Welcome to Regnum Christi Live. Here you will find comment and clarification – and an opportunity to raise issues of interest. I’ll be your site administrator: Jim Fair, communications director for the Legion of Christ for the Atlanta and New York Territories.
I joined the Legion of Christ in May 2001 to help Legionaries and Regnum Christi members to improve relations with bishops and other Catholic leaders. I have the opportunity to work on a wide range of public affairs and media relations issues, and I’m a sometimes contributor to Catholic.net and the National Catholic Register.
I’m a convert to the Catholic faith and am grateful to my wife for her continuing efforts to save my soul. We have a great son and daughter.
Addressing the Legion’s challenges keeps me rather busy. Frankly, I would rather be fishing than doing just about anything else — and I can do a reasonable imitation of a jazz/blues pianist.
Before joining the Legion I worked for a couple decades in corporate communications, and before that as a newspaper reporter, editor and photographer. I opted out of corporate life as soon as I was “retirement” eligible to fulfill a dream of working for the more socially laudable Legion of Christ.
I was aware of the allegations against Father Maciel, looked into them and became convinced that they were unfounded. After all – look at all the good the Legion had accomplished. And by working for the Legion I would be serving the Church, helping to re-evangelize society and making myself of real use to others.
As we all know today, the Legion’s founder committed many reprehensible acts. I don’t know now, nor will I likely ever know, the whole story of Father Maciel. Perhaps nobody will. Somehow, embodied in one man was the ability to do great good and to commit great evil. Most of us deal with the constant struggle of good and evil within us – in him it was a world-class struggle played out on a global stage.
When I think of Father Maciel’s failings, I am sickened. I am sorry for all the people he hurt, both directly and indirectly. I am sorry for the families for whom he was not a true father. I am sorry for the people he used physically. I am sorry for all the Legionaries, consecrated and Regnum Christi members he disappointed. And I don’t know of any members of the order or the movement who don’t share the same sorrow and shame that I bear.
I also know that it is Legionaries, consecrated and friends in Regnum Christi who have pulled me along the faith journey my wife helped me to begin. So while I am sickened by the evil in our founder I am grateful for the good I have received from the Legion.
Over the past couple years my professional (which is closely meshed with my faith life) changed from defending a presumably innocent man to helping explain how the Legion was working to separate the good from the bad. Each of us has gone through the grief cycle: anger to denial to depression to acceptance. The Legion also has had to go through the cycle as an institution.
I believe we have reached the point of acceptance. But that doesn’t mean that the pain has ended – or the shame. Healing will take time and I hope this blog will help the process.
A site like Regnum Christi Alive can play several roles:
- A response to a particular social or political issue (or candidate).
- A journey of self-discovery for the particular blogger.
- The shameless promotion of a particular product or cause.
- A forum for the sharing of ideas among people of common interest.
- A place to get answers to questions.
- A place to clarify things when an organization is facing challenges.
I plead guilty in advance to my full expectation that at times this site will fall into all those categories. Our primary purposes are to promote the good of the Church, clarify and correct misconceptions about the Legion and respond to comments. But so there aren’t any false expectations, we need some ground rules:
- I’ll be posting a commentary several times a week. During hectic news times, I’ll probably have something to say each day.
- There will be a place for readers to post comments. I’ll have the discretion about whether or not to post a comment. A comment likely will be posted if it is relevant, rational and constructive. A comment likely won’t be posted if it is simply an attack, is longer than 250 words, is filled with profanity or involves a personal issue.
- This site isn’t the place to report abuse allegations. If anyone has a question about safe environment policies or a complaint regarding sexual abuse of a minor by a Legionary or consecrated member of Regnum Christi, Fr Steven Reilly can be reached at Sreilly@Legionaries.orgor called at 301 580 0340. His mailing address is 590 Columbus Avenue, Suite 100, Thornwood, NY 10594-1907. Having said that, if someone makes a comment that suggests there has been any sort of misconduct, I will report it to Father Steven and it will be reported to the appropriate authorities. In other words, I’ll react to a comment about abuse in the same manner an airport screener would react to a joke about a bomb in a suitcase. With what we have been through the past couple years you can rest assured that we take this with deadly seriousness.
