The Cathoholic

Legion of Christ Communique: A Cult of Personality Unravals

Here are recent statements issued during the week by the Legion of Christ that acknowledge as true grave charges against the order's founder. Four years after Pope Benedict forced the founder to retire, the Legion's senior leadership is finally grappling with the impact of Fr Marcial Maciel's cult of personality on their ability to make rational, independent judgments about his legacy.

"We had thought and hoped that the accusations brought against our founder were false and unfounded, since they conflicted with our experience of him personally and his work," the statement reads.

The images that always haunt me--as I think about members of the order and their painful collision with reality--are the deeply sad stories of Father Maciel's earliest victims: the young Mexican boys placed under his supervision, far from their parents. He violated the trust of his victims, their parents, and the Church. When the boys grew up, and some gathered the courage to  publicly denounce a Catholic leader  widely viewed as a success story, they were ignored and then vilified. Thank God for their courage and the stubborn sense of self-worth that led them to persist in their testimony to the truth.

"You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." If we are real Christians and not simply acolytes in a cult, which cares more about public relations than defending the human person as the image of God, we must be prepared to acknowledge our own grave errors, and those of our very human leaders.

Some critics of the Church seek to reject the fundamental truths about the human person given to us by Christ, simply because of the grievious failings of Catholic leaders. However, the often inconvenient truths of our faith secure human dignity, and aid our efforts to atone for our own transgressions. Indeed, the deepest irony regarding the clerical sex abuse scandal is that the victims--mostly Catholics--knew they deserved better--if only because they were told so by the teachings of their faith.  God took human form, affirming our fundamental dignity and worth. God suffered and died for us so that we could live with him in eternity.  Is there another blueprint that would serve us better?  The leaders of our Church and their flock will continue to stumble until the return of the King. Christ warned us about that.

Legion - Holy See Orders Apostolic Visitation

Today, Regnum Christi posted an announcement confirming that the Holy See has ordered an Apostolic Visitation of the "institutions of the Legionaries of Christ" that is likely to commence after Easter.  The announcement included two letters: one from Father Alvaro Corcuera, the Director General of the Legionaries of Christ, and a second from  the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. 

Notably, the letter from Cardinal Bertone is dated March 10 [Just learned this date is the birthday of Father Maciel, and was once marked with annual celebrations in the Legion], underscoring the fact that the Legion has taken time to absorb the Holy See's decision and establish a plan to communicate that decision to its members. Though many Catholics expected an updated annoucement from the order to include explicit information regarding the founder's misdeeds, neither letter confirms the substance of previous allegation against Father Maciel, nor do they provide any additional information regarding his past actions that placed the order's future in doubt.

Father Corcuera states that he has "thanked the Holy Father from my heart for offering us this additional help to face our present vicissitudes related to the grave facts in our father founder’s life that already were the object of the investigations of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which were concluded in May of 2006, and those which have come to light more recently. We are deeply saddened and sorry, and we sincerely ask for forgiveness from God and from those who have been hurt through this."

Both letters seek to underscore the Holy See's on-going support for the order. However, a number of critical questions remain unanswered. The letters do not identify  who will direct the visitation and investigate the actions of any superiors who might have abetted the founder's misdeeds. Further, the letters do not identify who will guide the process from the Vatican , or whether the Legionaries will be managed by an apostolic delegate until the investigation reaches a conclusion-- as some critics have suggested.  Today, a Zenit news story on the issue noted that the Holy Father would appoint a "team of prelates" for the visitation, but did not identify specific cardinals.

Last month, after the news about Father Maciel's double life surfaced in the media, George Weigel argued for a "full audit" of the order. Wrote Weigel:

"[T]hat audit cannot be conducted by the Legion leadership, which is likely beset by a maelstrom of internal and external pressures. It must be mandated by the pope, and it must be conducted by someone responsible to the pope alone—not responsible to the relevant parts of the Vatican bureaucracy, not responsible to the cardinal secretary of state, but responsible to the pope alone. There is simply no other way open to an accounting that will be both scrupulously honest and publicly credible.

"To take an image from corporate law, the Legion of Christ must be immediately put into receivership: A personal delegate, appointed by the pope, must be empowered to take over the governance of the Legion of Christ and to conduct the moral and institutional audit required. The papal delegate would be instructed to report his findings, both interim and final, to the pope alone, and he would be instructed to make recommendations (again, to the pope alone) addressing the possible futures, including dissolution or dissolution-and-reconstitution, of the Legion."

