We've found an apology!

A ranking Legionary has issued a written apology. To whom? It is not to the victims molested for so long and subsequently maligned. It is not to the offspring conceived in sin and deprived of authentic fatherly love. Nor is it to the Church that is no doubt agonising over how to respond in a way that provides justice while safeguarding the many precious vocations and immortal souls hanging in the balance.

Thy Kingdom Come!

Dear Regnum Christi brothers and sisters in Christ,

I want to thank you for all your prayers during these  difficult times. I would like to reach every one of you to ask for forgiveness for all the hurt you are going through, especially this year dedicated to the priest who ministers God´s mercy. I know that time will heal and the grace of Christ, who is always with us as a good Friend, will never abandon us. This is his work and we are only his instruments.

With this in mind I am pleased to announce that Fr. Alvaro, our general director of the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi, will be in Atlanta on Thursday, August 27th and celebrate mass for us. The mass will be at Pinecrest at 7pm and  an informal reception will follow at the Upper School Dining Hall.

I am very grateful to  Father Alvaro for his visit. Thank you for all your hard work and  support. Keep praying for us!

Yours in Christ and the Movement,
Fr. Emilio Diaz-Torre, LC
Local Coordinator of Apostolate, Atlanta

"Keep praying for us!" Not for the victims, for the children or for the Church. The apology goes to the benefactors and workers in the Legion's vineyard who may be ambivalent about future plans. God is with the movement and will never abandon it. Here in all its glory is certitude that smacks of presumption, combined with the audacity to confuse a field of grain with the very locusts who devour it.  

Comments

[DaniNz]

Bangs head against wall

[DaniNz]

And its such a shame as well...I really like Fr Emilio, he always struck me as a gentle and good soul. But if can't realise the hurt inflicted on victims etc...there is something terribly wrong with the fruit of their formation

[Anonymous]

The LC as an organization definitely seems to exhibit the signs of a sociopath: grandiose sense of self, inability to empathize with others' pain, manipulative, callous, glibness and superficial charm, lack of remorse, shame, or guilt, etc, etc.

It's no wonder, considering the order was founded by a sociopath. The LCs appear to have been twisted into sociopathic behavior simply by virtue of having been formed by a spirituality devised by a sociopath.

Frightening----and sickening.

[Anonymous]

Sociopaths can often appear to be gentle and good. That is what is so frightening about them. They can appear to be whatever it is that they think will get them what they want. It's all manipulation.

[Mouse from Am Pap]

I still don't understand why they can't see the problem here-- their founder was a liar, an abuser, a sociopath and an embezzler. What on EARTH are they supposed to cleave to?

The roots are rotten. That means any apparently good fruit will still carry the disease.

A sicko created their methodology and spirituality...why SHOULDN'T they be filled with fear and doubt?

And if their spirituality is really no different than 'normal Catholic--just rosaries and confessions and stuff' then why have the movement at all?

The people I'm most worried about (and praying hardest for!) are the ones who have NO doubts-- who are in so deep that they can't see the monster lurking within.

[Burt]

Unbelievable! I fear that nothing will be done from this visitation. Dear Lord help us. Come Holy Spirit.

[Anon in STL OUT 6-09]

Depressing.

[Anonymous]

Burt, I have the same fear. But I do find peace when I am in front of the Holy Eucharist. I have a sense of final justice; we might not see it here on earth, but I do know our Loving God sees and knows all. I know that if I feel such outrage for all the victims and feel so angry about the intrigue in the Vatican that has allowed it to go on, Jesus must feel it infinitely more.

In the meantime, I am getting really fit. Because to deal with the anger I feel over this situation, I pound the treadmill nearly every day. This way I ensure something good will come out of the visitation----fitness. LOL

[anon]

Judge a tree by its fruits...but which fruits? The ones the Legion wants us to see, the great apostolates, or the hidden fruits they want us to ignore, broken lives, families and marriages ... and lame apologies.

[gregorbo]

When I met Father Emilio, I begged him, for his own good, to read Dostoyevsky's "The Brother's Karamozov."

