Judge orders documents unsealed

This concerns the RI lawsuit regarding the Mee estate:

A Rhode Island judge has ordered the unsealing of documents related to a disgraced Roman Catholic organization called the Legion of Christ as it faces questions about its relationship to wealthy elderly patrons.

Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein ruled Wednesday the public should be allowed to scrutinize the documents.

The documents are from a lawsuit filed by a woman contesting the will of a wealthy aunt who left the Legion $60 million. The Legion argued the documents could taint prospective jurors.

The Associated Press and other media organizations sought to unseal the documents, arguing they could reveal the Legion's operations.

The Vatican took over the Legion in 2010 after determining its late founder had molested seminarians and fathered three children by two women.

A spokesman for the Legion says it has filed a motion to block the documents' release.

Comments

[PWC]

Comeuppance.

[les]

From the linked article:
"Another Connecticut man also is suing the Legion, alleging it used "predatory" means to persuade his ailing father to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Legion has denied the allegations in that lawsuit and said it doesn't pressure anyone to make a contribution."

I would be interested in knowing if the documents in question could lend support to this allegation that the Legion uses "predatory means" to influence wealthy patrons. Any lawyers care to comment?

I also wonder why the Legion is so keen to keep these documents under wraps. If their practices are so pure, they should have nothing to hide. And finally, who is implicated? If the documents implicate a certain LC (Fr AB), I predict he will be thrown under the LC bus. In fact, it would explain his exile to Ireland - get him out of the country and stashed somewhere he cannot be subpoenaed?

[les]

It bothers me that RCs and LCs are OK with this kind of secretiveness. I though the Legion had promised more transparency? Why don't current members push for truth?

[Little Light]

Can anyone hear the footsteps of benefactors walking out the door...?

Of course the unsealing doesn't prove anything, but the mere fact that they are willing to duke it out with the courts (spending more benefactors money on high paid lawyers and advisors) tells me that there is more bad news down the road for the LCs.

My prediction is that their request will be denied. Something similar was requested by the Diocese of Bridgeport some time ago and later on by the Archdiocese of Hartford and both were denied by the courts so the LCs are wasting their time trying to stop this and looking like a donkey in the process.

[happy in diocesan life]

Little light, I agree with you and I really bet that the LCs are thinking the same. They probably have a bit of a "fool's hope", but I would imagine these couple of days are more for them a bit of extra time to plan out "their strategy" after these documents are released.

[Hope]

There might be some in the LC who might think that they should be more transparent aobut the facts les, but they will remain silent because the superiors have taken the decision. Remember that their "salvation" depends on "Soli Soperiores"

[ex-nLC''02]

Saving souls...one motion to block at a time.

[Aaron]

Father Skertchly said in the letter that Jose Raul called him Jan. 8, repeating his financial requests and "affirming that 'if you give me the money, I will keep quiet about the truth.'" The letter said that Jose Raul wanted a response from the order by Jan. 13.
Consider these words from Fr. Carlos Skertchly, LC to Maciel's son, also abused:

"However in no way can we accede to your request for money in exchange for silence. While we value all of the pain and suffering that you have shared with us, and we deplore the evil of scandal that may follow, we will never accept petitions of this sort, which are also illicit. We prefer to seek and face the truth, no matter how painful it may be."

We prefer to seek and face the truth? Yeah right. And what does it mean to value his suffering?

I know for some the extortion charge has potentially thrown a spanner in the works: is Raul, although a victim, also acting wrong?

Personally I don't think so.

He has never explicitly asked for money in exchange for silence. He has asked for an inheritance for him and his family and for compensation for his abuse and suffering. He has offered silence if the legion gave him his due, not if they gave him more than his due.

Ironically, I am sure that a silencing clause would be sought by the legion had they reached an agreement. Is that extortion? No, it is perfectly legal.

The Legion has no intention of seeking and facing the truth, but rather hiding and denying it.

[Fr John]

I am not at all surprised that the LC are trying to block this, after all, their whole strategy has been to maintain the status quo, to change as little as possible, and only to change something when it becomes a public scandal.

