Cover
story Tactics aside, the Legion is growing
By GERALD RENNER
Special to the National Catholic Reporter
Since his ordination in Mexico in
1944, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ, has
pursued passionately his vision to build a militant new movement within the
Catholic church to ward off her enemies -- including communists, socialists,
Masons, secular humanists and even Catholics considered to be
dissidents.
The man known and called Nuestro Padre (Our
Father) by all within the Legion of Christ modeled his religious order of
priests explicitly on an army. It is highly disciplined, hierarchical and
militant. He holds that dissent within the movement is a sin because it
violates Christs prayer that all may be one.
Unity is the supreme good of the movement, inasmuch as the
movement is a body and an army at the service of the Kingdom of Christ,
Maciel advises in a collection of letters that circulates among his followers.
The director, he writes, represents the
authority of Christ the head, and the subject the redemptive obedience of
Christ.
And, he reiterates often, one should not doubt the Legion.
Whatever one thinks of the Legions methods, the order has
grown.
Headquartered in Rome, operating in 20 countries, and enjoying the
favor of Pope John Paul II, the Legion today includes 400 priests, 2,500
seminarians, a corps of consecrated women and many dedicated laymen
and women banded together in Regnum Christi.
The Legion has a spreading network of activities in the United
States, where a Legion presence was established in 1965. Its national
headquarters is in Orange, Conn. In nearby Hamden the order has a publishing
center for its fundraising operations and publications, including the
National Catholic Register, a conservative weekly newspaper it purchased
from wealthy California businessman Patrick Frawley in 1995.
The order has seminaries equivalent to the junior college level in
Cheshire, Conn., and New Castle in Westchester County, N. Y.; and
apostolic schools for middle school-age boys considering the
priesthood in Centre Harbor, N. H., and Edgerton, Wis.
The seminaries are not without controversy. In 1996 three young
novices complained that overzealous religious superiors psychologically
intimidated them and held them against their will when they expressed a desire
to leave. They grew so frustrated, they said, they actually escaped
by running away. Fr. Anthony Bannon, the Irish-born national director of the
Legion, denied that anyone has been held against his will.
The Legion runs a 264-acre education center for meetings of its
members in Mount Pleasant, N.Y. It bought the center several years ago for some
$30 million from IBM.
In Rhode Island, the Legion operates two boarding schools, one for
Latin American girls in Warwick, the other for English-speaking girls in
Greenville.
The network of private elementary and high schools affiliated with
the Legion is the most recent development in the orders expansion in
America.
National Catholic Reporter, November 3,
2000
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