the bad priest's conflict between his inner demons and the outer false image even worse.

Then the whole facade crumbles and Father Fantastic runs off with somebody or turns out to be an alcoholic or a pedophile or an embezzler or some other kind of skunk. Then everyone says, "How could it be! How could we have been taken in!" The sick psychology continues and Father Fantastic (who was only ever Father Flawed anyhow) is scapegoated by the community. He has gone from paragon to pariah. He's an outcast. He's guilty even when proven innocent.

Why were so many taken in by Father Maciel? Because so many people wanted to be taken in. It was easier and more exciting to believe the whole fabricated fiction than to take the effort to find out the truth and follow it.

I hope people will not misunderstand me and draw the conclusion that I am a cynic or that I don't believe holy priests are possible. They are, but the best priests I've known have been the dull ones. Give me a plodder priest any day. Give me the Samwise Gamgees of the priestly fraternity. When it comes to priests, remember all that glitters is not gold.

I'm not encouraging cynicism and doubt. I'm just saying that if you come across a priest or a monk or a bishop who is too good to be true...He probably is.

Posted by Fr Longenecker at Sunday, December 20, 2009
-------
PS BE SURE TO READ HIS RISPOSTE TO CRITICISM in Comments

"Legion will not be dissolved but heads will roll"

Bishop Ricardo Blázquez, Bishop Giuseppe Versaldi, Archbishop Ricardo Ezzatti, Archbishop Charles Chaput and Bishop Ricardo Watti

(top to bottom, left to right)

Coinciding with news of Investigators meeting in Rome,  Religion Digital, a large Religious Webpage based in Spain, chimed in with the following Spanish language article on 12/17/09

The Holy See will be particularly hard on the "Maciel Case"


Investigation of Legion of Christ will conclude in March. The Order will not be dissolved but some will be removed from office.
 
The gist of the article by Jesus Bastante [which is neither endorsed nor contested by the blogger] follows

-Visitators will hand in their reports in mid-March, 2010,  and will cease in their functions. It will be up the pope [editor: the Holy See, Vatican] to decide what is to be done.
-The order will not be dissolved but heads will roll
-The present Legion leadership is trying hard to distance itself from Maciel because of Benedict's zero tolerance for pedophiles. The pope is very disturbed by what he is learning about Fr. Maciel's life and the coverup by other superiors.
-The seminaries will be profoundly restructured
-Many top leaders will be asked to resign, including Alvaro Corcuera the present General Director

------------------
[Original Spanish]

La Santa Sede será particularmente dura en el "caso Maciel"

La investigación a la Legión de Cristo concluirá en marzo. No se disolverá la orden, pero sí habrá destituciones

Los cinco visitadores nombrados por el Papa para investigar los escándalos acaecidos en la Legión de Cristo finalizarán su misión el próximo mes de marzo, una vez entreguen sus informes definitivos ante la Santa Sede. Así lo confirma el secretario de Estado de Su Santidad, Tarcisio Bertone, en un escrito remitido al director general de la Legión, Álvaro Corcuera.

A mediados de ese mes, los cinco prelados designados, Ricardo Watti, obispo de Tepic (México); Charles Chaput, arzobispo de Denver (EEUU); Ricardo EzzatAndrello, arzobispo de concepción (Chile); Giuseppe Versaldi, obispo de Alejandría (Italia) y Ricardo Blázquez, obispo de Bilbao (España), entregarán sus informes al Santo Padre, y terminarán su función.

Entonces, será Benedicto XVI el que decidirá el futuro de la orden fundada por Marcial Maciel. En una estrategia de última hora, los actuales responsables de la Legión están tratando de desvincularse por completo de la figura de su fundador, conscientes de que, en la situación actual, el Papa ha declarado "tolerancia cero" con todo lo relacionado con la pederastia y los abusos a menores.

