Response from a 14-year "distraction"

This was left in the combox by "Marie," but deserves better visibility. She has summarised the legitimate grievances of the 3gf very well:

It is a sad day when Cardinal Paolis calls the consecrated women a "distraction". I was in the 3rd degree for over 14 years. I left a week after I learned of Maciel's corruption. Does Paolis think that it is just a mere distraction for us to try to start a life in the world when one is in her  30's with no resume, barely a degree from a foreign university and with no money in the bank! What a simple distraction. Are we to ask forgiveness for the burden we have caused him or the Legionaries? Unfortunately the Cardinal and the leaders at the top want to blame the 400 women that have left since this mess came to light! Nice try!

I have yet to hear a public apology from the Legionaries for the pain, deceit and manipulation they have caused to all the former consecrated women. I have yet to hear Father Alvaro asked forgiveness for the beautiful letter he sent us after Maciel's funeral saying M was blessing us from heaven, eventhough he knew all the Truth and deception at that time. What about the lie of 2004 were we were made to celebrate the approval by the Pope of ALL our Statues and norms? Only to try to get out of this one by saying in 2009 that there was a confusion and that the consecrated were following the wrong book of norms apporved by the Holy Father which did not include all the numbers? Why did Father Alvaro not stopped all his Legionaries that were our chaplains who made us follow all the norms including the most trivial details of our lives as the will of God approved by the Pope? Or perhaps he could have stopped the Legionaries from giving us retreats based on these Statues? What about the continuous cover up of Maciel's double or triple life when it came to his mistress in Spain? To know that a Legionary bought the apartment for her as Father Luis Garza mentions in a conference after the truth had come out is simply unacceptable. Let us not forget the last cover up of Father TW? Father Alvaro once again calls it a mistake that he regrets yet he did not remove him from teaching theology to so many people. What kind of conscience does a priest have when knowing of immoral acts for over a decade seem trivial enough to allow him to be inactive and worst yet keep promoting father TW as a key note speaker in conventions for lay members just a few years ago? Last but not least what about the cover up against former Legionaries of sexual misconduct?

I also read Fr. Thomas Berg's article. Thank God for him, yet I saw a Legionary Father Charles S. commented on how the members that remain should be respected. I would like to ask him what does he think of the way the women who left and joined Totus Tuus are been treated? What charity! Good fruits right? They have tarnished the reputation of all of them and all the ones that have left before them without mercy. I know many of these women who like me gave all for the cause of the "Kingdom". Who directed centers, schools and fundraised with little rest and sparing no sacrifice. All to make of these women the number one enemy, the unfaithful rebellious bunch! Nothing has changed -- they crush all dissent and fill the minds of those who once were their sisters fighting side by side for years as temptations for them if they have any contact with them. Evil that is all I can say.

I have spoken with 2 of the members from Totus T, and I am happy to report that they have been approved and supported by Cardinals and Bishops in 3 countries. In my opinion they are the real reform, they are the women who want to keep their conscience clean, who still want to serve the Church despite all the corruption and lies they found themselves in for so many years. They have seen the light truly by the grace of God and are able to continue their lives seeking to rid themselves of this cultish mentality. I wish them the best and my admiration and support lies with them. Hopefully more and more will be able to break away, it is not easy not at all as most of you can imagine. I can sincerely say that I consider it a blessing to be out to be at peace with my conscience.

I am sorry for the lengthy comment, there is so much more to say about this but is time not to break the silence.The Truth really is what makes us free!

I am convinced that no good fruits will come with  the same leadership  in place and while people remain in darkness trying to hold on to a corrupt institution which continues to inflict upon the faithful so much harm.

Peace to all and freedom in the real faith and love of God.

Comments

[-9 years of Lies]

Marie: single female, "30's with no resume, barely a degree from a foreign university and with no money in the bank!"

Me: single male, "30's with no resume, barely a degree from a foreign university and with no money in the bank!"

I think this could be a perfect match...

But joke aside- what you wrote is fantastic, and count on my/our support as you go through all your necessary steps to free yourself of the RC cult.

[Glenn]

No credit history

No applicable life skills (except the LC apologist ubiquitous "I would have never been able to learn foreign languages without the Legion. What a grace from God!" Bull S*&t.

No friends (remember, we cut them all off except those we were tasked with recruiting).

Damaged family relationships

Even for some, no drivers license.

No real job history

[HonestyPlease]

People like Marie give us hope. In spite of all the obstacles, something in her -- courage -- purity -- love of God Who is Truth -- rose up against Falsehood and Evil.

