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	Something I Missed By Steve Skojec Steve Skojec February 4, 2009 http://steveskojec.com/2009/02/04/something-i-missed/ I posted hastily yesterday, feeling the frustration of a long day of watching the Maciel story unfold as I did so. And in so doing, I failed to highlight an essential part of the Legion’s response when blockquoting. Though it was alluded to in the first paragraph, I want to reiterate what Jim Fair said when asked directly about what the Legion will do: CNA asked Fair to verify whether the Legionaries of Christ were distributing information on the allegations through their regional directors. “I know that there have been rumors about are we somehow denouncing him. Obviously we are not. Fr. Maciel was and always will be the father of the legion. “One of the mysteries of our faith is that God sometimes works through flawed human beings.” As canon lawyer Ed Peters said: I am aghast at the vacuity of such a response. Is this how the Legion of Christ, even today, is going to act when confronted with grave questions of Maciel’s whole life? Is Legion leadership really going to continue talking to the Catholic world as if it were inhabited by idiot children? If so, and notwithstanding my deep sadness for the fine Legionaries I know, there really is no hope for the institute. The linchpin of what will come of this debacle rests squarely on the attitude that Jim Fair expressed. A stubborn refusal to accept the truth and all of its consequences is what will catalyze the implosion. When I was very little, my extended family got involved with a particular retreat center in Connecticut that was later disbanded by the Bishop - but not until after some very bad things started happening. This impacted the people involved tremendously. Some were outraged. Some remained under the spell. Some lost their faith. I had a friend named John when I was about eight years old whose family was involved. They lived on a street that was mostly populated by Catholic families who had had some involvement with the group. One day, when a bunch of people from our group of extended family and friends were together for a volleyball game at a house across the street from where my friend lived, his mother came out on the porch and started screaming at everyone. I don’t remember what she said. I just remember her husband gently taking her inside, and apologizing. I was later told that she had suffered a nervous breakdown. Not long after that, John told me they were moving to New Hampshire. I have always been under the impression that they were unable to believe the accusations against the group’s leadership - which are strikingly similar to some of those against Fr. Maciel - and they went to a place where a core group of followers would continue to follow the teachings of what had become, to those who had eyes to see it, an obvious cult. This will happen again with the Legion. There will be those who refuse to believe, those who will turn on the messengers, even if they are Legionary priests. Bad things happen in the name of religion. When presented with the fact that this was happening in their midst, those involved always loved to say about the Legion (and about the apostolic group before them), “But they bear such good fruit!” Well, apparently, a bad tree can bear good fruit - enough that people can be suckered in and brainwashed by those who lead them to do evil things in God’s name. It makes you wonder why these groups were founded in the first place. Did they ever have sanctity as a goal, or was it just a means to an end? A priest who was suspicious of the Legion and was looking into their activities once told me that he believed they were using the sacraments to gain temporal power. Was that true? Did they ever really care about “The Kingdom” as an organization, in the way that their members did? The zeal of those who join these groups - legitimate zeal for God - is a powerful force. But like any powerful force, it can be turned to suit the purposes of those who guide it. Fr. Maciel had an army of willing followers ready to look the other way and acquiesce to his every demand. They were so concerned with pleasing him, they never questioned what he was doing. In the New York Times piece published last night on the scandal, this psychological blindness was made quite clear: In Catholic religious orders, members are taught to identify with the spirituality and values of the founder. That was taken to an extreme in the Legionaries, said the Rev. Stephen Fichter, a priest in New Jersey who left the order after 14 years. “Father Maciel was this mythical hero who was put on a pedestal and had all the answers,” Father Fichter said. “When you become a Legionarie, you have to read every letter Father Maciel ever wrote, like 15 or 16 volumes. To hear he’s been having this double life on the side, I just don’t see how they’re going to continue.” Father Fichter, once the chief financial officer for the order, said he informed the Vatican three years ago that every time Father Maciel left Rome, “I always had to give him $10,000 in cash — $5,000 in American dollars and $5,000 in the currency of wherever he was going.” Father Fichter added: “As Legionaries, we were taught a very strict poverty; if I went out of town and bought a Bic pen and a chocolate bar, I would have to turn in the receipts. And yet for Father Maciel there was never any accounting. It was always cash, never any paper trail. And because he was this incredible hero to us, we never even questioned it for a second.” And questioning was something that was strongly discouraged in the Legion. Once, when a Brother (their term for seminarians) wanted a friend and I not to tell the truth to our youth group about another brother who left after discovering that it was not his vocation, we resisted. We knew the kids would find out anyway, and that it would be better for them to hear it from us so that they knew we could be trusted, and that discovering ones true vocation (whatever it is) is a positive thing. We were told that we were scandalizing them, and the Brother in question was visibly upset. He reported us to the superior of the house where we were living as lay members of the apostolate. We were angrily questioned, asked what we were thinking, why we would be willing to scandalize these children. We