El "caso Maciel", pues, será tratado con la "máxima dureza" por el Vaticano, según han indicado a RD fuentes romanas, que no quieren que aflore, ni por asomo, un escándalo similar a lo acaecido en la Iglesia de Irlanda.

El Papa está visiblemente afectado por todo lo que se ha ido conociendo acerca de la vida del fundador de la Legión de Cristo, así como de la responsabilidad no sólo de Maciel, sino de muchos de sus colaboradores, que ahora tratan de evadir su responsabilidad alegando desconocimiento y pidiendo perdón.

Todo parece indicar que no habrá disolución de la orden, pero sí una profunda remodelación en sus seminarios -que siguen siendo vivero de vocaciones-, en su estructura organizativa y en los votos que los legionarios hacen en el interior de su congregación. También se espera la destitución de muchos de sus líderes, comenzando muy probablemente por su actual director general, Álvaro Corcuera, a quienes muchos acusan de haber "instigado" el silencio en torno a Maciel durante muchos

Investigators meet in Rome while Legion Ordains 59 new Priests in Triumphalistic Ceremony

Ordination at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, Rome, Italy

Apostolic Visitors of Legionaries of Christ gather for first evaluation

Rome, Italy, Dec 4, 2009 / 04:44 pm (CNA).-

The five bishops taking part in the Apostolic Visitation of the Legionaries of Christ are meeting at the Vatican for their first evaluation.
The meeting is being held today and Saturday at the office of the Vatican Secretary of State and is being led by Archbishop Fernando Filoni, Substitute for General Affairs.
The five bishops present at the meeting are Bishop Ricardo Watti Urquidi of Tepic, Mexico; Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, United States;  Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati Andrello of Concepcion, Chile; Bishop Guiseppe Versaldi of Alexandria, Italy; and Bishop Ricardo Blazquez Perez of Bilbao, Spain.
Officials said media reports of an emergency meeting between the bishops that supposedly took place in October were completely false.
Earlier this year on March 13, the Superior General of the Legionaries of Christ, Father Alvaro Corcuera, announced the decision of Pope Benedict XVI to carry out an Apostolic Visitation of the order, which began on July 15.

=====================

On December 4, Investigators met in Rome to present their first findings to the Vatican. This did not prevent the Legion from going through with its triunphalistic ordination at St Paul Outside the Walls on December 14, 2009

LC/RC...Official article
Bishop Brian Farrell, LC., presided at the ceremony. His homily is interesting as he indirectly mentions the present Investigation as a "cross" that the Legion is bearing.

[2] Maciel, the Sexual Seducer of his Seminarians

In this HISTORIC photo, Bundrowes House, Bundoran, Co. Donegal, late 1960, we see Fr. Marcial Maciel surrounded by the earliest group of Irish recruits:  from left Sean X, Declan French, Francis Coleman, Maurice Oliver McGowan (the first Irishman ordained in the LC and the first ordained Irish priest to leave),  Marcial Maciel, Pearse Allen (6' 4"), Fr. Neftali Sanchez-Tinoco, James Whiston, unidentified cassocked sandy-haired; on the far right is is Fr. Felix Alarcon, one of his victims; next to Felix is James Coindreau, the recruiter ( at that time a seminarian passing for a priest). Their stories are in "Our Father (Maciel) who art in bed..."

[Excerpt from the only sex abuse chapter in Our Father, who art in bed]


