Matthew 7:17 & The Legion of Christ: A Question

"Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit."  Matthew 7:17

"A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth that which is evil. For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."  Luke 6:45

These two passages (taken from the Douay-Rheims version of the bible) have been rolling over in my head for the last week since learning of the confirmations that many (most?) of the allegations against Fr. Marcial Maciel, the founder of the apostolic order Legion of Christ and the lay apostolic association Regnum Christi.   Added to the list of accusations which were previously made is the confirmed fact that Fr. Maciel fathered a daughter who is now 22 years old and her mother is only 37 years old (which mathematics will tell you was 14 or 15 when she conceived).

Often on blogs people posit their positions as provocations or opinions, using the blog primarily as a medium of judgment on the events around them.  That is usually my reason, as well.  However, today I offer this post primarily to engage you to think with me what these two passages mean and how the current situation that the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi can be understood in light of them.

I want to avoid a moralistic approach and at the same time I want to avoid an interpretation of those passages as deterministic.  I also don't want my reflection to remain at the surface of my annoyance with the LC or RC in my particular encounters with them.  Instead, I want to try to understand what exactly a "fruit" is and more so, I want to understand how much the "charism" of any religious order or lay movement is tied to the person of the founder, and whether or not this "tie" is necessary to or a consequence of the moral life of the founder.

I also want to understand more about the Legion's formation and structure.  Are some of it's tendencies (the focus on appearance, sameness, moral rigidity, secrecy, the apostolate) a result of some work Christ was doing "through" a fragile, broken creature or are they the result of a dualism that emerges as a result of his constant rejection of Christ's grace.

Here are some thoughts:

1. The focus on appearances belies the tendency in someone who lives a double life to convince all those around him that "everything is fine."  It's not a coincidence that all the Legionaries are told time and time again that their appearance is fundamental in not interfering with someone hearing the gospel message.

2.  The focus on the "sameness" of all Legionaries could also be a symptom of the above mentioned problem.  The more everyone is the same, the more the person who is living the double life can rely on those patterns and expectations to cover their own duplicity.

3.  The focus on moral rigidity often what we call "reactionary."  The reaction is to the person's own sinfulness.  Sin, in the Christian life, usually evokes shame.  Since serious patterns of sin result from our own choices, we often think that our choices and actions will lead us back to the right path.  This is a typical misunderstanding of the Christian life in which instead of a complete reliance on Christ, we rely on the rules as the path to holiness.

4.  The focus on secrecy is almost self-evident.  When you have something to hide you treat everything as if it is "private" and therefore create patterns of behavior where you "hide from the left hand what the right hand is doing."  This isn't always negative.  Somethings should be private.  But when everything has the potential to be a little damaging or negative is treated with "secrecy" we can really occlude the truth.

5.  The focus on the apostolate is troubling because it avoids the personal interior work of self-awareness and self-acknoledgment.  This is true in my experience.  Often when I focus on my work as the most important thing it is because there is an interior rejection of my dependence on Christ and an inability to be silent in front of him and recognize what I am in front of him.  Even prayer can be full of this "business" so even hours in front of the Blessed Sacrament can amount to a "nothingness" if I am not present with all of myself infront of the "You" that makes me. 

In addition, I think it also can be used a "measure" of one self, in the way that the protestant tradition has looked at it.  "I must be good with God, because look at how successful my apostolate is going."  It's the tendency that many had to say "Fr. Maciel must be a saint, because look at all the good that the Legion does, look at all the seminarians, look at how faithful they are to the pope, only a saint could generate all of that."  If he's not a saint, are those things that he generated now evil?

I offer these thoughts for your comments.

Unity, Community, Communication

It seems to me that the current hullabaloo regarding the merciful gesture of Pope Benedict toward the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X is probably well deserved.  This dialogue with the modern world, entered into at the Second Vatican Council is something that the various offices of the Curia have yet to really understand.  Worse still, the utter incompetence in public communication is a sign of what seems to be a lack of inter-office communication as well.  I'm not looking for Vatican spin-doctors, but it would be intelligent if the proposal was made in a reasonable fashion, trying to account for all of the factors involved in such an announcement, including public reaction.  Even if they did not know Williamson was a holocaust denier (which as many have pointed out, a simple Google search would have resolved) there is still the fact that this type of gesture brings out the worst in the "spirit of Vatican II" crowd.

Still, the most acute evaluation of the reaction lies in the criticism levied at the pope that is symptomatic of the current cultural position toward the Church:  it is stupid and deceitful and should be held accountable to an authority above (although decidedly below, in real authority) beyond itself:  the "people".  That this comes from outside the Church is hardly a surprise, although the vehemence from those at the highest levels of culture and political responsibility is troubling.  However, when you see among (albeit liberal) theologians a call for the pope's resignation over such a mishandling should give everyone pause. 

This position is what we are all tending toward in the way we look at the successor of Peter and the institutional apparatus that history has provided as a means for him to exercise his pastoral responsibility.  To the world, and increasingly to us, he is a political head, a man in whom is vested responsibility and power, but not authority in the strict sense.  Even among its own agencies ( Radio Vaticana in Germany) there are those who suggest that the pope resign to "maintain the credibility of the Holy See."  Of course, what saddens me is that they do not have the courage to offer their own resignations for failing to diligently fulfill their own responsibility to help the Pope do his job well.

When Catherine of Sienna was pained by the Western Schism in 1376, she very acutely felt it was HER personal call to live a holier life, to travel to Avingon in 1376 and beg the pope to return to Rome.  When she was unsuccessful she did not blame him, but rather deepened her desire that she be more certain of Christ so that she might communicate him more.  She was intimately aware of the fact that the "problems" (in the Greek sense) of the Church were her problems.

This modern notion that everything can be cured by management, political restructuring, and new leadership is anti-Catholic, anti-Christian.  It's as if we want to try to be good without Jesus, as if he is the result of our goodness, or worse yet, a symbolic figurehead of an organization that does good work, even the "best" work, in the world and that "good work" is what is most important and should be allowed to continue at all cost.

Bullshit!