Priests Formed by Con-artist Maciel capable of an Honest Life?

The Legion, aided by the Vatican, keeps churning out numbers of priests.

Are these 61 men, trained in Maciel methodology, up to the standards described by Pope Benedict in his 2010 year end address to the Curia. And, please, Your Holiness, Maciel and henchmen did not abuse boys because of lack of doctrinal orthodoxy and moral teachings; they reeked of these.  Do not overlook the psychological and mental health aspects of our priests; as Aquinas says, "Grace presupposes Nature; but cannot replace it"; they need to be healthy in body, mind, heart in order to be good priests. In this blogger's opinon They have to be honest, truthful, sincere and authentic men before they can be good priests, something that Legionaries are not trained to be!
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John Allen summary:

The Christmas address to the Curia is typically the moment in which popes take a look back at the year. The fact that Benedict spoke first about the crisis reflects just how long a shadow it cast over 2010.


Sound-bites from the pope’s speech have been widely reported, but to understand what Benedict was saying it’s important to bring the full context into view.

Reading the pope’s words, there can be little doubt about his personal anguish. He quotes at length from a 12th century vision of St. Hildegard of Bingen, which vividly describes how the “garment” of the church is “torn by the sins of priests.” The pope said the vision is directly applicable to current events.

“The way she saw and expressed it,” the pope said, “is the way we have experienced it this year.”

June 29, 2010, marked the close of a “Year of Priests” called for by Benedict XVI, and he situated his reflections on the crisis in the context of appreciation for the “great gift” of the priesthood.
“We realized afresh how beautiful it is that human beings are fully authorized to pronounce in God’s name the word of forgiveness, and are thus able to change the world, to change life,” the pope said.

“We realized how beautiful it is that human beings may utter the words of consecration, through which the Lord draws a part of the world into himself, and so transforms it at one point in its very substance; we realized how beautiful it is to be able, with the Lord’s strength, to be close to people in their joys and sufferings, in the important moments of their lives and in their dark times; how beautiful it is to have as one’s life task not this or that, but simply human life itself – helping people to open themselves to God and to live from God.”
Especially in that context, the pope said, we were “all the more dismayed” by revelations about priests who “twist the sacrament into its antithesis, and under the mantle of the sacred profoundly wound human persons in their childhood, damaging them for a whole lifetime.”

Facing that ugly reality, Benedict called for an examination of conscience about what went wrong, and offered a resolution to make things right.
“We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred. We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen,” he said.

Benedict vowed “to make every possible effort in priestly formation to prevent anything of the kind from happening again,” and also expressed his thanks both to those who work to help victims, and to “the many good priests” who exhibit humility and fidelity.

At the level of diagnosis, Benedict returned to a familiar theme, asserting that mistaken theories in Catholic moral theology in the 1970s helped make the sexual abuse crisis possible. By downplaying absolute good and evil and treating morality as a matter of weighing consequences, the pope said, those theories opened the door to justifying gravely immoral behaviour, including the sexual exploitation of minors.
As a result, Benedict called for renewed emphasis in moral formation on Pope John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor, which explicitly rejected theories such as “consequentialism” and “proportionalism,” asserting that some acts are always “intrinsically evil” and can never be justified.

Legion of Christ Flawed because Founder Flawed

[From soon to be released article]

The consecrated vocation is a participation in the distinctive divine gift of the founder’s spirituality.  As such, a member of consecrated life appropriately seeks holiness by imitation of a holy founder.  In the case of Miles Jesu, imitation of the founder produced personal paths of destruction.  Besides, Church authorities properly deposed the founder and denounced him as a bad example.  Accordingly, I suggest that Church policy not artificially prop up any institution of consecrated life that lacks a truly holy founder.  Otherwise, the members are deprived of an essential element of their consecrated vocation and a principle is established that invites unholy founders to flourish.

A.L.S

"Keeping the Nazi Party going after the death of Hitler".

Our Father, Fr. Maciel, celebrating Mass ever so devoutly

Found this on Dialogue Ireland. The Irish can get a bit wild from time to time, especially under the influence. Though in Spanish they say, drunks and children tell the truth:

"This shows the problem that the reform of the Order will involve. How do you create a spirituality in a context where the Founder is a total disaster? An inveterate liar and cheat. A serial abuser of women, youth and children. This would be like having a limpet mine attached to the Catholic Church. What ethos or charism would result in the Dominican or Franciscan Orders if such things happened to their founders? Spiritually and psychologically it is essential to close this order down and migrate the priests and lay organisation into other orders and associations. Or to use the analogy of banking. This bad bank needs to be closed down and allow a good bank to be constructed. It is interesting that over the years many good people like Paul Cullen who left found a half way house in the diocesan system. Now is a good time to set up a pastoral commission to effect this transfer. Keeping this Order open is the equivalent of keeping the Nazi Party going after the death of Hitler."

Commission for Rapprochment of Legion Victims to be set up

Mexico today Web page  comments a propos the Commission for the Reform of the Constititutions

The constitutional commission announced Thursday is one of several working groups to be established for the reform of the Legion. Also expected is a commission for economic affairs, and one for rapprochement with founder Marcial Maciel's victims.

Review of Constitutions, will it be Enough?

Official legion sources tell us that part of the Legion reform consisting in the Review of  he Constitutions has begun; at least it is announced, the members have been named, 2 advisors for Card De Paolis = 2 religious from other orders, and 4 LC priests, among them Fr Anthony Bannon, who re appears in the news after a hiatus...