Celibate or Hibernate?
In the light of sexual scandals in the Legion, which I learned
about years after I left, I add the following considerations.
During my nine-year training to be a Legionary, and indeed
during the remaining fourteen years as a Legionary priest, I
was never aware of sexual improprieties of any kind in the
order. Nor was I ever approached by a confrere or
superior in a sexually inappropriate way.
Regarding other temptations of the flesh, I must add that during all
seminary training from postulancy to the deaconate
vow of celibacy, I was never outside the “cloister” walls of a
Legionary formation center on my own, and thus never met
an attractive woman. Apparently, in order to be chosen as our
cook, a woman had to be old and ugly. It seems reasonable to
conclude that my commitment to celibacy was, like everything
else in the Legion “formation system,” an unprocessed foregone
conclusion: “I assume, therefore I have a vocation to celibacy.”
I admit I felt fleeting attraction for that Venezuelan
benefactress, Nora. Accompanied by her rather provocative
daughter, she was allowed to flit around the college in Rome
some time during my Theology studies. She must have been
contributing in no uncertain terms to the “economy of the
Legion” for Father Maciel to permit that. Although it was kind
of strange to have a woman “in the community,” with access to
the semi-private areas in our house, all Legionaries knew that
when The Founder was around exceptions could be made to
regular observance of the rules. Anyway, my infatuation with
La Señora must have lasted all of twenty seconds, that is, while
we were together in the elevator between floors at Via Aurelia
677. And there were only four floors! I may have been slightly
troubled about it at the time. Looking back, it just proves that
I had not been totally neutered by the Legion.
Most Legionaries will attest that the atmosphere
surrounding us regarding sexuality and chastity was eerily
“antiseptic,” like that sterile smell of disinfectant you got when
entering a hospital. There was a communal belief that the Legion
had been protected from impurity by a special gift from the
Blessed Virgin Mary. So that purity was a given, and impure
thoughts, feelings, or actions were unusual, out of place, and
unexpected in the Legion. It was “Don’t think. It's not happening.”
Some guys were kicked out because of voyeurism: looking into the
showers or dressing rooms when other guys were changing, or
for other offenses that to mature eyes might not appear serious.
But the superiors would never speak publicly of these transgressions.
Sex was taboo, hidden, like the nudes in L’Enciclopedia dell’Arte
in our library.
According to the rules, or norms, we were allowed six
movies a year, never in a public theater, but in our own house,
16mm or Super-8. The projectionist and superior previewed
the movie beforehand. Whenever a remotely erotic or simply
romantic scene appeared, a card was inserted between the lens
and the film to block out the bad images.
There is a standing joke about the Irish Book on Sex: all
the pages are blank; a good metaphor for our Legion sexual education.
We received no explanation of the physiology of the sexes, drives,
attraction, falling in love, and love-making. Who would talk
about something as “repugnant” and “impure” as that? Novice
Instructor, Rector, Superior, and Spiritual Director Rafael Arumí,
or obsessive compulsive Assistant Superior and Spiritual Director
Octavio Acevedo, not-too-bright Rector, Superior, and Spiritual
Director Alfredo Torres, or dog-lover and horticulturalist, Rector,
Superior, and Spiritual Director Juan Manuel Dueñas-Rojas?
Where would you find a manual, a booklet, or even some pictures?
All the remotely sensual illustrations in the Encyclopedia of Art
had been papered over. I’m sure some creative souls did their
own research…but not me.
My plate was full with my constant doubts of Faith. On the
other hand, I must admit I had found a very helpful book about
how to handle adolescent changes at the Salamanca Novitiate. It
was called “You are becoming a man.” I considered myself a normal and
healthy adolescent, with normal urges, practicing self-control
and abstinence. There might be the occasional wet dream. That
would be part of confession and spiritual direction. When I revealed this to
Father Dueñas, spiritual director, rector and superior in Rome, he
made the recommendation: “Be more careful, and try not to
let that happen again.” I’m glad Irish Christian Brother Moore had explained
things a little better back in the seventh grade.
So, regarding sex everything was silenced; it was not
mentioned among us; no education, neutral, neutered, frozen.
As a heterosexual I may have been impervious to any intrusion from superior or peer.