But Austin Ruse was more cautious about prescribing such a plan in his commentary on the Legion's woes.

Postscript: Here is a National Catholic Reporter  update on the proposed Apostolic Visitation. It cites unnamed Vatican sources suggesting that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will direct the investigation, in part, because the CDF managed the previous investigation of Father Maciel that led Pope Benedict to banish him from public ministry. It also suggests that if the pope intended  to pursue more drastic measures, such as suppressing the Legion, he would have deposed Father Corcuera, the present director general. Thus, the implication is that the Vatican plans to adopt a modified resolution. In my own research on this issue, one high-placed, sympathetic diocesan official told me that Rome was indeed more likely to provide "heavy coaching" for Legion superiors that would help them gradually rework problematic areas.  

The NCR article said that unnamed Legionaries were "relieved" to learn the news about the impending Apostolic Visitation. However, a knowledgeable contact of mine in Rome expressed pessimism regarding the long-term impact of a more limited investigation, arguing that high-placed individuals in the Vatican and in the Legion would continue to resist any public accounting. 

Here's a Reuter's story underscoring one reason why some in the Legion may fear transparency: more allegations of abuse involving additional perpetrators are likely to surface. 

Postscript: John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter interviews Archbishop O'Brien again on the Legion. Essentially, the Baltimore archbishop reviews several points he has raised before with Allen and others. The fact that he is keeping up the pressure suggests that he has not received enough assurance that the investigation will incorporate a thorough review of the complex relationship between the founder's double life and the development of the Legion's charism and institutional practices. 

 

Legion -- Maciel's star dimmed

Yesterday, American Papist blog had an "exclusive" on a recent decision by Legion superiors to discontinue the order's "Prayer for Fidelity," posted on the blog.  Why is the order in the process of writing a new prayer for fidelity? Well, now that the latest revelations regarding the founder's double life have forced Legion superiors to confront the truth, they now must show themselves prepared to grapple with a very complex and difficult task:  disentangling the order from the founder's influence. The expunging of explicit references to the founder will be a first step in a complex deconstruction of the order's charism and practices. Critics contend the order's superiors should have commenced this process in 2006, after Father Maciel was banished from public ministry. Nevertheless, the re-write of the prayer signals a shift.  Here's one portion of the prayer likely to buried permanently:

"Since the Legion and the Movement will be vigorous and will flourish as long as the spirit of our founder is present and active in our lives and behavior, we ask you to open our eyes to the urgency of learning, assimilating and passing on the doctrine, spirit, apostolic methods, genuine traditions, discipline and lifestyle of the Legion and Regnum Christi, just as our founder has made them known to us,  since this is our responsibility."

The re-write also may signal that Legion superiors want to show themselves as sufficiently competent to help direct the reforming process, possibly with limited outside interference. But as I speak with experts who have wide experience with confronting and resolving such problems in the church, I have been told that the  problem that must be examined and addressed will require a systematic analysis of something less defined and more multi-layered than a prayer.  

From what I understand, the Legion's charism will be placed under intense scrutiny.  The central concern is its "birdcage" approach to religious formation, before and after ordination: Does the  order  place too much emphasis on external image and structure, and not sufficient attention to nurturing internal freedom and moral responsibility?

Will the Legion's superiors be able to countenance this kind of rigorous examination and the pain it is likely to inflict? Until we read their long-awaited statement, we won't know what they think, or how they plan to proceed. But as the wait continues, former and present members of the order who have spoken out over the last month have been strongly discouraged from airing any further concerns. That pressure may have come from Legion freelancers, and not from its superiors. Still, given the scope of the crisis at hand, tweaking the order's public image would seem to be a low priority -- unless, of course externals actually do set the agenda. 

 

 

Legion - Pell Calls for External Review

Today, the British paper, The Catholic Herald reported that Cardinal Pell of Sydney, Australia has called for outside "intervention" in the affairs of the Legionaries of Christ, the Roman Catholic religious order that is still reeling from recent revelations regarding the double life of  its founder, Father Marcial Maciel. As the Herald article notes, there are a good number of Australians in the Legion, and thus Pell has reason enough to raise concerns about the order's ability to address a spectrum of issues, from the integrity of the Legion's charism to questions about Maciel's collaborators among the top echelon of its superiors. 