[Mary Ann]

God bless you, Marie. Thank you for your post. Why is it not time to break the silence now? Why do so many ex-RCers and ex-LC's say something similar? Speaking out may be your mission! I know people need to heal first, but it's easier to believe the words "Get out! Now!" said by a person running from the building wide-eyed and screaming than it is to believe them said by a person calmly sitting on a nearby park bench.

[Mary Ann]

....and two hours later, after the person has calmed down.

[marie]

Sorry to all I meant is time to break the Silence! My mistake, I wrote it late at night. No worries I speak about this to any one that asks me about my experience. Thanks for pointing this out Mary Ann

[on marie's side]

What is most infuriating in all of this is that the current Legionaries and consecrated (and De Paolis himself it seems) will just dismiss her comments with a charitable wave of the hand. "Poor thing... she feels hurt. What can we do to help people like that?"

Let me tell you:

1) She is not a "poor thing" with mental problems. She is a normal person who values truth and who is voicing a valid criticism. You people are the "poor things" who are too cowardly to face criticisms and admit that there is a lot of truth to them. Iinstead, you always blame the critics and subtly malign their names. Shame on you for refusing to face the truth with humility and openness.

2) She doesn't just "feel" hurt. She IS hurt. And not only her, but many, many others who prefer not to speak up because they're trying to forget about it or because they were made to feel like it was all their fault somehow. For every Marie who speaks up, there are hundreds more on the sidelines who silently agree with her.

3) You, who are still imbued with a cult like mentality, are NOT the ones called to "help" people like her. YOU are the ones who need help, not her. The problem is that you are so incredibly brainwashed that you think everyone else is the problem not you. You are used to thinking you are superior to everyone else. That's why you can't open yourself to the possibility that she might be right and you might be wrong.

To Marie and to all others who have gradually come back to their senses and left or who were kicked out: good for you. We're with you. We get exactly what your saying. And don't hesitate to ask other ex LC's and ex-3gf's for help.

[Dingledore]

More comments are needed on First Things. Fr Thomas Berg stuck his neck out. We need more ex consecrated and ex LCs to help him out!

[Deirdre Mundy]

Dingledore-- I read the comments on First Things-- it's a bunch of sane, followed by a bunch of crazy.

I think the reason noone has bothered to argue with the crazy is because.... it's clearly crazy. After they cited their sources for the popelove, everyone gave up because they have no facts, only crazy.

I think we can let the crazy stand, un-commented. At this point, most LC defenses send the message "we're a crazy cult dedicated the to the teachings of our dead, charismatic, and really messed up leader. We will fight to the death to defend ourselves."

The 'logic' of their comments just makes people shake their heads and wonder when the Vatican will pull the trigger....

I mean, at this point people are more willing to take Pius X seriously than LC/RC... five years ago, could you have even imagined such a thing???

[Anon out of RC]

just saw this....
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/legion-regnum-christi-to-engage-in-joint-reflection-toward-new-rules/

Not sure what this means -

"The period of reflection will also involve “a historical investigation regarding the origins of the Regnum Christi Movement.”"

[Tom]

"More comments are needed on First Things"
BTW: I tried to post a link to ICSA thread and got censored.

[-9 years of Lies]

Glenn- you mention no friends. And ain't that the truth.

When I got out after 9 years I called friends and after the initial "oh wow great to hear from you man" there was nothing else to say. In fact, many of them were kind of hurt by me because they wrote (letters I never got) and tried to see me but were stopped at the doors. And they gave up... so 9 years later, they didn't really care I was out. They had moved on, married, etc.

Same with family- it takes years to rebuild those damaged relationships, and you will never be photoshopped into your twin brother's wedding portrait. Nieces and nephews and in-laws you never met... you are a stranger.

Coming home is really, really hard. At least my parents are well off- I could go back home and "hang out" for a year until I stopped talking funny and asking permission to watch TV. I know a lot of ex-LCs whose parents were poor or downsized houses- and they go home to a couch and are a financial burden to their family.

So welcome home- you're socially awkward, alone, poor, but you are not 17. You are 30. So many go nuts. I know a few in jail. I know many on drugs. I know of 2 who work in the adult film industry.

That's why this site is such a help. We really aren't alone.

[Pete Vere]

-9yL

On another note, we're coming up on the fifth anniversary of the Legion's infamous lawsuit against ReGAIN and some of Maciel's victims. Things have certainly come a long way since this story was first published:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/05/AR2007090502300.html

[Justice]

"The head of the consecrated women in the United States, Monica Trevino, said in a statement she was “saddened to think that some of the former pre-candidates were hurt, and I would love for us to be able to reach out to them and for them to have peace that some of these changes are in fact being made.”

