"In two days," Sandro Magister notes, "the announced apostolic visitation of the congregation of the Legionaries of Christ will begin." (One of the five visitors is Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, who is responsible for the United States and Canada.) Magister interviews one of the more well-known former Legionaries of Christ priests, Fr. Thomas Berg, director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, who left the Legionaries this past April:
Q: When you recently left the Legion, you expressed in a statement your
sympathy for the congregation in which you were formed as a priest.
What are your hopes now that the apostolic visitation to the Legion of
Christ has been announced?
A: I, like the vast majority of persons in the Church, try to remain positive and hopeful for the Legion and Regnum Christi movement. We only want the best for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We understand that this might involve taking some tough medicine, but I believe it is possible for a majority of these wonderful men and women will rise to the occasion because they really do have a profound love for Christ in their hearts. I would like to insist again that I bear no hatred, anger or resentment toward the Legion. Much less, do I spend every waking hour thinking about the Legion. I am getting on with my life. Nonetheless, your initiative in posing these questions has afforded me the opportunity to say a number of things that in conscience I believe need to be said at this juncture.
Q: How do you predict the visitation will go?
A: It would really be foolish of me to even begin to speculate on this.
Q: What would be your suggestions to the five visitors?
A: I will limit myself to one overall suggestion: help the Legionaries to engage in an honest and objective self-critique. What I have found most unsettling of late is the kind of group-think that has settled in among the Legionaries: "We really don't think there is anything wrong with the internal culture of the Legion, but if the Holy See tells us to change things, we will." The docility to the Holy See, though laudable and correct, masks a huge internal flaw: the Legion's corporate inability to engage in a healthy self-critique. This is no time for a business as usual approach, but that has been the impression one generally gets from the Legionaries over the past five months of the crisis.
That inability to see and honestly recognize the flaws and errors that so many people outside the Legion are able to see speaks volumes. The Legionaries should be reminded that it is not the task of the Holy See to reform the Legion. The Legion will only be genuinely reformed when it reforms itself from within. But that can only begin with a self-examination that arises from within the Legion and owns up to the Legion's errors.
A: I, like the vast majority of persons in the Church, try to remain positive and hopeful for the Legion and Regnum Christi movement. We only want the best for our brothers and sisters in Christ. We understand that this might involve taking some tough medicine, but I believe it is possible for a majority of these wonderful men and women will rise to the occasion because they really do have a profound love for Christ in their hearts. I would like to insist again that I bear no hatred, anger or resentment toward the Legion. Much less, do I spend every waking hour thinking about the Legion. I am getting on with my life. Nonetheless, your initiative in posing these questions has afforded me the opportunity to say a number of things that in conscience I believe need to be said at this juncture.
Q: How do you predict the visitation will go?
A: It would really be foolish of me to even begin to speculate on this.
Q: What would be your suggestions to the five visitors?
A: I will limit myself to one overall suggestion: help the Legionaries to engage in an honest and objective self-critique. What I have found most unsettling of late is the kind of group-think that has settled in among the Legionaries: "We really don't think there is anything wrong with the internal culture of the Legion, but if the Holy See tells us to change things, we will." The docility to the Holy See, though laudable and correct, masks a huge internal flaw: the Legion's corporate inability to engage in a healthy self-critique. This is no time for a business as usual approach, but that has been the impression one generally gets from the Legionaries over the past five months of the crisis.
That inability to see and honestly recognize the flaws and errors that so many people outside the Legion are able to see speaks volumes. The Legionaries should be reminded that it is not the task of the Holy See to reform the Legion. The Legion will only be genuinely reformed when it reforms itself from within. But that can only begin with a self-examination that arises from within the Legion and owns up to the Legion's errors.
Good comments from Fr. Berg.
Posted by: Ed Peters | Monday, July 13, 2009 at 06:29 AM
"..the Legion's errors." Forgive my ignorance, but what are they?
I realise the sins and defects of the founder are, or have been, on public view, but God can turn "stones" into "bread".
As I said in an earlier posting several months ago, I have had only two occasions where I met members of the Legion, one in Rome, a priest, and one here in Sydney at World Youth day. He, I think, was student for the priesthood, though dressed as a cleric. Both these men's human qualities impressed me. They were articulate, warm and affectionate, courteous and clearly, had a love for the Pope. That's not a bad start for men who are priests.God knows I've met a few clerics in the past who lacked even the basic human virtues.And how many priests are there in the Legion? I read somewhere, seven hundred?
God will bring roses out of the thorns, if all are humble and trust.