Cardinal Pell's decision to come forward is also significant because he is well-known for his muscular, orthodox leadership. In other words,  his remarks cannot be easily dismissed. Let's hope the Vatican heeds his suggestion, and that it quickly completes its review of the Legion's definitive statement, written in the wake of recent reports that the founder had a mistress and a child. 

The worry, of course, is that editorial deliberations are not the only reason for the delay in Rome, where the order possessed powerful friends.  As the weeks go by and no authoritative statement is released to the public,  the role of the Legion's high level friends at the Holy See and questions about whether they provided effective oversight of the Legion may also become critical concerns. 

Publicly, this specific matter has not been raised by prominent U.S. Catholics. But the respected moral theologian, Germain Grisez, in his statement advocating  a strong Vatican response to the scandal, made the pointed suggestion that a proposed "ad hoc papal commission" include "members neither of the Legionaries nor of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life, " which oversees Catholic religious orders. 

Cardinal Franc Rode is prefect of the congregation and he has been a strong supporter of the order. Two months before news of Father Maciel's double life made headlines, Rode visited members of the Legion and Regnum Christi in Chile. There, according to a Regnum Christi report, he offered words "of encouragement and enthusiasm, of confirmation to this new movement.”  

In the past, Rode had every reason to support the Legion: while other religious orders have languished, the Legion ecruited hundreds of new priests for the church, and Rode, along with other  top Vatican officials, presided over the ordination of many Legion priests in Rome. 

Those impressive demonstrations of the Legion's power to attract and recruit young men to the priesthood earned Father Maciel considerable influence in Rome. During the papacy of the late Pope John Paul II,  Legion priests and seminarians became a fixture at papal masses held at St. Peter's Basilica, while Rode and his colleagues applauded Maciel's willingness to provide financial and logistical support for Vatican conferences.  

The Legion's status began to decline after Pope Benedict XVI ordered Maciel to leave his  public ministry in 2006 -- the first, devastating papal action that appeared to confirm the credibility of accusations that had dogged the founder for decades. Now, like the shaken members of the Legion,  top Vatican officials also must address the implications of their  support for a man Archbishop Edwin O'Brien has described as  "an entrepreneurial genius who, by systematic deception and duplicity, used our faith to manipulate others for his own selfish ends.” It won't be a simple matter, and it now seems increasingly likely that the crisis will shake the highest levels of the Roman Curia.

Legion-Who Is in Charge?

Once again, the long-awaited statement from the Legion of Christ has been delayed. According to press reports, the statement was expected to establish an authoritative narrative and clarify disputed points regarding recent disclosures that the order's founder, Father Marcial Maciel maintained a mistress and fathered a child. It was also expected to set up a plan for dealing with the Legion's on-going problems with establishing its future course and reviewing its charism in the wake of the crisis.

Even Legion priests aren't sure why the statement has been delayed. And some members of the order now question whether the document is being issued by the Legion or the Curia, where a number of powerful cardinals are weighing in with their specific concerns. In other words, who is in charge?

If the Curia is running the show, it must be frustrating and disheartening for the Legion. With every passing day, the silence builds up more pressure on the order and increases the perception of institutional paralysis, arising from the members' veneration of a founder who led a double life. The lack of information has created a vacuum  that is being filled by others who have no ultimate authority over the order's affairs. This week, after meeting with the Legion's director general, Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore  expressed concerns about the Legion, and signaled strong reservations about the order's approach to religious formation. 

Published in the archdiocesan paper, Catholic Review, the article stated that Archbishop O'Brien was "[c]oncerned that the Legion of Christ stifles the free will of its members and lacks transparency, Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien told the religious order’s director general that he cannot in good conscience recommend that anyone join the Legion or Regnum Christi, its affiliated lay movement."   