Father Maciel, in his later confrontations with me, appeared to
express this sentiment regarding the opposite sex:
“Women, because of their sexuality and sensuality, are
the root of all evil.” Because we were forbidden from talking
about anything personal among ourselves, I have no idea of
how others fared—whethe struggling with their impulses,  sexual identity
or homosexual feelings. Testimonies of ex-Legionaries now
demonstrate that some members, no matter their orientation,
were sexually approached by unscrupulous superiors, novice
masters and spiritual directors. But most of us had no inkling
of anything improper going on.
This enigma is partially solved
by the testimony of one of the original accusers, José Pérez
Olvera, who exited as I was entering: “It seemed that nothing
mattered more than the virtue of purity. We were wholesome
boys, but they drummed the idea of purity into us to such a
degree that we ended up being fixated on it. For us everything
was a sin. The obsession with offending God was so great that
I couldn’t even touch my penis when I went to the bathroom.
I ended up going to a Trappist monastery next door to confess.
This from the time I was a boy, from the time I entered at
age eleven. And I want to tell you that in Rome we were
surrounded by paintings of nudes. A virgin breast-feeding a
child was a sin. It was aberrant. The hypocrisy got to the point
that they would put little pieces of paper on art book pictures
so that things would not be seen [which produced the opposite
effect]. I lived in anguish. One could never feel serene. It was
as if God had not created sex. And to top it all off, Father
Marcial was a total hypocrite; it did not matter to him that he
had destroyed us.”23
I know one of my Legionary colleagues was seriously
troubled for years for having smuggled a girlie magazine
into the seminary. Once discovered, he was haunted by his
superior’s warning that such an act of impurity demonstrated
a serious moral shortcoming which seriously jeopardized his
Legionary calling. That Legion-induced guilt hung like a sword
of Damocles over his conscience for many years. He was led
to believe that if he abandoned the Legion he would lose his
priesthood: his depraved inclination would make it impossible
for him to carry on as a priest, for no bishop would ever accept
such a deviant priest into his diocese. Another ex-Legionary
colleague, Hector Carlos—calling me out of the blue after 37
years—told me that when the Legion was trying to dump him,
his spiritual director gratuitously told him, “You don’t have a
vocation to celibacy, because you masturbate.” “Who told you I
masturbate?” retorted my recently recovered companion.
***

Maciel, the Sexual Seducer [1]

[A poem by the author and contained in Our Father Maciel who art in bed; see corresponding blog]

MACIEL’S SEDUCERS IN SEVILLE

I
Approaching the Cristo de Burgos
For you I did penance and cried;
On the corner of Sales-Ferré,
Spied procession of Servite friars;
Amid Trappist’, Jesuit’ suspicions,
First Legionary adolescent needs,
-Bay of Cobreces, story Foundation-
Solace seeking with willowy priest.
In their budding homo-curiosity
-Close I to Granada’s meet,
Home to Federico de Gay-
Their spiritual father in sheets?
Now one was robust and quite virile,
The other with sweet baby face,
A third was a fair-haired blue-eyes,
The next with a delicate grace.
They all had one thing in common
As for the seminary they signed:
To be fondled, aroused and pleasured,
Aye, ravished by their Father benign.

II
So facing the float of Dolores
Descending the narrowing street,
With long brown candles burning
Their hands peak-capped Nazarenes,
I prayed for the Christ of Cotija
Stretched across his mother’s knee,
Grieving for her Jesus Maciel,
Broken, betrayed and bereaved.
They created the Myth of Abuser;
Accused him of tempting to prey;
Their saintly, innocent, Pastor,
True victim of calumnies vain.
Now one was quite strong and most virile;
The other, a round baby-face;
A third was handsome and blue-eyed
The fourth with a delicate grace.
Unbeknownst to their ignorant parents
-What little perverts they had raised! -
Had gone to the order with one plan:
His chaste body defile and debase.