[finding the truth]

Wait Fr John. The Legion changes when there is a 'public scandal'. Really? I see no evidence of that whatsoever. How did the Legion 'change' when the truth of MM was finally recognized? How did the Legion 'change' when the scandal of Thomas Williams became known? In this instance, how has the Legion 'changed' as the actions with Mrs Mee and others is becoming publicly known? Yes, the lawyers will work to block the disclosure because that's their job. If i were representing LC i would do the same thing. That's what lawyers do, represent the interest of their client. What is shocking, and sad, is that the Legion continues to insist on secrecy, quiet, silence, and absolute loyalty to the Legion. Nothing has changed even with public scandal.

It seems to me that healing can begin only when we recognize that nothing has changed and nothing will change. We name it. And move on. LC/RC will never be anything different than it has always been and is now. Okay. Done with that. I will not allow that to prohibit my own growth and love of the Lord and his people of the Church.

[Little Light]

This appears to go to the RI State Supreme Court who is asked to intervene to solve the unsealing - on Feb. 15. This is simply the right to appeal and no acknowledgement that the delay will be permanent.

Wow, more donors money flying out the door simply to protect the LCs rear end. The legion of legion lawyers march to the beat of big bucks.

How much bad news is in there that they gotta stop this at any expense...

As it states, the public has a right to view the documents used to arrive to the decision the court took in the case of the Mee relative vs the Legion. It is only a matter of time that the house of cards begins to fall.

[AnonObserv]

It seems clear the plaintiff know their chances of having standing with the case were slim (i.e. able to benefit from a favorable ruling), making one think the whole purpose of the case was to expose the injustice before the public. The judge's opinion seem to side with the plaintif's assertions while noting they could not benefit from the case give the weak familial tie to Mrs Mee.

As is ,the documents now have gotten far more attention than if they had never been sealed.

[Aaron]

"the documents now have gotten far more attention than if they had never been sealed"

I wouldn't bet on that - these documents hold new evidence that the Legion does not want us to hear, but we will. This is only the pre-match bluster.

[happy in diocesan life]

I tend to side with Aaron on this one. The Legion is really fighting this "tooth and nail". I think that they know if these documents get out, the LCs could be done with in the U.S. and who knows, if it could actually have some impact on the Legion in Mexico, at least causing a faster erosion.

[reid]

Maybe evidence from these documents will help to close the lid on the legion coffin. But I'm not betting on it. The legion seems to have more than the nine lives of a cat, and it has the Holy See in its corner. Maybe evidence from these documents will wake up somebody at the Holy See. But I'm not betting on that either. There's none so blind as those who will not see. What kind of “reform” is it and what does it reveal about the Church's leaders when those who have stayed in the leg/reg con are lauded but those who have left are denigrated?

[Estatua]

Reid, remember the testimonials sine 1950 in "la voluntad de no saber", " the will of not to know".

Why the people in the Holy See chose to be blind?

No reform can erase the damage already caused (and continues) by lc/rc and mm

[Hope]

On a practical note, how much time should we wait for the documents to be unsealed?

[Another ex-LC]

Lack of transparency by charitable institutions might be a broader problem that we think. I've been hearing of similar lawsuits recently brought against animal welfare charities to get them to release internal documents because of suspicion of fraud.
I'm not pointing this out to minimize the Legion's bad behavior, but I think these kinds of evils are more common than we believe. I've always found the similarities between the Legion and failed companies like Enron to be fascinating. I'm tempted to make an airy comment about the banality of evil, but that would be unjust to people who have suffered more than me. Maybe "predictable" rather than banal...
Anyway, I hope the lesson here is that eventually either the Legion will do justice, or justice will be done to it.

[Dilbert]

Another

Don't hold your breath waiting for the Legion to do justice.