Legion - Cultural Dynamics

In the course of researching an article on the Legion of Christ, I have spoken with many ex-Legion priests from the United States about the reasons they left the order. One issue they mentioned is the cultural tensions between Americans and Mexicans in the Legion. I have not addressed this problem before because it's not an easy topic to discuss. Such problems are not uncommon in any religious order that draws recruits across national boundaries. When the MIssionaries of Charity sought a successor for Mother Teresa, I recall some reports about tensions within the order regarding the nationality of various candidates, and even, in the case of Indian sisters, their caste . In the end, the Missionaries chose a wonderful woman that I, for one, deeply respect -- Sister Nirmala. However, it's interesting to note that despite the many Indians in the order, and the large contingent of Europeans and Americans, the founder's successor was not an Indian or a Westerner, but a Nepalese convert. The point is: cultural values matter even in Catholic communities anchored in a faith that transcended such distinctions from its foundations. Cultural values shape human interactions,the handling of money, tolerance of corruption, management styles, and the prosecution of evildoers. Several ex-Legion priests said they left in part because their Legion superiors ignored their concerns about a host of issues--from financial accountability to the double standard that permitted Father Maciel to operate outside the Legion's norms. When one U.S. priest shared his concerns with another superior, he was admonished not to judge a "Mexican reality with an Anglo-Saxon mentality." He responded: "I am judging a Christian reality with a Christian mentality."

I am raising this issue because it may surface in the months ahead, as the Legion begins to investigate the possibility that others abetted the founder's misdeeds. Any attempt to "name names" will be complicated by differing cultural interpretations of the Legion's institutional culture, and of specific acts of omission and comission. If the priests close to Father Maciel ignored unexplained absences and troubling inconsistencies, did their silence signal respect for a beloved founder or a profound lack of courage? Compassion for the failings of a spiritual father, or the amoral indifference of fellow travellers? These days, Americans in general are obsessed with "transparency." At times, this preoccupation has more to do with process, than substance. At times, this preoccupation with clarity, efficiency and individual rights appears brutish and antiseptic to Latinos, who value discretion and believe that the family (the Legion?) has greater claims on personal loyalty. But Catholics in the United States also have learned the danger of skirting the truth to "avoid scandal." Ex-Legion priests and bystanders offer a variety of explanations for the Legion's apparent difficulty with making full apologies and acknowledging the scope of the accusations raised against the founder.. One Latin American friend didn't try to excuse the Legion's strategy, but explained that Mexicans prefer subtle methods of signaling dismay, not public pronouncements that make headlines. However, one former Legionary who once stumbled into the dark corners of Maciel's legacy in Mexico, argued that the founder fostered a cult of personality with the intention of discouraging independent moral judgment. All of this suggests that any attempt to justify the order's silence as a legitimate approach -- within the context of Mexican social norms -- ignores the truth that the late Pope John Paul II shared with the world: cultural practices can be employed as a shield for misdeeds. I do not write this with any sense of smugness as an American (first-generation, with a Nicaraguan grandmother). The church in the United States has paid out over $2 billion to victims of clergy sexual abuse. We know the church both here and abroad is an earthen vessel; there will be more scandals to come, until the Bridegroom returns for his Bride. Only the hope that comes from faith in Jesus Christ allows us to continue. And within the Legion, a new found sense of hope will arise from the willingness of its superiors to strip away everything and dare to confront what lies at the heart of their community. If the truth and love of Christ reside there, the Legion will go on in some form. And maybe, as the "reforming" of the order moves forward, there will be a place for that irritating American preoccupation--you know, transparency.

Legion -- Pressure Mounts

For the last week, well-placed Legionary priests told journalists working on the story that a big, possibly authoritative statement of apology would soon be released by the order. After a few days went by, with deadlines shifting, I began to have my doubts that the order would actually release such a statement. Last night, an LC priest told me the statement had been delayed again -- he hinted that the Vatican caused the delay -- and this time he didn't provide a new deadline.

Whatever the reasons for this latest delay, the story still generates news, with more voices raising additional concerns about the order's ability to deal with the present crisis. Today, Fr. Raymond J. de Souza, who has written for the National Catholic Register since 1997, posted a statement on First Things  that called on the Legion's superiors and the NCR's editors to provide a thorough report on Father Maciel's transgressions, and to issue a clear statement of apology for past attempts to defend the founder. Wrote Fr. de Souza:

"A good Catholic newspaper must not shy away from the truth. But it would frankly make the newspaper look absurd if the whole Catholic world is discussing Fr. Maciel and the Register’s pages largely ignore the whole matter.

"Moreover, the odd way in which the news was made public, with rumors and leaks and vague statements from superiors, indicates that the Legion of Christ itself either cannot be or will not be a reliable source of information on this matter. The National Catholic Register might be able to do in part what the Legion of Christ seems unable to do.