III
The float forced its path through the lane-way,
Fairly crushing all bones to the wall,
My senses bewildered with brocade
Gold and silver, incense and pall.
Through the haze the halting procession,
Wending its way through the throng,
Cavorting, provocative altar boys,
All of eleven years tall.
When I tried to imagine their malice,
Fathom the evil they bore,
I coldly considered the “victim”
And burst into sobs for their souls.
So I wept for the blue-eyed conspirator,
And the boy with the soft baby-face;
For the virile, athletic and strong one,
And the one with a delicate grace.
They had come to the order with one mind:
To deceive the immaculate priest.
Were they wolves in babes’ simple clothing?
Or prey to a Wolf and a Beast?
 

In the Glorious City of Seville,
Cradle of Christopher’s Commission
And Torquemada’s Holy Inquisition.
Poetic license provoked
By some Catholics’ view
That sexual abuse by priests can be
Reduced to homosexuality, or gayness;
That the young ones are willing accomplices;
By testimonies of eight seminarians against Father
Marcial Maciel,
Founder and Superior General of the Legion of Christ;
By pro-Maciel defense and adulation of him and his
mother;
By early Legion history in northern Spain where first
rumors arose;
And inspired by walking the streets participating in
Seville’s Holy Week processions, 2003

How to apologize to Maciel's Victims of Sexual Abuse and Legion Calumny

Any old apology is not good enough for victims of Sexual Abuse, diffamation and calumny. Ask a lawyer or a mental health therapist or...them

Maciel's victims were abused in very specific ways: they were sexually abused by Maciel on several occasions, having their childhood and youth stolen from them by the one who was supposed to be their father; a form of incest.

When they came forward in different ways the Legion Leadership [v.g Bannon and Owen Kearns] branded them as "disgruntled ex-members", "bitter old men", "envious of Fr. Maciel and the Legion". That is calumny and diffamation.  A public offense requires an OFFICIAL,  PUBLIC apology,  to INDIVIDUALS PERSONALLY,  and to the GROUP.  This would also require AN OFFICIAL LEGION PUBLIC STATEMENT, press release,  published in the Legion's own Newspaper by the Editor, Fr. Kearns, etc., and several other steps.

For an apology to be valid it has to be SPECIFIC as to the offenses/crimes, there has to be REPARATION [damages], moral and material, just as in the cases of Sexual Abuse by diocesan priests and other members of religious orders...

Corcuera and other Legionaries keep telling lies, bare-faced and otherwise! #38 in the series How to...

Dear reader, forgive this outburst.

I have just celebrated a birthday, a big number. It brings reflections on my life and how brief our time on earth is. What have I done with my life? How to make sense of my time in the Legion and what I did after leaving? I am honest with myself as I get closer to meeting my Creator?

And I learn that Fr. Alvaro has begun to attempt to outreach Maciel's victims to "beg them for pardon on his bended knee". The rhetoric of the phrase is sickening and already sounds false. He goes on to swear to the victim that he knows nothing of the lawsuit the Legion brought against REGAIN INC two years ago. "What a terrible thing! I must look into this..."
It is just not possible to countenance this hypocrisy and barefaced lying!
And poor naive -or misguided and blind- people wonder why bishop or archbishop so and so could be so misguided in kicking them out when they do so much good and carry on the values of Catholic Orthodoxy and Tradition. But they are so conniving and deceitful it is just not possible to tolerate anymore going behind the bishop's back and making a fool of him in front of his own faithful!

Such an episode turns my stomach once again. The lying, the deceit, the hypocrisy that we ex-members were subject to for years. Seems like the Legion, the Regnum and its leaders never learn their lesson. Maciel's total untruthfulness and deceit has been transmitted to the Legion superiors and Regnum Christi directors. Truth is not important to them. Only saving face, doing PR, bringing in the money and the recruits, keeping the wool pulled over the eyes of their innocent and docile -especially female- members.
Most of the Americans who have left the Legion have done so because they were lied to. It is something that Americans cannot abide by. Once they find out they have been deceived they get very angry. And this healthy anger can even break through their resistence to doubt their superiors, to break that taboo...

Good Morning, and wake up American Legionaries and Regnum Christi members!