Legionary Of Christ Priests

[Chara Dagres]

Thescandal-plagued Roman Catholic order the Legionaries of Christ has released a report acknowledging four sexual predators among its priests and brothers in all of North America. Two were from the now-closed Immaculate Conception Apostolic School in Center Harbor, NH, according to the letter sent out on Saturday.

The Legionaries of Christ released the letter just days before Christmas, along with a report that acknowledges the decades of horrific abuse by their founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel, a conman, incestuous sexual predator, and drug addict.

But the vast majority of sexual assaults go unreported, according to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. RAINN cites FBI statistics noting that out of every 1,000 sexual assault, only 230 victims will come forward to report their abuse to police. These statistics suggest that the true number of victims of abuse by Legionaires is closer to 700 than 175.

Earlier this year, the Diocese of Manchester published its own list of known abusers, naming 73 priests accused of sexual abuse of a minor since 1950. The list includes names, ordination date, status, and assignments of accused priests, but it does not include details of the accusations.

3 of my brothers and 2 of my cousins were sent to ICAS in the early 2000s and continued on to the seminary in Connecticut. I was 4 or 5 yrs old when they went away and grew up only seeing them every couple years, talking on the phone with them for a handful of minutes, receiving letters that i know now were all screened and monitored. 2 of my brothers went on to study in Rome and Mexico.

My mom was very active in regnum christi. She kept a framed picture of Maciel in our house even after the news broke. I was too young to understand what was going on, but now as an adult I reach far back into my memory to grasp the reality of it all and it is horrifying to see the truth. All 3 of my brothers left the LC from 2010-2014.

Early on my son seemed to be living a life of adventure, athletics and intense study. He seemed to be settling in and enjoying himself. He er\specially liked the field trips which were rewards for academic performance?? They traveled to Canada for hockey, Connecticut to the Major Seminary and to the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

I visited my son at Christmas break. We traveled to Troy, New York to visit his grandfather. From there we traveled to Princeton, NJ to visit his oldest brother, his wife and their newborn son, my first grandchild. We stayed overnight, returning to Troy in the morning. The next day I rose early to drive back to New Hampshire. My son and I talked as was our habit developed over many years of commuting to his school in Ann Arbor, MI.

I know that he would have liked to spend more time with me. It was the end of 1999 and the feared Y2K event was pending. I left him at ICAS in the early afternoon and headed back the 800+ miles to Michigan.

I am no expert on this subject, but it seems it is well past time for the Vatican to take action on this. Again, those lay people associated with the Order, in my experience, are good, observant, and faithful Catholics. Do we have to live through yet another abhorrent scandal and watch as the current hierarchy does *nothing* to prevent it from happening again?

The postulancy ran through the summer months after which we entered the novitiate (two years) and then took our religious vows. I was sent to Salamanca in Spain for a year to study the classics and Spanish and from there to Rome for studies of philosophy. After three years in Rome I was assigned to the Irish Institute, a Legionary school in Mexico, where I worked from 1971 to 1975. I then returned to Rome and studied theology for the next three years. In 1979 I was assigned to the novitiate in Connecticut where I continued working at the novitiate until the summer of 1985 when I left the Legionaries of Christ. I am now a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington.

The question at the center of the discussion I heard on your program seemed to be whether the Legion was a religious order in the normal sense of the word or a sect. In my own experience the order combines elements of both realities . It is an extremely conservative order which has modeled the formation program for its students on the early Jesuits and much of its apostolate is copied from Opus Dei. It has a Constitution and Rules, specific apostolates and activities such as other order have.

At the same time the Legion uses many of the strategies and policies more characteristic of sects or cults and in this it parts company with mainstream religious congregations of the Church. Let me give some examples.1.

The order has the most high-powered recruiting program known to the Catholic Church. Numbers of recruits are important, seen as proof of the validity of the Legion and a way of impressing authorities in the Church. However, the screening process is minimal, and there is no true discernment of a vocation, of whether this way of life is good or healthy for the given individual. The good - human, psychological or spiritual - of the candidate is never a consideration. Everybody has a vocation to the Legion until the Legion decides otherwise. Once the order gains access to a young person, all its powers of persuasion and attraction are trained on the unwitting target.