"Indeed, even setting aside the particular charges against Fr. Maciel, all those who know and support the Legion of Christ are aware that cultural change is needed. Benedict’s abolition of some of the Legion of Christ’s vows in 2007 indicates that he recognizes this. The general approval that greeted Archbishop Edwin O’Brien’s crackdown on the Legion of Christ in Baltimore last year shows how widespread that recognition is. Part of that cultural change will necessitate a greater transparency and less fear of public comment and criticism. If a newspaper owned by the Legion of Christ cannot be a forum of openness, transparency, and criticism, then there is little hope for the order and movement as a whole.

"The National Catholic Register is a Catholic newspaper and a Legion of Christ apostolate. This crisis requires repentance and change, if the newspaper is to be true to its mission as a Catholic newspaper. As a contributor to the renewal and reform of the Legion of Christ. I urge those responsible for the newspaper to begin that repentance and change."

Meanwhile, in Rome, the widely read Vatican correspondent, Sandro Magister  turned his attention to the Legion's problems, noting the public statements of prominent American Catholics--in and out of the order--who have suggested the "Legionaries of Christ no longer seems to be capable of managing its own recovery."

Of crucial importance, Magister's article introduced statements made by LC priest, Father Thomas Berg and papal biographer George Weigel  to a new audience of important Vatican officials.

Magister also outlined one possible scenario, if the Vatican decided to play a decisive role in the Legion's affairs: "It would be the Vatican congregation for institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life, currently headed by Slovenian cardinal Franc Rodé, that would appoint the visitor and implement his guidelines."

Finally, Austin Ruse in The Catholic Thing  reminds us why the looming possibility of a Legion implosion will have serious consequences for the Church: "No matter what Marcial Maciel has done, the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi remain one of the bright lights in this era of the Church. They have brought hundreds of thousands to a deeper understanding of the Gospel message. They have fostered hundreds of good and solid priests who are a beacon of hope for the Church. Their seminaries are packed with what John Paul the Great called the “springtime of the Church,” young men eager to evangelize the world." 

Ruse touches on one of the many mysteries that pervades the strange and disturbing life, vocation and mission of Father Marcial Maciel. His fruitful, if complex legacy may well lead the Vatican to put off decisive action, allowing the Legion additional time to process what it now must acknowledge to be true, and to prove LC superiors capable of setting an independent course. The question is whether the order will use its time well.

A British Response to Legion's Struggles

Commentary  in the Telegraph, a British newspaper, applauded Father Edward Berg's clear statement of apology  in the wake of the recent revelations regarding Father Maciel. But the commentary expressed concern about the ability of Legion of Christ superiors both to come to grips with the charges against the founder, and to introduce changes laying the groundwork for a reformed religious order. The Telegraph picks up the American Papist's report  on  Father Alvaro Corcuera's appearance at a Kensington, Maryland Mass last Sunday for Legion members. There Corcuera told an audience of worried LC members that -- in so many words -  he did not have any specific access to specific evidence against the founder. The American Papist account also noted that the congregation repeated the prayer of the order expressing the members' desire to be guided by the founder's "spirit."

The  Telegraph commentary noted the obvious issues of concern: If Father Alvaro Corcuerra, Maciel's successor, didn't have "specific access to information" and could not provide an authoritative account, who could? Second, there appeared to be a disconnect between LC members' established veneration of the founder and the on-going revelations of his past actions. Pope Benedict forced the founder into a secluded life of prayer and penance in 2006. Three years later, members continue to pray that they be guided by the founder's "spirit."

I spoke off the record with a prominent LC priest about the Telegraph critique, and his remarks did not inspire confidence that the Legion's struggles would be resolved any time soon. The priest insisted that it was entirely plausible that Father Alvaro had not been able to examine the Vatican's evidence against the founder. Second, while many Catholics have called for a thorough investigation designed to root out the founder's collaborators, this priest argued that Father Maciel may well have acted alone. The priest also explained that it would take "a while" to expunge references to the founder from the order's prayers. Then I asked him whether he could identify specific actions (other than the unannounced  removal of the founder's portrait in Legion buildings) that confirmed his superiors' resolve to reform the Legion. He could not offer any specific examples, but insisted that LC superiors and the Holy See were working together on a plan. To further explain the appearance of inaction on these points, he noted that the order is now established in 22 countries and that it must, by necessity, move slowly to address needed changes. 