Apparently, he didn't.

[anon]

Gregorbo,

Dostoyevsky's "The Brother's Karamozov" was on my reading list the summer before getting consecrated. I never got to it. Maybe it would have saved me! I mentioned to my spiritual directress if I could read it during the summer discernment program, and she told me reading novels would be distracting. Also, she had never heard of it and would have to ask LC headquarters in Rome if it was on the "acceptable for consecrated to read" list. God was sending red flags my way at every turn...didn't see any of them. I think hanging around the movement gives you color blindness. You see so many red flags, but you think they are green, so you keep going full steam ahead.

[Burt]

Gregboro,
Insteresting....What did Fr. Emilio say to you when
you asked him to read that novel? What is significant about that novel. I have never heard of it. Thanks ahead of time...

[Still RC - For Now, Anyway]

Here's the wiki folks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov

Gregorbo, thanks for the mention - I've been wanting to read this one for a while (but it's not exactly light reading so needed to make the time for it). Hopefully I'll find more information to assist my 3GF in spiritual guidance (yes, my goal is to help her see the light).

[Joseph]

Well, I can "kind of" understand why he only apologised to RC members since it was a letter to RC members. It would make no sense to apologise to victims and the Church unless the letter was to be sent to them or published for the wider world to see.

That said, I accept the rest of the criticisms that people have made of the letter. It is deeply depressing and leaves little hope of real reform or renewal in the LCs. And I of course accept the need for a real apology that comes from Alvaro, not some minion, along with a definitive repudiation of Maciel and his evil.

The stunning thing about this letter, of course, is the unspecified nature of the hurt and the fact that the reason why an apology is needed is never actually specified. It's like Fr Alvaro's pathetic letter in Feb when he apologised for the hurt of RC members without ever actually saying what that hurt was all about.

I know that I will be deeply depressed and angry when I read reports of the homily and other utterances from Alvaro at tonight's Mass. I await the reports with a sense of foreboding and sickness.

[Menard Grovey]

Fr. Emilio's letter impresses me in it's self-righteousness. The presumptions that the LC/RC is a holy instrument, approved and blessed by God the Father himself.

The Legion has always put me off with its sense of itself and thus it's pride.

Confession, the Eucharist, the rosary and the devotions to the saints are not Legionary constructs.

Actually, in so far as bringing, enhancing or clarifing Catholicism in my life or anyone elses, What actual purpose does the Legion have?

[PaulM]

I don't know what the outcome of the visitation will be but you can bet on one thing: I will be a thorn in the side of the Legion for a long, long time - especially if after the AV they continue with business as usual. Whenever, I see a Legionary priest or RC groupie, I'll be asking some very tough questions. If I see that a family is being recruited, I will be there with a warning. I may even make signs and stand outside their events.

We, as Christians, are called to comfort the afflicted. I consider it equally as important to afflict the comfortable. The limits of their so-called "charity" will be tested and I will have fun doing it - charitably of course.

[Mouse from Am Pap]

(shaking head) So the 3GFs in charge of the formation of their 'college' students don't have even a passing acquaintance with world literature? Sigh.

I'm also always put off by groups who see novels as a 'useless distraction'---because GREAT novels can give us insight into other people, empathy and knowledge about greater truths. (Hmm... most diocesan seminarians I know are expected to read a healthy helping of Greene, Waugh and O'Connor alongside the heavy theology and philosophy...)

Question: Are LC priests and 3gfs ever allowed to read for fun? Or does all 'FUN' have to be frenetic and active? (I have noticed a tendency among my RC friends and aquaintances to only read 'useful' books. I'd always assumed that they didn't like reading that much--but is there actually an anti-literary trend in RC as well? They always seem amazed that I take the time to read for fun...)

[giselle]

In the realm of the useful, I can remember a conference given by Fr Bannon, in which he explained that he took the new book on JP2 by George Weigel and tore it into sections so that he could travel with them easily and slip them out to read at any given moment. The admonition attached was "time is Kingdom," of course. (He may have also shared portions with others to save expense, I can't remember for sure.)

