Give me more of a heads up the next go round of novenas, and I will post something about it.

The more I am learning about the Legion, the less and less impressed I am.

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For those of you who frequented exlegionaries.com you might remember that at this time last year all who were interested prayed a rosary novena for many different intentions associated with MM/LC/RC (Regnum Christi, Legionaries of Christ) We have begun another rosary novena and I am inviting anyone who is interested to join us. Please spread the word. I will be posting different intentions on xlcrc.com each day for us to pray for. Please feel free to add your own requests.

I have seen so much happen this past year that has curbed the recruitment efforts of LC/RC and I firmly believe that it is due to the mercy of God Who has used our prayers, sacrifices and testimonies as channels of His grace. I believe as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches “that because God foresees all things, he also foresees our prayers and petitions in advance and incorporates them into the movements of His Spirit in our daily lives as a cause or a motive for His action. From this perspective, our prayers do not change or modify the Divine Will as much as they merit graces that have already been preordained for us should we ask for them” (Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.83, a2). We are merely asking for all of the graces that God has set aside for this situation but if we do not ask many of those graces will go to waste.

The novena will begin on Monday, September 29 and end on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, Tuesday, October 7. If you are interested in uniting with us, the novena will consist of praying the rosary along with the following prayer. If you cannot pray the entire rosary please pray one decade or even one Hail Mary.
For those of you who do not wish to join us in praying the rosary please join us with your own personal prayer or your best wishes.

Our Lady Of The Holy Rosary Novena Prayer

My dearest Mother Mary, behold me, your child, in prayer at your feet. Accept this Holy Rosary, which I offer you in accordance with your requests at Fatima, as a proof of my tender love for you, for the intentions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in atonement for the offenses committed against your Immaculate Heart, and for this special favor which I earnestly request in my Rosary Novena: (Mention your request).

I beg you to present my petition to your Divine Son. If you will pray for me, I cannot be refused. I know, dearest Mother, that you want me to seek God’s holy Will concerning my request. If what I ask for should not be granted, pray that I may receive that which will be of greater benefit to my soul.

I offer you this spiritual “Bouquet of Roses” because I love you. I put all my confidence in you, since your prayers before God are most powerful. For the greater glory of God and for the sake of Jesus, your loving Son, hear and grant my prayer. Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation.

I believe in the efficacy of this novena:
“The Virgin is weaving a network of her spiritual sons and daughters in order to launch a strong offensive against the deadly forces and to prepare for the final victory of her divine son Jesus Christ,” stressed Cardinal Dias.
The weapons are “conversion of heart, a great devotion to the Holy Eucharist, daily recitation of the rosary, constant prayer without hypocrisy, and accepting sufferings for the salvation of the world,” he affirmed. “The final victory will be God’s.”

My question is this: Who is to say that the allegations levied against Fr. Maciel, were isolated to him alone? What of other priests indoctrinated in his particular “practices”? What of the other children who have been, in a sense, raised in their schools in the last 30-50 years? To what “practices” have they been subjected to? I ask these questions, because …. they need to be asked.

Thank you for your thoughtful comment… The above is an especially interesting (if somewhat frightening) question… One I certainly can’t begin to tackle.

My feelings about the LC have gone from enthusiastic to disinterested, to now somewhat disappointed. In my experience, they revealed (like several other orders and groups) in coming into places of disarray as the knights on white horses. They seemed to do especially well among disaffected orthodox Catholics in diocese where there was - to be polite - some disarray from the bishop’s office on down. In the melee of disobedience and disaffection, they did rather well… Now, as things are really turning around dramatically, coupled with the scandals they have suffered…

Well “Legion watching” over the course of the next decade or two will be interesting.

Let’s pray for them.

I know of numerous individuals who did not know each other, but express the same story. They were/are frightened of stepping forward, with testimonies that on any level is damning. Please think about it and prayerfully discern what can and must be done for them NOW. I am concerned for the protection of the numerous children that have already been abused, and cannot, will not step forward BECAUSE of the culture fostered in these circles. Please … if you know anything or have experienced anything untoward…. pleeeaaaasse step forward.

For those in a position to do something or are currently building a case, would it be possible for you to contact me at caritas44@hotmail.com. I’m trying to build contacts and support for one particular individual who’s testimony bears similarities to Juan Vaca’s.

I do not wish to cause unneccessary trouble. I don’t wish to cause scandal. I wouldn’t be saying anything, except I have heard the same kinds of stories too many times from too many isolated individuals. They are young. This wasn’t done 30-50 years ago, … these are situations occurring within the last 10-15 years. Because of the secrecy and scare tactics used by a GROUP of priests in this order working TOGETHER, they cannot/will not step forward.