- If you post a comment or question that is of a personal nature, I will do my best to respond to you and get an answer.
I have no illusions about this venture. I expect some who read this will fume at what I have to say. Others may enjoy it. I hope that we can open a dialogue and keep it going.
The Legion and Regnum Christi have been controversial. I believe we have done great good. We also have made many mistakes and, in some cases, hurt and alienated people. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we hope that those woulds will heal. I ask for your prayers.
Thanks Jim for your openess and honesty, it truly expresses the thoughts of so many of us in Regnum Christi. Our heart aches for those who have been hurt and continue to hurt. I too have been so blessed by the Movement in my life and thank God for it. I hope and pray that the needed revisions will bring much peace and holiness to all the members and to the Church. I personally look forward to this site, I think it will be a much needed haven for others and a place to connect with others who have hope that God will bring much good out of the evil that was done. God bless you and everyone here!
Nice idea, Jim.
I hope that amidst the newsy postings, this also becomes a place to help all of us who have been involved in RC or LC to sort things out. I sense a real need for honest discussion about some of the things we were taught and bad spiritual formation we received. The pope and the results of the visitation made it crystal clear that now is the time for honest self examination. Let it begin.
Also–is the name Regnum Christi “Live” or “Alive”? The banner headline doesn’t have an “A” in it…
I’m extremely happy to find this new effort, and to find you, my great friend Jim, leading it.
God Bless,
Jim thank you for this forum. I am looking forward to honest discussion even when it’s difficult. Jim, since the Vatican statement came out, we haven’t heard anything in the way of a proactive response from the Legion.
Can you tell us what actions they’re taking regarding the issues raised by the Holy Father? We need to look sincerely and critically at ourselves and begin to purify these things so we can look toward a solid future with all honesty. More than just focussing only on how much we are loved by the Holy Father and the good we are doing.
I offer you my prayers for you and your family.
Regarding a proactive response, please keep an eye on the Regnum Christi website….we’re trying to present everything we can about what the Legion and Movement are doing. For example, within a couple days we’l be posting several video interviews with consecrated women about their reaction to the current circumstances, impact on their lives and vision for the future. Obviously, the Legion awaits the Pope’s appointment of a delegate to work with the Legion — and more clarity on how that will work. In the meantime, there is a great deal of personal analysis on the part of everyone associated with the Legion on how we can better serve the Church.
The name is “Regnum Christi Live.” OK…we were debating the two versions among ourselves and yours truly missed a couple corrections when making the initial post.
Thanks for the gesture toward more openness.
Can you clarify one thing? -“Somehow, embodied in one man was the ability to do great good and to commit great evil. Most of us deal with the constant struggle of good and evil within us – in him it was a world-class struggle played out on a global stage.”
Do you mean Maciel was torn between good and evil impulses? Or that he meant evil, which God turned to good despite the evil intentions? Because I understand wanting to preserve what good there is, but I would have thought at this point the evidence is overwhelming that Maciel founded the Legion as a con. Isn’t that what the Vatican statement meant when it said he was totally devoid of genuine religious sentiment?
Or how do you read that? Is there some sort of evidence that he was ever sincere in his piety, rather than using others’ sincere faith to manipulate them?
Great idea! Good luck with this project. I’ve been following the Spanish version and I’ve found it very useful. There’s a great need for a place to clarify misconceptions and address helpful comments.
I don’t know that I can sort out the intentions of anyone else. I was simply making the point that good and evil struggle in each of us flawed human beings. Most of us do things that by any standard would be considered to be good — and most of us do things that by any standard would be considered to be bad. In the case of Father Maciel, he was an example of those tendencies in the extreme.
In this case, don’t you have to make an effort to discern the intentions, to know how to go on as a movement? To know how seriously and deeply your statutes need revising, among other things? Sure you could be wrong in your judgment, and you’re not his judge on judgment day, but for the purpose of human action, you need to make an ordinary human judgment based on ordinary human moral certainty, no?
Saying he was flawed like “each of us” just doesn’t seem to cut it. I mean, creating a movement in order to use the innocent to feed one’s drug and sex addictions (and to fund one’s secret lives) goes way beyond what most of us mean by “flawed.” Isn’t it important for you and other members, then, to determine whether this was in fact what Maciel did to you?