As for the literary, I know that the Legion deliberately dispatched its best art, literary and culture guys to work on Fr Neuhaus (to curry his favour) and it worked. Thus, they must exist somewhere, although perhaps that formation took place outside the Legion (perhaps before being called from all eternity...?)

[A.]

Often LCs and RCs talk of excellence about their universities.
I checked university rankings for joke, discovering LC universities are placed quite down.
In a rank of first 6000 universities in the world Anahuac was 2231, Francisco de Vitoria 5101, APRA 4432, UER and Finis Terrae not present (then less than 6000).

[gregorbo]

Wow. Had no idea the Brother's K would spark such a conversation.

And I had heard that RC consecrated (and seminarians?, don't know) are given titles, authors, and plot summeries to memorize in order to be able to appear to be culturally conversant.

In any event, I don't recall getting the impression that Father Emilio had never heard of the book. But I had a copy of it and gave it to him.

I recommended it because one of the Brothers "Alyosha" must decide if he has the courage to be the "Holy Fool." The man who, coming to understand that the heart of the truth of everything is a mystery, nonetheless is both courageous and humble enough to bow down to that mystery anyway.

It's a great piece of literature and one of my favorites. Happy reading!

[Still RC - For Now, Anyway]

I'm given to understand from previous posts and commentary that the 3GF's do not really study the arts or humanities in any depth but rather are exposed to little snippets of such to make good conversation and win over souls (by giving the impression that they are well read).

This information is especially disturbing if true at the high school (ie precandidacy) level. These young women should have a decent prep school education and, after all, that's what the precandidacy program purports to give them.

But that a directress had never heard of Brothers K? I shouldn't be surprised but am.

The irony here is that these guys presumably are working to re-Christianize our culture. How can they do that if they don't even have any sense of what a Christian culture once looked like?

I won't even go into the fact that my dear SG (a 3GF) has never read any decent spiritual works such as Fr. Hardon's commentary on the Ignatius "Discernment of Spirits" - and I discovered this AFTER she recommended it to me. They must memorize a bunch of "approved" lists for their guidees. Yeah - that's rigorous SG training for sure.

[anon]

The LCs have a better formation that the 3GF. The reason is b/c the LCs are ordained priests, and are the most likely to stick around. Therefore, the Legion will invest a bit more in their formation. Some LCs are education before joining, and some are educated while on the inside, but they are a select few.

The 3GF, given their vocation isn't really a vocation, and MM knew this, didn't invest a lot in their formation. He got them up to snuff as much as he needed, and sent them off.

And if 50% leave, he hasn't lost anything, and had their slave labor for as long as they were in.

I have known the 3GF since the 90s, and I only know of one who was sent to get a degree at a pontifical university ... ONE! Religious congregations with half the membership have double that number studying advanced degrees.

If someone of culture or education was needed to "win someone over" the LCs were brought in.

The consecrated, except for their brief escapade with Mujer Nueva, don't deal with major benefactors or cultural leaders.

They stick to their girls camps, little study groups, or if they are really talented, they will be sent to begin a school, but you don't need any intellectual or cultural formation to do that..

[Anonymous]

"If someone of culture or education was needed to "win someone over" the LCs were brought in.

The consecrated, except for their brief escapade with Mujer Nueva, don't deal with major benefactors or cultural leaders.

They stick to their girls camps, little study groups, or if they are really talented, they will be sent to begin a school, but you don't need any intellectual or cultural formation to do that.."

Sexism, anybody? LOL

[gregorbo]

Weirdly, we have a Mass at Gateway Academy being celebrated at Gateway Academy (Chesterfield MO) at 7pm on Thursday, Aug. 27 by an LC priest.

Any indication of a similar scenarios at other places?

Is some big announcement coming to the RC faithful tomorrow night?

[Sane in St. Louis]

Fr. Timothy Mulcahey has been assigned to Rome. There will be a farewell Mass and reception tomorrow night. I haven't heard of any announcements, but who knows?