I am posting on here, in hopes that lighting a match such as this blog post, might give some parents that much more pause about allowing their children to get involved. I am doing what I can to build support for the ones who have tremendous evidence for building a case to bring down this organization. In the meantime, please consider and prayerfully discern for the healthy well-being and formation of your own families.

According to the catechism, the primary right of education belongs to the parents, not to any other individual or organization. Any organization that steps forward stating that the formation of a child’s intellectual, emotional and spiritual development belongs to their jurisdiction, places themselves outside the boundaries of true church teaching. Please be careful!

Many blessings!!

At the time of the ordinations I did not think much more about it. But then after leaving and reflecting more I realized they were playing the numbers games with these sacred ordination to God’s service. I do not believe that this should be something to play around with to please the founder and make a headlines. I think that it was scandalous to trivialize these mens ordination by pulling these kinds of marketing stunts. God does not operate this way. I believe is a very serious and concrete example of how the Legion operates. The individual is secondary and exists solely for the success of the movement. People become objects and thus a means for furthering their goals.

“I wanted to comment on the conclusions that I drew from the “signs” of God’s favor(apparent good fruit) that seemed to be present in RC. If God seemed to be blessing something that we did in RC, for example, a team resolution, a Pure Fashion Show, the fruits of a Familia study, a K4J camp, etc…, I automatically assumed that it was a “sign” that he was totally in favor of RC/LC/MM. This assumption was definitely encouraged by the LC. We were constantly led to believe that all of the good fruit were signs of God’s favor for the Legion. I see now that God was blessing our efforts in spite of the mixed agendas of RC/LC/MM not because of them. He was meeting us in our efforts to serve Him and trying to draw us closer to Him and His ways and not necessarily RC. Similar to the first reading from last week when we read about David defeating Goliath. At first it seemed to King Saul that God was blessing his kingship when, in fact, he was preparing for David to become king. Saul misread the “signs.” Another example is the way that God seems to bless other Christian denominations in their efforts to serve him. They may assume because of those “signs”(the good fruit) that God is totally in favor of the whole organization and that they corner the market on salvation.

I think God will bless anything that we do that is good, true and beautiful but we have to be careful not to jump to the wrong conclusions when he does.”

As John said earlier: “people have had great conversions at condemned apparitions. There have been many heretical sects that have flourished before they died. Where God is present even if the situation is erroneous His grace can still prevail.”

I believe like John that 99% of the people involved are good people with great intentions. I believe that God wants us to “hate what is evil but hold fast to what is good.” I believe He has allowed this in the Church at this time for many reasons; one of which is that the good that the LC/RC are doing is spurring us on to be more evangelical with our Faith. Similar to the Protestant sects. We can use the good we have received, leave the evil behind and work directly for the benefit of our families, work places, parishes, etc… We can use their apostolic initiatives to benefit ALL people and not only members or potential members of their cult. Another reason, I believe, is so that we can learn important lessons about true discernment, charity, humility, etc… When His purpose for allowing this is accomplished He will deal with all of the evil. I don’t believe that the LC/RC movement will last but that He will use all of the good in a better and purer way for the Church.

That aside, I am sorry that so many have negative experiences. I would like to say, however, that not all RC members are brain-washed or blind to the problems with the Legion. I fully recognize that these exist and some of these claims have legitimacy. Yet, those who would detract from LC/RC cannot blame Catholics like myself whose faith has been enriched by the good in RC and the depth of faith found in many LC priests.

Many of my best friends were met through RC, some of them have been co-workers. At times we do, in fact, criticize LC/RC for many things. However, if our criticisms are accurate, the only way to make an already (in my opinion) great organization better is to build up, not break down.

“Ex-members tell me that the LC recruits heavily, then discerns who should be in the Legion-kind of backward, and not at all what I’d like for my son who thinks he might have a vocation.”

I am left to wonder about some of the wisdome of “getting em all in and then sorting it out” which seems to be - we are told - sort of the MO.

Did your friends leave the seminary? I know that LC’s spend a long time in seminary so they might still be in after 15 years, but there is also a huge turnover rate. Ex-members tell me that the LC recruits heavily, then discerns who should be in the Legion-kind of backward, and not at all what I’d like for my son who thinks he might have a vocation.