"SOME of the former precandidates? Really, Monica?

This is a pathetic apology. It shifts the blame toward the victim more than the Legion and RC. Typical macielism.

I recall clearly how the LC/RC changed their colors at the drop of a hat to suit a situation. They are masters at deflection and deception. What was that they'd say? "Meet people where they are at." The changes are merely window dressing for the public. Overall, they are still being spoon-fed their thoughts by the biggest group of Catholic con artists in the 20th century.

If the spirit of Maciel cannot be removed from this organization, all the home visits in the world won't change what's sick about this group.

[Don]

@-9Years, We need to shout this from the housetops whenever the LC/RC supporters try to argue about the "fruits" of the movement. What you describe are the true fruits -- broken lives left in the wake while the LC/RC pat themselves on the back about how virtuous they are and tut-tut about those poor souls who didn't persevere. It is truly diabolical.

@Pete - I am still waiting for LC, Inc. to apologize for that law suit and to lift the injunctions against ReGain after it was proved that that ReGain was right all along. In 2010 I was hopeful that apology might happen. Now I regretfully realize that truth doesn't matter to these people.

@Justice - I agree, they don't understand how to apologize. An apology that doesn't name the wrong that was committed is no apology at all. Also I want to point out that she only promises that "some" of the changes are being made. The LC/RC are dysfunctional organizations, in which the people in charge of leading reform were themselves malformed. They have never seen what a healthy order looks like, so how can they be expected to fix themselves from within?

[bruce]

Having been involved in two cults over a period of 13 years it has finally dawned on me that people who disrespect ex members of said religious cults because they were not able to "handle" the call, or they simply were not called to a "vocation"... or, they left because of inherent baggage which anybody could see they did not have the "right stuff" are afflicted with a curious psychological affliction called arrogance.

This affliction is their baggage which they bring to the group or cult from before they ever set foot in the place. Just like those whom these people judge for having pre-conceived baggage which makes them un desirable as full fledged members of the cult, so do they have preconceived baggage. That baggage is called arrogance.

This is a psychological imbalance which embraces the curious ability and ultimate weakness, to deny to themselves that when they might see it, that someone in their midst might be hurting, that someone in their midst may be hurting because of something that someone considered highly spiritualized did to that person, or that a group ethic which upholds a group think that cannot be challenged might actually be the reason for the hurt of this person.

Hitler had it bad... so did Stalin and or Mao. The followers of these emotional and psychological midgets were bereft of something they call compassion, or empathy. Except to their own ends (and Maciel's) empathy and compassion does not exist for the person whom is hurting.

It is impossible to think to this kind of person that the actions of the group so highly regarded can be held responsible for any slight to something so small (as a person abused) that might it interfere with the "destiny" of the group.

The arrogance which the kinds of people bring to these groups, which is encouraged to keep a blind eye to other's pain or suffering, is their psychological affliction, it is that which keeps them in the group, which distances themselves from a person who is marred by the group at an emotional distance, and "protects" them from feeling or empathizing with them because it threatens their own emotional and psychological hold on the importance and destiny of the group

However false. Even if it was a true destiny, if they were well (not suffering from their own sick arrogance) they would find the time to see what might have caused the hurt, and if it is in the group, that person would make the effort to make their surroundings bigger, more like christ, real ground to stand on with the person so afflicted...

...instead of emulating the sickness of maciel, the sickness they identified with when they came into the cult to begin with, the sickness that denies empathy, and compassion, the sickness that provides only a shill for the real Christ, a shill for the reality of Christ suffering whose benefits are given to EVERYONE UNDER OUR ROOF, a shill for anything remotely described as an order of the Catholic Church and what it is supposed to stand for.

But this sickness rests in each individual in this organization (LC/RC) that continues to deny that the group they uphold can have anything to do with the reason for the hurt and disillusion of its members.

Arrogance is the "weakness" or "predetermined" handicap that was brought in to this group (LC//RC) which now to this day keeps its ongoing, mirrors the desperate hope in the Vatican and more specifically Cardinal DePaulus, that there might be something more to this.

Until it disproves it is a shill for Christ, there is no hope, and really no going back

[giselle]

Hearkening back to the That's. Not. Catholicism. meme, it should be noted firmly that Catholics don't believe in destiny. It's not a part of our worldview, and certainly not a way to gauge how to proceed in anything. At best, one might use the word in a vague, qualified way to look at the settled past, for example, "Saint Francis of Assisi was 'destined' to rock the Church of his world with his radical poverty" (or some such) but that's not what the Legion is proposing. In the normal course of events, we pray our way through, seeing "as through a glass darkly," and we are supposed to be engaged fully as free persons every step of the way.