Fr. Bannon, who has been called "The Nazi" by his confreres for his unsmiling face, stiff upper lip, and harsh ways, certainly a member of the "old guard", and no reformer as he is too invested in the modus vivendi he perpetuated and the life altering the decisions he made while a superior. Will Bannon be able to renounce Maciel/Bannon?

Me sees a terrible repetition of previous Vatican mistakes with the Legion
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CNA comments

Rome, Italy, Dec 10, 2010 / 01:42 am (CNA).- Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, the pontifical delegate to the Legion of Christ, has appointed the members of the commission which will oversee the revision of the constitution of the troubled religious congregation.


The committee will include two of the cardinal’s personal advisors, Fr. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, S.J., and Fr. Agostino Montan, C.S.I. Four Legion priests will also be on the commission: Fr. Roberto Aspe Hinojosa, Fr. Anthony Bannon, Fr José García Sentandreu and Fr. Gabriel Sotres.

None of the Legionaries on the commission are from its current leadership, comments CNA, but I wonder what consolation that is when the most feared, Anthony Bannon, was chosen...
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The religious congregation is trying to recover from revelations that its founder, Fr. Marcel Maciel, sexually abused seminarians and fathered several children. The discovery led to questions—and an apostolic visitation ordered by Pope Benedict—about whether the charism and formation process of the order were affected by the founder.

Cardinal De Paolis was appointed July 9, 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI to oversee the renewal of the religious order

What do Catholic Women get out of the Regnum Christi?

borrowing from a life after rc commentary which a former RC leader tells me is spot on:

I think she is spot-on with the observation.
Please share this, if you wish.
Thanks. God bless!

COMMENT

Like I said, I had to get outside the bubble-- in a world where sane Catholics don't BELONG to groups that have had to be taken over by the Vatican.

And all the information is out there for the taking. Anyone who is still associated with RC is not being deceived by other people. If they are deceived, it's self-deception.

Most of the people I know who are still in acknowledge the problems but don't see why that should make them leave?

How can that be? Well, they must derive some benefit from RC membership which they think outweighs the risks and losses.

Here's what I think--

Before the scandal broke out into the international news, a lot of women loved being RC because it gave them a sense of accomplishment and purpose.

Diapers and dishes and laundry and cleaning and disciplining kids and cooking are all exhausting and time consuming, but you never GET anywhere. At the end of the day, you've worn yourself out and all you can say when you look around is "Well, it's not any WORSE than when I got up this morning....."

Meanwhile, if you organize a fashion show, run a girls club, go to a retreat, finish your prayer list, well, you have COMPLETED something. You can point to it and say "hey, I did that!" and unlike scrapbooking or cake decorating or quilting or any other hobby Moms traditionally take up, you can feel EXTRA virtuous, because you saved souls! In fact, it's NOT a hobby, it's a vocation... so you can neglect the kids and laundry for it without guilt--- while your novel just has to wait when the baby has the flu......

Anyway, if we assume that these 'positive strokes' are the main benefit for many in RC (Because if it was about spiritual benefits, you could pray and read the gospel and go to adoration WITHOUT being associated with Maciel), well, then we can see why they stay.

If running a fashion show is a big important job, imagine how much MORE important it is to be one of the people who 'saves' the movement! There will be meetings! Focus groups! Revisions! It's important work, to save the movement and keep it going!

Not like making tuna mac, washing the pots after, and then cleaning up the fecal matter that your not-yet-potty-trained three year old left in the middle of the dining room floor before the not-yet-walking one year old plays in it......

I mean, seriously, who wouldn't rather be working to save the 'Kingdom' so that it can save the Church?

Because, last time I checked, that's a LOT more glamorous than what most of us (i.e. me, with the 'Little-Mr.-poops-on-the-floor-instead-of-in-the-potty) are doing all day.......

Anyway, the point is that these people aren't stupid. And at this point, thanks to all the work Giselle, Vere, et. al. did bringing the cult to light, they're not ignorant.

They're weighing the costs and benefits and making a rational economic decision.

And, in these cases, mammon tends to win....

Pope and De Paolis Try to Salvage Legion

By now we have all heard about the Pope on condoms, and those of us who are interested in the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi Lay Institute -or whatever it is exactly- have been parsing the phrases that have appeared in the new book of Interviews with Pope Theologican Ratzinger re Fr Maciel and his Work; personally I have only read snippets and so I cannot form a full opinion.

But we have the gist of the Pope's idea, phrase, that although Maciel was a false prophet, the Legion and Regnum Christi are basically wholesome.

With all due respect -and with the audacity that comes from knowing that the Pope is not talking ex cathedra and therefore could be mistaken- some are questioning Joseph Ratzinger's logic:

"A false prophet can do the work of God". This appears to fly in the face of elementary Biblical Theology

According to my limited knowledge, false prophets were those who tried to find an easy way to Salvation, a short cut, one might say, a magic formula...."Just do this and God is pleased, you are saved"...

Another aspect of false prophets was appearances,  falsehoods, 'glittering images'...and that definitely sounds like the Legion of Christ

Could the Pope and his envoy -Apostolic Delegate- continue to be deceived by the glitter of holiness...As the Iranian jeweller said to me the other day: "That is not real gold; that is just dipped in gold. If it were real gold it would cost a lot more!"
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