We’ll never be able to sort out the intentions. But in objective terms, Father Maciel did, in fact, take actions that produced “good.” He also, we now know, did things that were by any measure extremely bad. A doctor could perform an operation on me because he cares deeply about my life, is a man of deep faith and wants to serve humanity. On the other hand, a doctor who is a wife-beater might perform an operation on me because he’ll collect a nice payment and be able to join a nicer golf club. But if he makes me well, it will be “good” for me. I will certainly have more respect for the doctor who is a “good” person — but I will appreciate the good work either does for me.
Nice job, Jim, on the site. Thank you.
1. I notice you call Fr. Maciel with his title “Father”. Some others just call him “Maciel”. He was ordained a priest of God, in aeternum, so no matter where his soul is, isn’t he still a priest of God, and isn’t he still “Father”?
2. Is Fr. Maciel’s soul in hell? Is he in purgatory? Is he in heaven? Are we to judge this at all? Are we to desire that his soul burn in hell for all eternity for what we think he did? Shouldn’t we rather desire only his eternal happiness?
3. The beginning of holiness is humility. What makes great Legionaries great, I think, is their holiness, which cannot be without humility. A think a truly humble priest would say, yes, Fr. Maciel sinned, but so have we all. We are always saying “Kyrie Eleison” for a reason, and that’s what makes them so great – in my opinion.
Jim,
I’m not really following your doctor analogy. Given that Visitator Watty made this comment regarding the Legion, “But, yes, the structure is damaged; in its life, its governance, its formation, its apostolate; because this damage was imprinted by the person who founded the work. This is what worries us: A Legion, a religious congregation that is damaged and itself feels damaged, but also feels the need for outside help.”, it seems that in this case, the doctor not only did not heal the patient, but infected him with something very dangerous.
Whatever good was gleaned through LC/RC came from God, not from Maciel. This is what I gather from the Vatican’s harsh condemnation of Maciel as a man devoid of any scruples or genuine religious sentiment. He had no good religious spirit to impart. You can’t give what you don’t have. Rather, his sociopathic personality severely damaged his congregation. I’ve never heard the Vatican so strongly condemn the state of a person’s soul, have you? I don’t see how anybody at this point can attribute the good to Maciel. The good came from God in his great mercy.
Yes….God does good work through some very flawed creatures. That’s a bit of a mystery to me, but pretty hard to deny.
In this case, the Pope and Visitators have declared people were hurt and damaged by the work of the flawed creature. I guess that’s my point. The good came from the virtue and spirituality well-meaning people brought with them to the LC/RC movement. The good could not have flowed out of a man the Vatican has declared to be completely unscrupulous and irreligious—in other words, a man without any real virtue whatsoever. Only God knows the final disposition of Maciel’s soul–and we should all pray for him, as we should pray for all criminals, and let God be the final judge. But the Vatican has made a judgment on this man’s spiritual state (and they had to, as part of their discovery into how the spiritual state of this founder impacted the order), and it’s not good.
I trust the Pope and Delegate to save the good that people brought in with them–the Pope has made it very clear he will stay close to the LC/RCs throughout this painful process. He also made it clear that the Legion will have to provide restitution to all the victims greatly harmed by the work of Maciel—those without and within the Legion who have been victimized by the system of power Maciel constructed.
I don’t think there is any mystery here. It would have been better had Maciel been stopped in the 50s, during the first visitation (we know this because Christ himself said it would be better for Maciel’s ilk to have a millstone tied around their necks and thrown into a lake—-harsh judgment from Our Lord himself). But he was not, and now the Pope and the Delegate have the difficult work of trying to salvage the good God has mercifully allowed to survive in all the souls who have been affected by this debacle, while at the same time making sure justice is served for all those damaged by it.
OK…when you have a rookie blog administrator (yours truly) you do make mistakes. I want to apologize to Ginger for dumping one of her comments into the trash. It is hereby restored. However, I’m not going to post the spams for free movie tickets that seem to be finding their way into the comment box.
Adveniat Regnum Tuum
Thank you Jim for that blog. I am sure it will quickly become a usefeful communications tools for RC members.
