From Marx to Maciel: What An Ex-Communist Can Teach Us About False Catholics

by R.J. Stove

(Crisis Magazine) Four years after Marcial Maciel went to his judgment, his dark legacy continues to erupt in scandal leaving one to seriously question how anyone could remain in or be associated with the Legion of Christ (L.C.).  At a time when even the dimmest male Legionary might have thought it advisable to behave in the most irreproachable manner, we learn that Fr. Thomas Williams, L.C., through a statement on May 21 by the L.C.’s General Director, Fr. Alvaro Corcuera, that Williams had fathered a child. Fr. Corcuera admits that he had known about Williams’s philoprogenitiveness ever since 2005. He did not say why it has taken till now for him to make a public statement of condemnation on the matter. And no doubt the General Director half-expects that the same fantasists and dupes who gave Maciel a clean bill of moral health during the latter’s lifetime will oblige Williams likewise.

Two websites above all, ReGAIN and Life After R.C. (“R.C.” standing for the Legion’s lay outreach, “Regnum Christi”), have played an especially significant role in revealing the extent of mindless L.C. corruption: mindless because the Legion’s ruling body seems to have gone one better than even the Bourbons through its ability to learn nothing and forget everything. In authentic allegiance to Screwtape – who never neglected the need for encouraging believers to acquire, “the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique” – the L.C. has clearly operated on the premise that it is the Church, and that any Catholicism outside the L.C.’s own ambit is not merely dubious but, worse still, boring.

Consult, for example, Maciel’s “Unique Methodology.” This, as discovered by a Missouri Catholic named Patrice Becker and reported by her in 2010 to Pete Vere (whose co-authored books include The Tyranny of Nice), is a methodology that owes a hair-raising amount to … the Latter-Day Saints:

“Having lived amongst Mormons for over nine years, I recommend every R.C. member to read Judy Robinson’s book Out of Mormonism to discover Fr. Maciel’s methodology is not unique at all. When I confronted the leaders of the R.C. Movement at our L.C. school in the suburbs of St. Louis, I was told at first, ‘How ridiculous, R.C. is completely Catholic, and what a ridiculous accusation! How could you possibly compare it to Mormonism?’ Then I explained I was not saying the theology was like the Mormons, just the methodology. They replicated the Mormon methodology to the tee. A R.C. woman’s lifestyle in the ‘movement’ was so identical to a L.D.S. member’s lifestyle in their movement, I challenged a R.C. leader to read Out of Mormonism, and then tell me what she thought. … She called me back three days after reading Out of Mormonism. ‘You’re right’….She was horrified by the exact replication.”

Patrice confronted the Priest at the school, who after initially denying any similarity to the Mormons  then,

“Shut the door, and explained to me that the Mormons are the fastest- growing church in Mexico, so Fr. Maciel mimicked the methodology to stop the hemorrhaging from the Catholic church to the Mormons, and said they were taking what was good from the Mormon methodology, and leaving the bad, like it says to do in the Bible.”

Still the official foot-dragging continues. From Spanish blogger José Martinez de Velasco, come the following acerbic questions – among others – prompted by the Apostolic Visitation (already two years in the past) of the Legion:.... (continued)

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Father Euteneuer: Legion has 'lost it'

By Matt C. Abbott

In addition to Father James Farfaglia, Father Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, has weighed in on National Catholic Register executive editor Tom Hoopes' take on the election results.

Writes Father Euteneuer:


The Legion of Christ priest who defended Sean Hannity's dissent on birth control on Fox News last year was bad enough, but the editorial in the National Catholic Register after the election shows that the Legionaries have allowed another misguided agent to speak in their name and on their watch. They are now officially part of the problem, not part of the solution. Editor Tom Hoopes is a layman, but he does the Legion's bidding and should be fired immediately for his absurd editorial in support of Barack Obama. Even were it not for Hoopes' personal glowing support of the most radical abortion president in American history, certain other points of his editorial are just naïve:

1. 'In America, there's no reason to fear the president.' — Has Mr. Hoopes ever heard of the coercive power of the Attorney General, the IRS, the FBI or the ATF that viciously persecuted pro-lifers in the previous pro-abortion administration? I have personally been visited by the two latter entities, and they are not boy scouts. Has Mr. Hoopes seen the radical federal judiciary (appointed by the president) routinely overturn the will of the people on critical moral issues? Doesn't he know that the president appoints the delegation to the UN which will now use our tax dollars to ram abortion down the throats of poor countries like never before? Let us hasten to emphasize that the unborn 'in America' have every reason to fear this president, but apparently they can be overlooked because, in Hoopes' opinion, Obama is 'a civil, decent man.'
   
   
2. Mr. Hoopes seems to think that he can just have a little gentleman's disagreement with Obama, '...if [he] dare attack the voiceless, defenseless unborn.' This is the measure of the insanity of this editorial. What does he mean 'if'? Is he simply unaware of the public record of this man who is preparing to attack the unborn in unprecedented ways? The radical cabinet appointments Obama is making should be curbing all the naïve estimates of this man's beneficence toward the unborn both at home and abroad. Extreme pro-aborts like Hillary Clinton (Sec. of State), Tom Daschle (Sec. of HHR) and Ellen Moran (White House spokesperson) will only be marshaled as attack dogs of an Obama administration against the voiceless, defenseless unborn. Where exactly is that 'change' America voted for?
   
   
3. Mr. Hoopes says that teaching children to dislike and belittle the president 'undermines civic responsibility and social cohesion.' Well, outside of the fact that it was the Obama supporters who engaged in that type of vicious behavior toward the current president, his idea of 'civic responsibility and social cohesion' does not come from Catholic social doctrine. It comes from political correctness. Our Church says that these are based on solidarity with the poor and suffering, and in violation of that principle, President Obama will systematically exclude the unborn from any measure of our social concern. Mr. Hoopes' 'Can't we all just get along?' ground rules for talking nice about that 'impressive man' are not even realistic, let alone Catholic.
   
   

There is more that could be said about this terrible editorial, but I would violate charity if I went further. Suffice it to say that I thought for a moment that I was reading the other NCR (National Catholic Reporter). HLI has worked with the Register in the past to expose the evils of the culture of death, but I am tired of sell-outs. We decidedly refuse to be part of the problem. I am immediately canceling our subscription to the newspaper and will encourage others to do the same. The Legion has finally lost it on this one, and I will not support such dereliction of duty from a religious order that claims to represent the Church and bears the holy Name of Christ.

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