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	Legion Scandal - the American Card The Cathoholic February 11, 2009 http://www.thecathoholic.com/the_cathoholic/2009/02/legion-scandal-the-american-card.html In the last couple of days, I've conducted a series of interviews with past and present members of the Legionaries of Christ. The first thing that strikes me is the great love and sympathy that many former LC priests and seminarians still have for members of the order. Further, it's clear that both within and without the order, the growing feeling among many Americans is the absolute necessity of bringing members together to process what they now know and to come to some resolution regarding their future -- in or out of the order. The process, I'm told, would include systematic scrutiny of what some describe as a cult of personality surrounding Father Maciel that strongly discouraged any second guessing of the founder and his activities, however questionable. George Weigel's excellent statement posted on First Things, "Saving What Can Be Saved" is applauded as a blueprint for Vatican intervention by everyone who has spoken with me. Unfortunately, while Weigel and others clearly fear that the Legion may implode without decisive action from Rome, that intervention could be slow in coming. Contacts in Rome, who sought to protect their sources during this sensitive time and would not go on the record, report that the on-going controversy over Bishop Williamson - one of the four schismatic bishops whose excommunication was lifted by the pope, but who still denies the existence of the Holocaust (he now promises to review the evidence--see his interview with Der Spiegel yesterday) - continues unabated and has made it difficult to work out an intervention by the Vatican. Only the Americans in the Legion have broken ranks in a noticeable way, attracted the public support of prominent Catholics, and appear committed to commencing a thorough house cleaning of the Legion, followed, possibly, by the "re-forming" of the order with new superiors in place. My contacts assert that the convergence of these two big news events--the outrage prompted by the Bishop Willliamson affair, followed shortly afterwards by the new revelations regarding Father Maciel's "double life" -- was no accident: the order's superiors and their ecclesial allies took advantage of the crisis surrounding Bishop Williamson to minimize the impact of the new disclosures regarding Maciel. The Mexican superiors, I'm told, believe the present tempest will blow over and the Legion will pull itself together and go on as before. It is interesting that -- judging from news reports, at least -- the Americans in the Legion seem most concerned with coming to grips with the past: Could that be a consequence of the clergy sex abuse crisis that has roiled the church in the United States? Phil Lawler, who chronicled the implosion of the Catholic Church in Boston brought this to my attention and I think he might be right: American Catholics have learned something from all the pain and suffering of the last decade. Now, the question is: What has Rome learned?
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