Does Christ want our hearts to be like the one on the RC emblem? His ways are not my ways. Our suffering during this time may make our hearts more like His in charity to build up the Kingdom. How grateful I am to the Holy Father for guiding us now. St. John Vianney used give light penances to those who came for confession and make up for their penance himself. Maybe we should make up for the penances of priests with God’s grace.
Fr. Maciel is indeed a mystery. How does good fruit come from a bad tree? Yes, it was members of the Legion and RC who brought in much of the good, but it was also Fr. Maciel cynically using good means to cover-up his bad intentions.
Such a mystery, how God used even Fr. Maciel’s evil intent to generate much good. Makes me feel like I don’t have near as much good to show for my life as the evil Fr. Maciel. What is the difference between us? I am perhaps not as great a sinner, but I am also not as great an apostle for Christ (even if his greatness as an apostle was inadvertant).
Could it be Fr. Maciel’s boldness? It led him to risk much, even just to cover his sinful activities. But it accomplished so much for the Church, despite his bad intentions. I have to conclude that God can work effectively with a person who dares much, even if that person is a scoundrel, but that even God can accomplish little with souls who dare little.
It would be tragic if Catholics draw the conclusion from the Fr. Maciel mess that they must be timid, lest they be tempted. It would be tragic if Catholics draw the conclusion from the Fr. Maciel mess that they had best not stick their necks out, lest their heads be lopped off.
Christ prefers great sinners to lukewarm souls. He prefers great saints most of all. Are there any great saints today? Perhaps the great sinners are the raw material that God is usually confronted with. It is up to us to give him better raw material by becoming saints daily, not to fret, and cast blame, and wait for someone else to step forward in holiness.
If God was forced to work with a scoundrel maybe it is because I gave him no alternative.
Great beginnings, Jim!
Thanks for the efforts toward a forum of openness to bring our Regnum Christi family together. In our group here in Cincinnati, we have found that talking together, sharing our struggles and disappointments, and our hopes for the future have done much to help each of us make our way through healing. The pace of healing differs greatly for each person, so I do trust everyone will be courageous and share the thoughts and questions of their hearts.
I know there are many good people in Regnum Christi and in the Legion but it seems disrespectful to create a new blog while the Vatican is still working out a new format for both the Legion and Regnum Christi. The Legion is still aggressively fund raising and going after new vocations…let the new Vatican Administrator work up a new way for the Legionand for Regnum Christi before putting up sites like this…it seems like a way to bypass Rome’s authority…I love the National Catholic Register but they at one time defended Maciel and maligned severely those who were abused by him. I just don’t understand why a new blog is being set up…
Samwise…Thanks for your comment. Just to clarify, let’s look at point 6 of the Vatican Communique:
6. The Holy Father, in thanking the visitators for the sensitive task they have accomplished with skill, generosity, and profound pastoral sensitivity, reserves to himself the task of soon instructing how this assistance will be organised, beginning with the appointment of a delegate of his own and a commission to study the Legion´s constitutions.
The Holy Father will send a visitator to the consecrated members of the “Regnum Christi” Movement, who have insistently requested this.
The Legion certainly awaits the guidance of the delegate and the commission’s review of its constitutions. It is important to note that the visitation will be to the consecrated members of Regnum Christi — not a visitation of the Regnum Christi Movement.
I don’t read anywhere in the communique the idea that the Legion and Regnum Christi should stop their work for the Church. This blog is the place to share about the Movement, ask questions and raise concerns.
Bill, thank you for your humble comments pointed at introspection. While we can no longer do anything regarding Fr. Maciel’s behavior, we can take responsibility for our own. Timidity was never a trait that our Lord demonstrated or encouraged us to exercise. Your points give me much to consider.
Thank you, Jim and RC for providing this blog. Prayers for you, the Legionaries, RC, and all Catholics seeking the Way of Truth.
Jim,
Thanks for setting this blog up. I don’t envy your position, but I admire your courage and perseverence. I hope you will keep us all appraised of the specific points of reform that the Apostolic Delegate decides to implement, both within the Legion and the Movement. Count on our prayers for you and your family Jim!