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	Legionaries of Christ Face Disaster after Founder's Double Life Is Exposed By Damian Thompson Telegraph February 4, 2009 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/damian_thompson/blog/2009/02/04/legionaries_of_christ_face_disaster_after_founders_double_life_is_exposed The Legionaries of Christ, a hitherto dynamic conservative order of 800 priests and 70,000 lay affiliates, is on the verge of falling apart following reports that its founder, the late Fr Marcial Maciel, fathered at least one child at a time when he was demanding the strictest moral standards from his cult following. Maciel, a Mexican priest who died a year ago aged 87, was lavishly praised by Pope John Paul II but sent into exile by Pope Benedict XVI as punishment for sexual assaults against young men decades ago. It was widely thought that he wasn't a ladies' man. So you can imagine the shock when it was revealed this week that, in old age, he secretly fathered a daughter. This new scandal is tearing apart the Legionaries, conservative priests known for their extreme preachiness and natty dress. And their lay affiliate organisation, Regnum Christi, is also on the verge of collapse. It's becoming clear not only that Maciel was a liar of the first order, but so that his lieutenants covered up many details of his life while demanding that he be treated as a living saint. The New York Times has these incredibly damning comments from a priest who left the order after working as its chief financial officer: 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 Legionary, 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.” Catholic bloggers are stunned - and fascinated - by the implications of this new scandal. Patrick Madrid has this to say: First, this is indeed very bad news — the worst possible kind — for the tens of thousands of good and faithful Catholics in the Legionaries of Christ religious order and its lay affiliate, the Regnum Christi Movement — the vast majority of whom have, over the years, steadfastly refused to believe any accusation against Fr Maciel, however plausible and vehemently attested to by those who claim to have been witnesses. Now, these faithful and dedicated Legionary priests and seminarians (there are thousands of them, don't forget) and the tens of thousands of good-hearted Regnum Christi folk are realizing that they have been duped. They are faced with the stunning, crushing, irrefutable evidence that their trust in this man was in vain, their unshakable faith in his goodness and innocence has finally been shaken to pieces. The gleaming giant of holiness they had admired for so long has been shown to have feet of clay. Meanwhile, a war is being fought over Marcial Maciel's Wikipedia entry. Have a read of it, and then click on the "history" tab. (Hat tip: Amy Wellborn.) At the moment it does include a statement from the Legionaries that acknowledges that some of the new allegations are true: Jim Fair, a spokesman for the Legionaries, said only: “We have learned some things about our founder’s life that are surprising and difficult for us to understand. We can confirm that there are some aspects of his life that were not appropriate for a Catholic priest.” One interesting aspect of this sordid business: although the Legionaries are extremely conservative – their strangely good-looking Roman seminarians always sport ruler-straight side partings – their critics extend across the whole Church. The holier-than-thou manner of Legionary priests and Regnum Christi lay people gets up everyone's noses. Of course, there is a lot of sympathy for good Catholics who have been duped – but this is the risk you run with personality cults. The question for this wealthy and well-connected order is: what next? And no one seems to know the answer.
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