A gent I knew of who was with them at a seminary in Spain describes an experience that was oddly Potemkin-Village-like wherein there was some official doings of some sort in Rome where they brought in busloads of apple-cheeked seminarians from other seminaries to be visible at the Roman seminary for visitors attending some function or another…

At first it was not clear to this former serminarian of a Spanish seminary what they were there to do - where they going to help prepare the meals, or act as waiters or assist in setting the place up for this reception? - whatever it was - where a number of newsly-consecrated bishops would be in attendence?

As it turns out, NO, they were not there to be of assistence, they were there to augment the number of seminarians visible to the visitors and were pretty much there to be seen. Effectively they were there to make an already full seminary look even fuller and more impressive still. When half the seminaries of Rome were half empty, an army of young men in cassocks in a newly built seminary commanded a great deal of attention.

This seemed to play into a lot of what I have seen and experienced with LC recrutiment literature and videos - showing massive mass-ordination Masses and photographs of very full seminarians (with their hair all parted the same way, “6-foot-two-and-eyes-of-blue”) seemed to be meant to demonstrate that they were a powerhouse, they were the future, and the pressure I heard from folks with Regnum Christi to go on a retreat at the seminary (never mind I am Greek Catholic and that goes against the grain of canon law to recruit Eastern Catholics like that) was always to the effect “These guys are where it is at, that is the future, there will be 5000+ priests by the death of the founder, Nuestra Padre, join them while the founder is still alive and you will one day be designated a co-founder!”

Where I grew up the vocations crisis - for a number of reasons - was rather real. Young pious men I knew were screened out of the seminary application process and for years on end the diocese (which no under a new bishop has 25+ men) would only have two or three in at a time… Vocations seemed to be discouraged and the bishop (God rest his soul) of the time seemed rather fond of getting modern religous sisters to be appointed “Pastoral administrators” of parishes and they would distribute communion at weekday and Sunday “Communion services” and vest in albs and preach… It was pretty bad.

People who were disaffected by such silliness were the prime demagraphic target, I believe for recruitment. The LC and RC members would come into places like that and make it sound like they were the only show going in town and if you wanted to escape that the only real way to be a Catholic and the only real vocations to be had was with them… And it was appealing to some of us at the time in those darker hours - here our dioceses had few or no seminarians, and they had photograph after photograph in the recruitment materials of seminaries where young men were practically hanging out the window. Throw in some photos of the ordination Mass where 60 had been ordained by the Pope (and they held up ordinations for years to get to that point of having so many!) and you can see what a convincing argument it was.

For all the pious, high-minded young men in the circles in which I traveled when I was in my late teens who went into LC seminaries, 15 years on, NONE of them were ordained. What does that say about the recruitment process? The official response was always “well seminary is a time for discernment” but after 50ish years they haven’t been able to screen applicants to the point where even 50% get ordained? I don’t believe that it is because they can’t, I believe it is because they don’t want to - having a lot of seminarians is a big part of their appeal… They know full well a majority of them will NEVER make it to ordination.

As to the stories that get told by ex-Legionaires - this is indeed very bothersome. I mean people come and go and are disaffected by it everywhere you go… But generally not universally so. Why are so many ex-LCs so angry, disaffected and seeming to be hurt? When I left seminary there was no bitterness and I remained in touch with several of my classmates. As many of them as not seem to be cut off altogether with no follow up, no later contact, and often a number of them seem to be bitter and angry to the point of leaving the practice of the Faith altogether for a time if not forever. What is happening?

Looking at this, I wonder how many more ex-Legionaries are still counted among their 700 priests. Paul Lennon, whom they sued last fall? Or the ex-LC they sued in Spain? Juan Vaca? Jose Barba? Bishop Farrell?

odd too that we’ve heard nothing of cotija, mexico burying its favorite son, with all of the pomp and circumstance that would have surrounded the death of a founder whose lay (and religious) congregation(s) included such august members as Marta Sahagún de Fox, Jose Maria Aznar, as well as members of the Garza Medinas, the Slim Helus, and the Cisneros. these aren’t people who “die” and fall down the memory hole, never to be heard of again.

odd how multiple stories were initially released about his place of death and time; how we know almost nothing about what he died from/of; who was with him when he died; what were the circumstances of the same. this about a man who was being heralded as the neo-Black Pope of the Church, and who hob-knobbed with princes and prelates and churchmen of all ranks.

all very, very odd…

“Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote that all great movements eventually become a business, then degenerate into a racket.”

Will the LC become the first to do this in reverse? They certainly have the racket/business part down. Based on my experiences, I doubt they will go from con-men to Christ.