Posted by: Dr John James | Monday, July 13, 2009 at 08:35 PM
"Forgive my ignorance, but what are they?" Ignorance is not a sin, so no apology is required and no forgiveness is needed.
"I realise the sins and defects of the founder are, or have been, on public view, but God can turn stones into bread." Yes, He can, but He usually doesn't do that. Indeed, the Lord has some harsh words for those who give children stones instead of bread, regardless of His ability to change one into another.
"As I said in an earlier posting several months ago, I have had only two occasions where I met members of the Legion, one in Rome, a priest, and one here in Sydney at World Youth day." Okay, that's fine. Really. But it also indicates you have virtually no basis upon which to weigh in on the wider debate. Well, that is, unless walking past two restaurants in Chicago makes one qualified to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the other 698.
"He, I think, was student for the priesthood, though dressed as a cleric." So, was he faking his identity, or was he following a Roman (but in English-speaking countries, a very confusing) practice?
"Both these men's human qualities impressed me. They were articulate, warm and affectionate, courteous and clearly, had a love for the Pope. That's not a bad start for men who are priests." Agreed.
"God knows I've met a few clerics in the past who lacked even the basic human virtues. And how many priests are there in the Legion? I read somewhere, seven hundred?" Good, your point is?
"God will bring roses out of the thorns, if all are humble and trust." Maybe He will. But I don't think it says anywhere that He has to. And I can think of innumerable instances where He has not.
Maciel spent his entire life using piety and platitudes as covers for outrageous conduct, and he instilled that mentality in the very fabric of Legion governance, at least, if we are to believe outstanding men who lived as Legionaries for decades. The question is not whether some, or even many, of those priests are nice guys, it's whether the institue they joined can be rehabilitated, or whether it should be shut down completely, and them transfered to other worthy priestly works.
Posted by: Ed Peters | Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 07:04 AM
" Maciel ...instilled that mentality in the very fabric of Legion governance..if we are to believe outstanding men who lived as Legionaries for decades."
That begs a very obvious question, and it is at the heart of my having the temerity to "weigh in on the wider debate"
How can an institution ( family ) within the Church produce men who are "outstanding" if the "governance" of the family is corrupt?
It just does not happen. So, either, the governance is not as bad as suggested, or some other formative influence is at work.
No doubt the apostolic visitation will ascertain all the facts.
My reference to the numbers of priests within the Legion is along the same line.We know that a vocation to the priesthood is a divine gift. Here we see, within a family in the Church, a burgeoning of vocations and, if my admittedly small sample,and your group of "outstanding" men are an accurate 'snapshot', the priestly formation these men are, and have been receiving, is excellent.
".. He can, but he doesn't usually do that.." On the contrary, he does it all the time. The entire history of salvation is a history of God using evil, beginning with Lucifer's " Non serviam" to turn 'stones" into " bread", to bring good forth.
" O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam.." our Holy Mother, the Church, sings at the Mass of the Resurrection.
Posted by: Dr John James | Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 08:19 PM
Hi again. There are lots of misconceptions in your post, but let's look at just one.
"How can an institution (family) within the Church produce men who are "outstanding" if the 'governance' of the family is corrupt?"
That's easy: either, it can't (in which case the good priests in the Legion were good men going in, and survived more or less intact), or it somehow can, which doesn't in the slightest mean that the institution itself is net-worth preserving.
What your lack of knowledge about the Legion prevents you from seeing is, among many things, the number of men, and related familes, that have been seriously damaged by secretive and manipulative Legion methods, methods used even by good men who disregarded their consciences in the name of some ersatz super-modesty or humility.
For the rest, if you are seriously going to appeal to felix culpa, then, what can I say? I can't argue with platitudes. Besides, what you, or I, think about about the Legion debacle is totally irrelvant to what will eventually become of the Legion, and so limits the time we, or I, should spend debating it. I sorry, you seem like a nice guy, but you have by your own admission virtually no idea of what's involved here.
Posted by: Ed Peters | Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 05:51 AM
"..it is possible for a majority of these WONDERFUL ( my emphasis ) men and women will rise to the occasion"
Fr Thomas Berg.
I couldn't have put it better myself. Prudence and justice are 'cardinal' virtues, even for canon lawyers!
Posted by: Dr John James | Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 05:56 AM
As someone who is not a member of Regnum Christi, it is clear to me that the Legion has done an incredible amount of good works via education, the proper celebration of the sacraments,etc to counteract the error that has entered the Church. And it is a truth that any good that is carried out to promote the common good and build the Church up comes from the Holy Spirit.
Posted by: Elizabeth | Friday, July 17, 2009 at 07:23 AM