(Update: This priest and another LC priest have both told me that they dispute the accuracy of my previous report that the Legionaries made the the revelations about Fr. Maciel in the midst of the Williamson scandal in the hope that they would get less press attention. They claimed to be certain that this was not the case but they did not explain how they were privy to the knowledge.)

Legion Scandal -- The American Card

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?

Legionaries of Christ - Scandal Strikes

The word is out and the rumors can't be explained away any more: Father Marcial Maciel, the late
founder and venerated leader of the Legionaries of Christ -- a Catholic religious order boasting over 800 priests  and over 70,000  members throughout the globe -- reportedly led a "double life."  While
Maciel basked in the strong support and friendship of the late Pope John Paul II, he kept a mistress and secretly fathered a child.

When I heard the news, I thought again about my old friends, Gerry and Michael, two Irish men I met in the 1980s who had left the Legionaries in bitterness and were discerning their future religious vocation. Today, they are well-loved and successful priests, but at that time they were still bruised by their experience with  the Legionaries. They told me, shaking their heads, of the excessive rules that tightly governed the behavior of seminarians -- clothing required during showers, no vocal music allowed, etc. I believed their stories, but assumed they had the bad luck of drawing a ham-handed religious superior. Still, over the years, I kept their story in mind as I met a stream of Legionary priests and women from Regnun Christi, the order's lay organization. Some earned my friendship and respect, but others appeared to have been formed by that same narrow, overly scrupulous ethos that drove out Gerry and Michael.

I have written before about the tendency among some orthodox Catholics to embrace an almost robotic understanding of the faith. "Tell me what to do," they plead to their spiritual advisors. They want to be sure they are making good choices. But, in some cases -- maybe without realizing it -- they also want someone else to take the rap if the choice is wrong. They fear God more than they believe in his love and mercy. Or perhaps their tightly held faith becomes an excuse for refusing both to engage the  complexities of daily existence and for accepting the radical freedom that distinguishes our human nature. Spiritual advisors know this tendency can be a problem: if the advisors are holy and mature believers, they help their advisees learn to grapple with complexity and then make their choice in dialogue with Christ. In his biography of John Paul II, "Witness to Hope,"  George Weigel describes the late pontiff's struggle as a priest and bishop to gently prod his students and parishioners to make their choices, rather than leaving the decision to him.

But what if an order's religious authorities manipulate this tendency to suppress the truth and construct a false reality in its place?

There is nothing new about a priest breaking his vows. The problem is Father Maciel's powerful and trusted position as the esteemed founder of the Legionaries.  The American Papist, Tom Peters, who broke the story , argues that it won't be enough for order's superiors to finally acknowledge the truth about the founder, They will have to "name names" and reexamine the structure that allowed his double life to continue . One possible outcome, according to Edward Peters, is that the Legionaries who wish to remain together "dissolve" and "refound" the order.

Peters previously reported that in 2006, when Benedict XVI forced Maciel's early retirement, the pontiff also required the order to end the practice of "secret Legion vows." Reportedly, these private vows discouraged transparency and made it almost impossible to challenge the policies and actions of superiors. Now, critics will be  asking whether these vows were actually designed to protect  the founder -- and his collaborators within the order -- from scrutiny.

Phil Lawler, the journalist who covered the Boston Archdiocese's clerical abuse scandal from its early roots to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law  in his book,"The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture"  worries that the Legionaries haven't learned from the U.S.bishops' past mistakes:

"Were any leaders within the Legionary order covering up evidence of scandal at the same time that they continued exhorting the faithful to revere Father Maciel? If so, are they still in positions of leadership? A year or two ago, the Legionaries might have answered such questions by saying, in effect, "Trust us." No longer. The bonds of trust are shattered, and can only be restored by candor."

A year ago, I attended a dinner party in New York with a mix of Catholic leaders. The conversation turned to the pope's disciplinary actions against Father Maciel;  several people questioned whether the Legionaries could flourish in the wake of his disgrace. "All the founders of religious orders have been saints," said one friend, "and he is not a saint."  Lawler, however, holds out some hope for the order's future prospects - but only if its superiors pay the price:

"[I]if the movement he founded is to thrive, and the good work done by many Legionary priests and Regnum Christi laymen is to continue untainted by scandal, anyone who enabled the founder's misconduct or, worse, profited from it, should be removed from duty."