25 of the newly ordained priest come from the apostolic schools. (40%)
Our Father......A Naive and Sentimental Dubliner in the Legion of Christ
25 of the newly ordained priest come from the apostolic schools. (40%)
Another large % join immediately out of HS
Balance during or after college
[The recruitment of very young and inexperienced "greenhorns" was one of the strategies Fr. Maciel practiced and bequethed to the order. He would not accept candidates with "twisted and already formed criteria" but wanted to mold members to the Legion prototype]
Key to data:
Name - Age when they joined - Where
e.g. Samuel Sanabria Martinez, age 10 when he entered the Apostolic School in Spain
1 Samuel Sanabria Martínez 10 Spain AS
2 Patricio Suárez de la Torre 11 Mexico AS
3 Felipe Villagómez Amézquita 12 Mexico AS
4 Francisco Javier Arriola Merlos 12 Mexico AS
5 Humberto Gaytán Hernández 12 Mexico AS
6 José Armando Vargas Gutiérrez 12 Mexico AS
7 Luis Miguel García Calvo 12 Mexico AS
8 Manuel Sanchez Padilla 12 Mexico AS
9 Pedro Guzmán Lupercio 12 Mexico AS
10 Raúl Rodríguez Pulido 12 Mexico AS
11 Victor Mata Valencia 12 Mexico AS
12 Armando Villanueva Manzo ? Mexico AS
13 John Ko 13 South Corea AS
14 Pablo Redondo Crespo 13 Spain AS
15 Alfonso Treviño Benavides 14 Mexico AS
16 Arquímedes Sánchez Ginés 14 Spain AS
17 Cristóbal Vilarroig Martín 14 Spain AS
18 Gregory Usselmann 14 USA AS
19 Joseph Ramos 14 USA AS
20 Marco Aurélio Mauricio 14 Brasil AS
21 Óscar Manuel Macías Pérez 14 Mexico AS
22 Vandoir Dal Berto 14 Brasil AS
23 Luis Felipe Najar Perera 15 Mexico AS
24 Aaron Smith 16 USA AS
25 José Ignacio de la Barreda Manso 17 Spain
26 Marcos Manchur 17 Brasil AS
=====================================================
27 Aldonny Varela Vivas 18 Venezuela
28 Ignacio Sarre Guerreiro 18 Mexico
29 Juan Carlos Durán Ambriz 18 Mexico
30 Néstor José Guerrero Chacón 18 Venezuela
31 Óscar Cabello Galicia 18 Mexico Consacrated
32 Simon Devereux 18 New Zealand
================================================
33 Carlos Proal Zumaya 19 Mexico
34 Denis Tassé 19 Canada
35 Fabrizio Bazzoni 19 Italia
36 Fernando Morales Lugo 19 Mexico
37 Javier Mariana Torrecilla 19 Spain Consacrated
38 Luis Miguel Rincón Valadez 19 Mexico
39 Pierre Caouette 19 Canada
40 Rodrigo Hernández Preciado 19 Mexico
41 Rogelio Aguilera Jiménez 19 Mexico
==========================================
42 Amedeo Martínez Ferro 20 Italia
43 Edward Bentley 20 USA
44 Galo González Covarrubias 20 Mexico
45 Jorge Ranninger Hernández 20 Spain Consacrated
46 Juan Ignacio Carrillo Niño 20 Mexico
47 Roel Osorio Villaseñor 20 Mexico
48 Timothy Lyons 20 USA
49 Valentin Gögele 20 Italia
50 Daniel Weber 21 Germany
51 Héctor Quintana Juárez 21 Mexico
52 Alejandro Valles González 22 Mexico
53 Chan Minh Dinh 22 Vietnam
54 Janick Caouette 22 Canada
55 Luis Ferraris Corella 22 Mexico
56 Nathaniel Haslam 22 USA
========================================
57 Marco Zaccaretti 23 Italia
58 Michael Vanderbeek 23 USA
59 Thomas Gögele 23 Italia
60 Cassio Barros Neto 24 Brasil
61 Alberto Méndez Platonoff 26 Mexico
62 Andrea Giustiniani 29 Italia
=========================
Interesting data! You lived and worked with priests who came from the Apostolic School farm. As did I. What did you think of them? Were they good and "normal" priests? Did they have any positive features that one could attribute to their early formation? By the time they were ordained were they less "mature" than the rest of us? I think this is an interesting question. I've never been an AS fan.... but fair is fair.
ReplyDeleteA "follow up" question is: where is "reform" of the the LC likely to be ignited? AS graduates? Older guys? Northern hemisphere or Southern hemisphere?
Aside: your "comment as" box seems to be malfunctioining.
Saludos, Jack
I am on another tack: gurus/cults like to recruit the immature and vulverable...
ReplyDeleteAnother angle, for me is this: If 40% of this batch came from Apostolic Schools, and the AS numbers have dropped dramatically, it's not a stretch to hope the ASs close eventually for lack of numbers and that will both reduce the number of ordainable LCs as well as increase the quality of the LC. This is my own bias, I am sure there were or are some OK LC priests who went through the AS. But the best LCs I knew went in after some college. I also believe most of the LC's courageous enough to leave did not go thru the AS.
ReplyDeleteI welcome any corrections if I am misguided in my thinking.
Bless your "optimism" re reduction of Apostolic School numbers: I have seen the Legion move its target from "countries more infored of the abuses" to less informed countries, from more savvy candidates and families to more naive families and candidates...Forgive me Mexico and Brasil, and my stereotyping -I could also say "to where it can find more generous and unspoiled youth". The Legion wants the numbers and they will go fishing wherever...the more "gullible" the ground the better.
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember some words of Jesus in that respect...in the Gospel of Matthew...Chapter 23[?]
Oh, irishmexican, I guess I was naively basing my hope on reports out of the US of drastically reduced numbers at ASs. I have no clue of what happens elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI have to say, I was shocked and saddened to see the age that some of these men were when they entered the AS. As a mother, I cannot grasp sending a 10 year old away! My big teenagers are still such babies! What a terrible tragedy for these boys and the loss of their normal experience of family life. I thank God that our experience of this group never included sending our children away.
Dear caring mother,
ReplyDeletethank you for your words and experience.
If we want our priests to be healthy and holy we cannot deprive them of a warm and loving childhood in the family womb.
In my opinion the Catholic priesthood requires an exquisitely balanced personality. The lifestyle is so demanding that without that balance we have monsters and abusers...or simply insensitive bureaucrats and adminstrators
I know of one young 12 year old Mexican American recruited last year after he was given two trips to Mexico that greatly impressed his simple loving parents. They are faithful Catholics without much money who do domestic work at a church. They, along with their son, have been seduced by legion. Pray for him.
ReplyDeleteDear A,
ReplyDeletethanks for the concrete info; the beast must be fed whether by taking the gullible Mexican boy or the inexperienced "boys from Brazil"; while the Legion/Regnum has money to burn the holocaust will continue
How can parents permit that their sons or daugters who are 10 or 11 years old,are taken is af they give away their children....I just don't understand this kind of parents, they are as guilty as the ones that accept them
ReplyDelete9 years after their ordination, one of them married a Consecrated lady from RC.
ReplyDelete