[Another ex-LC]

Another comment: it wasn't really clear in the article what kind of documents they were talking about, but I assume it is things relating to fundraising.
I did some work in the fundraising office. In the early 2000s there was an attempt to purge references to donor's private lives from the records of the fundraising office. What had been happening was that brothers were told to keep little notes on meetings with benefactors so they could remember stuff, and they would dutifully record private comments made about family problems, health issues, etc. In part they might not have fully realized that the record would be saved and seen by eyes other than their own, but I think it was also a result of the cult mentality which does not distinguish very well between public and private matters. (Banality of evil?)
Anyway, the Legion got sued by a family that felt the donor was not mentally competent to be giving large amounts of money, had to reveal some documents, and the fact that they had some very embarrassing information on the family which resulted in them having to give back the money. This example was given to us as a warning of what not to do.
I would think the Legion would have learned its lesson.
My bet is that rather than contain evidence of cover-ups these docs just detail some of the aggressive, unsavory and duplicitous but not illegal techniques they use to get money out of people. It would probably be good if more charities had to do this, the Legion is a good place to start.

[Another ex-LC]

And a question: any former LC's know what they do with the file they have on you when you leave? Please tell me they throw it out.
Then again, I doubt my file was very thick since I was never a suck-up and mostly avoided drama; I imagine it had a picture of me a post-it note that said "useless / professor material".

[Another ex-LC]

And a long story:
(Sorry for this mental diarrhea but I need a good purging every now and again.)
When I entered the Candidacy I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork with the birthdays of my parents, their places of birth, my place of birth, dates I received the sacraments along with notarized copies of church documents, diplomas received, and lists of skills acquired.
Four months later upon starting novitiate, I had to fill it all out again, minus the documents. I was angry since I have a bad head for dates, but I called my mom and got the whole thing filled out.
Second year of novitiate they handed out the forms again. I objected but was told that the files were all screwed up and it was easier this way. I just filled in approximate dates and places.
Arriving to Rome, the same. Arriving to New York Territory, the same.
Arriving to Atlanta territory, the same, except this time instead of approximating the dates I filled the documents with bald-faced lies, (since the documents seemed to not be very important) claiming for example that my parents were never married and I was baptized at the age of 16.
I handed in the folder and forgot about it. Several months later at a big territorial meeting the Atlanta TD walked up to me and said "Hey, Brother, I never knew you were born in Kenya!" I stared at him like he were some kind of idiot and told him I was born in America. He apologized for his mistake and we both went on our ways. About 5 minutes later I had an "Oh shit!" moment when I recalled that I had claimed to have been born in Nairobi, Kenya on the forms.
Return to New York: I received several copies of the forms under my door and they all went to the trash. When they asked, I politely but firmly informed the brother in charge, my assistant, the vice-rector and rector successively that if they wanted the information they look in the file from two years ago, or ask Rome, or ask Cheshire for one of their three copies.
Return to Rome: ditto the above.
Leaving the Legion: I was handed a folder with all the photocopied and notarized church documents and diplomas I had given them 11 years before in a different country.

[finding the truth]

@another: "these docs just detail some of the aggressive, unsavory and duplicitous but not illegal techniques they use to get money out of people." Undue influence wherein you benefit [especially in large financial sums] is actionable under the law--meaning: much of what the Legion does/did is illegal, not to mention immoral.

[Aaron]

All the legion houses in rome must comply with european data protection laws. It doesn't matter where you live or are from, if the legion in europe holds any information about you, with your name on it, photographs, video/audio recordings, digital or paper data etc they are bound by law to give you a copy of it within a small time period. They may request you pay a small fee towards the costs. They must be able to say how long they have had it, what they have used it for, who has seen it, where it has been moved or copied and why, when it was destroyed if it no longer exists.

I have requested information from Salamanca and Dublin and got minimal results. The data protection agency in Ireland made an unannounced inspection as they legion sent me only three pages or so from my years there. No copies of the bi-monthly novitiate reports made on me, no copies of the novitiate diary or of my psychological reports. While the agency could not find anything other than what was sent to me, the legion still could not answer what had happened to this information.

I likewise requested that the Legion's territorial direction in Madrid and General Direction in Rome send me a copy of any of the above files. They have never answered me.

My next recourse is to contact the data protection agencies of these countries to complain.

Anybody who has been in Europe or who believes there is information kept in the GD in rome has recourse to write to the legion and likewise complain to the data protection agency of these countries if no answer is made.

[Love the Legion]

Winers All!