By Cordelia Rizzo
We knew that something was wrong with Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, former leader of the Legionaires of Christ, and his order, long before he was openly accused of child abuse in the ’90s. Last month, two years after Maciel’s death, Vatican has finally officially condemned Maciel’s behavior and is effectively imposing martial law on the Legionaires. A commissioner will be appointed to oversee the revamping of the order, but for any reform to succeed, it is important that Maciel’s scheming, scamming and child abusing are recognized as part a larger problem: The Legionaires’ notorious encouragement of a self-indulgent upper class that has been hindering Mexico for decades.
In 1941, Marciel, then a 21-year-old seminarian, crafted the order he named Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Sorrows. He later changed the name to Legionaires of Christ because he wanted to fashion the organization after legions of Rome. The Legionaires, often referred to as “The Millionaires of Christ,” court members of the upper classes. The way to join Regnum Christi, the Legionaires’ lay movement, is to gravitate toward persons of power and wait for an invitation. Lessons and spiritual retreats within the apostolate are typically offered to prospective members and geared to maintain respect for the order and the leadership of Maciel. Secretly, the potential member is evaluated and if accepted he or she is formally invited to join in via a letter expressing his or her commitment to the legion, which is later mailed to the head of the order. Prestige within is tied to making generous donations to the order.
While the members profess a commitment to sacrifice and social work, much of it is centered on the promotion of moral virtues that only benefit the organization itself. Married women are told not divorce their husbands if they cheat. Men are taught to maintain a tough façade through difficult times. The thinking is that by preserving the moral perfection of their collective, the members will show their love of Jesus Christ and commitment to Christian ideals and become invulnerable to sin, blessing the rest of the society in the process. How this weighs on the actual social perils that plague the lower classes is left unaddressed.
Since critical thinking and questioning of authority are considered dangerous by the Legionaires, it is unsurprising that its members often fall out of touch with larger social issues. Much of what was owned by local entrepreneurs in Monterrey has been sold during the recent socioeconomic crisis with little regard to the workers, just one example of how the lack of critical thinking has marred the capacity of the upper classes to respond to the crisis in an adequate way. The same lack of critical thinking has also left members without any effective means of accepting the demise of the Legionaires’ leadership. Any meaningful reform of the Legionaires must mean a fundamental transformation of its current culture into one that encourages debate within and an understanding of and compassion toward the rest of the society.
Cordelia Rizzo holds a master’s in philosophy from the University of Leuven and works promoting minority rights at Nuevo León’s Human Rights State Commission.