were told that one of them, having found out the truth from us, was now wondering whether or not he really had a vocation - he was in the seventh grade. I responded that it was our obligation to be truthful with them. “We can’t act like parents who are afraid to teach their children about sex, Father.” I said. “Sooner or later, they’re going to hear about it, and it’s better for them to get it from us than their peers so we can talk to them about it.” He stared me down, contempt in his eyes, and said nothing for several seconds. Then, “ARE YOU QUESTIONING THE CHARACTER OF THE REGNUM CHRISTI?” He snapped. “Yes. I suppose I am.” I responded. “Ha! Shows how integrated you are.” He spat. Yes. Integrated - the codeword for brainwashed to the point of co-dependence. This encounter was the first substantive crack in the relationship between myself and the Legion. It was excascerbated by my seeing this priest take off his roman collar (so people wouldn’t know he was a priest) so he could scream at people in traffic. It was made worse when I overheard him telling Brother that he “couldn’t trust us” while my fellow co-worker and I were upstairs. It was solidified when he lied to me in spiritual direction about something very important to me to keep me, I presume, from being distracted. It was enhanced when I sent him (and the assistant territorial director) my intent to leave the program that Christmas while I was home with my family and within 24-48 hours, calls had been made to nearly everyone I knew or had befriended who were still active in the movement to tell them about my “lack of generosity” and turn them against me. They went so far as to call my girlfriend’s mother. They calumniated me to my best friends. You are not supposed question. You are simply supposed to obey. The stories don’t end there. Another that comes to mind is the time several superiors were gathered around a dining room table in another house of apostolate where I was living, and were revisiting old times. They laughed about the time they were on the way to an ordination in Mexico, and were late, and told the cab driver to run the red lights. When he got into an accident by doing so, the cops showed up, and the priests blamed the other driver. They thought this was hilarious - who would believe a driver’s word against priests? Or what about the time a Regnum Christi woman told me that one of the consecrated ladies from the former Soviet bloc found herself startled by the similarities of Regnum Christi methodology and Soviet Communism, only to be reassured by Fr. Maciel that “In a way, it is like communism - but with a good end.” Or the time that several priests were bragging about how Fr. Maciel had lied to benefactors in Mexcio, telling each that one of his competitors was giving a certain amount of money to the Legion for building a school, and if he didn’t want to look bad he’d better do the same. Except none of them made the pledges until after they were fed the lie? I saw so much deception. So much disregard for the value of individual persons. And though I wouldn’t participate - I didn’t like being told to tell the person on the phone that Father was out when he was sitting right next to me - I allowed myself to be blind to what they were doing for too long. The power of spiritual leadership over willing followers is not to be underestimated. Why am I telling you all of this? Partly because I want it off my chest. Partly because it simply needs to be told. I know I keep saying it but good people went into the Legion and allowed their consciences to be warped until they could justify things that they never should have done. Men were convinced that they had vocations who didn’t have them, and were miserable for it. Two of the priests I lived with were later laicized, and both had tried to push me toward a vocation. One had gone so far as to tell me, when I objected to his certitude that I was meant to be a priest, “I never wanted a vocation. I still don’t want a vocation. But that’s what God wants.” He was running a community, heading up a school, giving spiritual direction - all while loathing what he had become. Another priest, when I questioned him about why everything we did in the apostolate seemed only directed toward further expanding the apostolate (think Amway, or the Borg, or a virus) told me that he had had a problem with that too. But he just kept trying to accept it until it finally didn’t bother him anymore. Why do they have 14 years of “formation” before being ordained? Maybe because if they had less, they wouldn’t be so well programmed to drown out what is true and right. And now, as I contemplate what a long-standing coverup must have been in place to keep Maciel’s secrets dark - secrets that pre-dated my involvement and had to have been known by his closest advisors - I can see why they were so hell-bent on lying, on cutting off all criticism or independent thought, on obtaining strict and total fanatical devotion to the movement and the founder. We were told, point blank, that what our spiritual director told us was God’s will. We could only deny it at our own peril. If you’re struggling to gain some insight into how this could happen - especially if you know people who benefited from their involvement like I initially did - I hope this helps give some perspective. I’ve heard story after story like mine, and for those who actually spent time in seminary, it was usually worse. The founder of this order was a sexual predator. Sexual predators are known for their ability to spot psychological vulnerabilities and exploit them to their own endgame. The Legionaries I knew never made a single inappropriate sexual insinuation around me, but they exhibited the training of psychological predation. They knew how to exploit my weaknesses - my desire for acceptance, my search for strong male role models, my passion for my faith, my zeal for serving God, my scruples. They pushed every button I had, and if I didn’t have such a strong rebellious streak, and the intervention of a priest who didn’t even know me but felt inspired one day after Mass at my home parish to tell me I needed to leave as quickly as possible, who knows where I would have ended up. I’m sad for the people who have never been able, or willing, to see the truth. This will be hardest for them.
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