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	Legionaries of Christ Are Still Honouring Their Disgraced Founder By Damian Thompson Telegraph July 13, 2009 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100003029/legionaries-of-christ-are-still-honouring-their-disgraced-founder/ There’s an amazing interview in Chiesa with Fr Thomas Berg, one of the former Legionaries of Christ who blew the whistle on the order’s sexually abusive and financially crooked founder, the late Fr Marcial Maciel. The Vatican is investigating the Legionaries, but Berg reveals that some of the uber-smooth priests and their lay followers are still kidding themselves that Maciel - who abused seminarians, fathered an illegitimate child and siphoned off money - was some sort of saint. Also, he accuses the Legion of “group-think” in which apparently docility to the Holy See masks an underlying smug conviction that they will be vindicated in the end. Which they won’t. Here are a few extracts from Sandro Magister’s interview with Fr Berg, now director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person: I hope that the Legion will very quickly accelerate its disavowal of, and disassociation with, Fr. Maciel. On that point, I see no other way forward. All - and I mean all - the pictures of Maciel yet hanging in Legionary houses have to go. They have to stop referring to his writings in public (I understand that at one recent Legionary community mass the homilist still saw fit to quote from one of Maciel’s letters). A simple step in that direction, by the way, requires the immediate abrogation of their custom of referring to Fr. Maciel as “nuestro padre” or “mon pere” - terms of endearment whose use he allowed and fostered. Amazingly, many if not most Legionaries still insist on using the term … Q: What elements do you find more disturbing and in need of special attention from the visitors? A: Just to name a couple. Why, for example, were approximately 25 Legionary priests convoked yet again - as groups are every year - to a two-month long “spiritual renewal” at the Legion’s center for spirituality in Cotija, Michoacan Mexico, housed in the very house (now retreat center and museum) that Fr. Maciel grew up in? Why there? Why in Cotija? Why now? Why, furthermore, has the Legion continued to engage in vocation work? Now? In these circumstances? It would be a very honest gesture for the Legion of Christ to simply call a halt to all vocational work at least for the duration of the canonical visitation, and even better until it finally gets its house in order. And one of my deepest concerns is that current Legionary seminarians are not presently in a position to adequately discern what Christ is calling them to do. And this is because they are systematically deprived of the kind of information they not only have a right to know but a fundamental need to know: a complete presentation of the basic facts of Fr. Maciel’s double life; the understanding that the religious life, with its norms and internal discipline, they have come to live is deeply problematic and in need of thorough scrutiny and review; a thorough presentation of the reasonable criticisms that have been leveled against the Legion and Regnum Christi [the Legion's lay arm]; and an honest admission on the part of the major superiors of the Legion’s errors. We should all find it deeply disturbing that most Legionary seminarians - and the same can be said of consecrated members of Regnum Christi - to this day live their daily lives largely unaware of most of these things, shielded as they are from virtually all negative information about the Legion and Regnum Christi. I do recommend reading the whole article. It’s obvious from Fr Berg’s analysis that the Legion is finished, though the scandal may continue as more victims of Maciel come forward. He thinks some sort of organisation may be built on the ruins, giving new direction to members of Regnum Christi. I very much doubt it.
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