The Legion recruits many young people, the younger the better, in their mid-teens for the novitiate, even earlier for their Vocation Centers. In these schools boys as young as 11 and 12 are influenced and guided toward a life in the Legion. These schools exist at least in Mexico, Spain and the U.S. (Center Harbor New Hampshire). The idea is to influence the person as early as possible, to "form" that person in the spirit of the Legion so that no other influence can distort or stain his vocation and 'legionary personality". He must be removed from any other influence. The youthfulness and immaturity of the candidate make him vulnerable to brainwashing.

Once in the order the person is subjected to the most intensive "formation" program, i.e. brainwashing. The Legion's for this is 'formation'. Brainwashing is brought about by a combination of different elements which influence and control the person with great effectiveness: for example, 'spiritual direction' and 'confession'. Canon Law states that seminarians and religious should have complete freedom to choose a confessor and spiritual director. In the Legion that is not the case, there is no freedom at all: all Legionaries have spiritual direction and confession with their Superiors, in the novitiate, through their years of formation and even as priests.

This is an aberration because it places the person completely in the control of the superior. It means that that superior who recommends or not a person for promotion to vows or orders or positions of responsibility in the order has access to the internal conscience of the person in question. Confession and spiritual direction are essentially tools in the hands of the Legion to brainwash the individuals to stay in the Legion, to convince them that they have a vocation from God to the Legion, to conform totally with the Legion and the wishes of the superiors, and a way in which the Legion gains total access to the conscience and mind of the person.

Legionaries are constantly exhorted to tell the superior/ spiritual director everything , to hold back nothing, to have no secrets. Other tools of 'brainwashing' are the continuous series of conferences, talks,retreats,exhortations that the communities constantly receive and which repeat and reinforce the essential message.

In all this, the basic message, the bottom line, is that the members have a 'Vocation' to the Legion and this vocation is from God and they have received this vocation from all eternity. It is God's will that they are in the Legion. If they are not faithful to their vocation they are endangering their eternal salvation, they risk damnation and hell. This message is a constant drumbeat throughout life in the Legion, perhaps the most consistent and all-pervasive ritornello that is communicated and repeated in many different ways.

From the moment he joins, a person in the Legion of Christ is submitted to total control in everything he does, everything he says, everything he thinks. The Legion refers to this as 'integration' and a Legionary must strive to achieve perfect integration of behavior, of mind and of will. This means conformity with the will of the Legion in everything. He must be transformed into the legionary personality and to do this must lose his own personality. All forms and expressions of 'individualism' must be stamped out. this is stressed from the very beginning. However, it is done in a subtle way, very gently at first, with smile and good humor, barley noticeable to the victim.

When we joined the Legion we thought it was a mainstream order like the Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits.We were deceived in that many things were not disclosed to us until a later date. There was always a shroud of secrecy - visits home, the apostolate of the Legion (Regnum Christi.). The ground was constantly shifting and changing. It would take years before we would get the full picture.

The person who joins the legion is systematically separated and distanced from any other influence, especially from family, culture, the wider church and society ('the world'). People outside the legion are referred to as 'outsiders', they are viewed with the utmost distrust, communication with them is monitored and usually discouraged (except when the Legion is trying to attract them for the aims of the order. Legionaries are forbidden to communicate with outsiders and must report on conversations and any dealings with people outside the order.

In the Legion of Christ the individual has no privacy, either physical or psychological. He has no space of his own as the superiors enter his room without knocking, go through his room, personal effects and belongings when he is not there (and this without his knowledge). He has no time to himself as every waking moment is scheduled and intensely regimented. Members are encouraged to spy on and report on other members in a continuous way: "we must help brother John and what better way that to keep the superiors informed as they , more than anybody else, can help him." There are rules (literally thousands of them) which direct and control every action and movement of his life (eating, drinking, walking, speaking.)

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