Indeed, "destiny" is a word that arrogant people like to use, so in that way you've hit upon a critical point, bruce. Thanks.

[bruce]

well that's nice to know, that i no longer have to believe in destiny. abdication from these groups has taken a long time in my way of thinking. i was trained to believe in " destiny" and it was probably my arrogance that bought it.

sometimes i walk around with a box in my hand and it represents the set of thoughts which comes forth or manifests in response to whatever life or another person gives or does that affects this type of thinking

when i recognize it i can discontinue that type of thinking if only to understand its impotence. my power over anyone is mute. i have no destiny to be powerful over another.

it is possible to know that the only "gift" i received from being in these groups is to understand the role of arrogance and that projections that come from it are and can no longer be mine, or the person or persons i might be projecting them upon.

i will probably always have a shadow of this past as its mark has proved strong enough to be a teacher in its own right.

but destiny? no.

and thanks.

[Another ex-LC]

Bruce's comments are quite valid and I recognize some some of the behavior he describes from my days in the Legion, above all before the crisis.

On the other hand, when i was still in and people would reprove me for what they deemed my insufficient commiseration with the victims left in the Legion's wake, I would get pretty pissed and come back with:
1) Who made you the judge of my emotional reactions?
2) Specify how much public self flagellation would be appropriate, and explain what that would achieve.
3) Explain why I should repent of sins committed by other people.
4) Do you imagine I enjoy being left to pick up the mess left by Nuestro Padre's wild ride? Do you feel like commiserating with me about that?

Arrogance? Probably. Thank God the people I gave those kinds of answers liked me enough to let it slide.
But we also have to understand that someone still in LC/RC has a full emotional plate right now, and unless he is a total zombie, feels like a victim himself.

[bruce]

that would be pretty sufficient anger over being betrayed. not arrogance.

[bruce]

i apologize for inferring this comment made to an article which was two or three threads ago. the reason i felt compelled to write what i wrote is this lady's response (obviously an rc lover) to something written by an LC/RC survivor in the comment section to that article.

the lady goes on to say...

"The article is VERY slanted, against the Legion, which is NOT a desgraced group, but the founder was. The Vatican has been working with them for some time now. To say the things about the Legion was wrong, as the consecrated were in charge of the school. Maybe things happened to some girls, but most likely these were girls who had problems before they came. I am sorry they happened, pray that things do change, but very unhappy that the Legion is continually brought down, at every turn, no matter how much good has been done, and the progress made, all in line with Rome."

My belief is that someone like this has a precondition of exaggerated self worth, call it arrogance if you will. She bought into a group which accents and congratulates those with just such a sense of self worth, especially if exaggerated. Such personalities when unchallenged form an indestructible group. And woe to that person or entity that tries. Failure is not an option. And will not be in her foreseeable future.

I think people like this are stricken with a pretty significant skill set... the ability to deny something at the expense of the truth, yes, but especially at the expense and on the shoulders of others...it makes them feel significant, wanted, used in a special, personal way that only that which they deem as "Better" than themselves, therefore worthy of adulation and idolatry, will then recognize them in that "special" way they crave.

This is the sad way that people like the one quoted above enter into a cult like atmosphere. And if we all have these "preconditions" that we bring in to such an atmosphere that we might also call baggage, this is hers, and theirs who insist that this group cannot and will not fail because of some predetermined "destiny" that only they are privy to. The rest are not worthy..."just look at them...they can't even hold a candle"

[Jeannette]

Well, "distraction" is a much better term than "growing pains". When Regnum first started recruiting me, they contemptuously referred to the hurting ex-members as "growing pains".

Looks like Fr Sikorsky got the memo about the talking points. It almost sounds like they're expressing compassion for their fellow man without actually doing so. Since Sikorsky is an IPS bigwig (where they perfect the art of psychologically manipulating people?) I wouldn't be surprised if he was involved in coming up with that talking point.

[FrMichael]

Following the suggestion of some here and at other comment threads, I put in my two cents at First Things about the dual charism of the LS: providing Maciel with (1) numerous young male sexual victims and (2) large amounts of unaccountable cash. As far as I'm concerned, the talk of a charism is a smokescreen, since everybody truly knows why Maciel founded the Legion. I will be curious to see if my submission gets accepted by the blog master.

BTW what does the acronym "PTB" that sometimes appears in these comments mean?

[Cindy B]

Powers that be

[Pete Vere]

PTB = powers that be.