The Legion of Christ in Rhode Island and the Waste of Faith

Marcial Maciel Degollado

Marcial Maciel Degollado was born on March 10, 1920 in Mexico and died at the age of 87 on January 30, 2008 in the United States. In between those two dates Maciel courted controversy and scandal, but also became “Arguably the greatest fundraiser of the modern [Roman Catholic] church." Maciel's legacy is polarizing. “To Legionaries, Maciel died a victim of false accusations, a conspiracy that duped Pope Benedict. To bedrock followers, Nuestro Padre--Our Father--as they refer to Maciel, was a saint.”
 

The “false accusations” include drug addiction, pedophilia, inappropriate use of charitable donations and, almost quaintly, plagiarism. The evidence in favor of these accusations was so overwhelming the Vatican could not ignore it, and in 2005 Maciel stepped down as the leader of the order he had founded. To many Catholics, Maciel’s religious order, the Legion of Christ, smacked of a cult, but Maciel raised so much money, who was going to quibble? Maciel was hospitalized for morphine addiction, fathered at least one child, possibly murdered his uncle, raped children in his care, and took credit for writing that was not his, but the Vatican’s coffers swelled due to his efforts. At one point Maciel was on the fast track for sainthood.

The Legion of Christ were founded in 1941 in Mexico by Maciel, who was then a twenty year old seminarian. Members of the order are priests and seminarians who take vows of obedience, chastity and poverty. Marciel seems to have honored none of these vows, but one vow he did see enforced was “a private vow of charity," a promise made by every Legion member to never criticize their superiors. In 1959 Maciel founded Regnum Christi, the lay arm of the Legion of Christ. This group would be made up of Catholics who are not clerics, but who have decided to commit to lives of prayer and service to the Catholic Church, advancing its aims. From Wikipedia:

As of 2010, there were about 70,000 members in more than 30 countries. Among these members, there are three degrees of commitment:

1st Degree: non-consecrated lay members of Regnum Christi.

2nd Degree: non-consecrated Regnum Christi members offer a greater service to the movement.

3rd Degree: consecrated members. These are both the consecrated women, consecrated men, and consecrated Legionaries. As of 2010, there were about 900 such members (not counting Legionaries), nearly all women, but also a handful of men. They give up possessions and ties to their former lives much in the way nuns or priests do. They adhere to Vatican-approved statutes that have promises in the same style (poverty, chastity and obedience) as nuns or religious men have vows. This is a new form of consecrated life in the Church with a unique canonical status.

There is also a special reduced level of commitment for young people who are members of ECyD (Experiences, Convictions and your Decisions). The members of ECyD make commitments to be a better friend of Christ, by saying a few prayers, practicing virtue, and doing some apostolate (service project).

According to Jason Berry, who has written extensively about the crimes of Maciel, “The Legion has 21 prep schools in America, a fledgling University of Sacramento, Calif., and operates the nation's only three seminaries for teenage boys. At the same time, prelates have banned the Legion from operating in Los Angeles; St. Paul and Minneapolis; Columbus, Ohio; Richmond, Va.; and Baton Rouge, La. Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul and Minneapolis called the Legion "a parallel church.”

Maciel's Legion of Christ, whether cult, parallel church or sanctioned Catholic spiritual order, came to Rhode Island in a big way in the early 1990's through a meeting between Bishop Louis E. Gelineau of the Providence Diocese, former Governor of Rhode Island J. Joseph Garrahy, and a very rich, very pious and very gullible woman named Gabriel Mee.

From The Rhode Island Catholic:

Regnum Christi currently operates Overbrook Academy in Warwick Neck, described as a language academy for girls age 11-15 from several Latin American countries and Spain; Immaculate Conception Academy in Wakefield, a high school offering grades 9-12 for young women from the United States and Canada who are considering consecrated life; and Mater Ecclesiae College, located on the site of the former St. Aloysius Home in Greenville, a four-year international college offering a bachelor’s degree in religious and pastoral studies to consecrated women age 17 and older.

According to diocesan records, Father Anthony Bannon, L.C., then territorial director for the congregation, petitioned Bishop Louis E. Gelineau in the early 1990s requesting permission for the Legionaries of Christ to establish a presence in Rhode Island.

Bishop Louis E. Gelineau, with co-host Mrs. Gabriel Mee, a longtime supporter of the Legionaries, met on March 19, 1990 with about 50 guests at the home of former Gov. J. Joseph Garrahy to announce that the congregation would expand to Rhode Island. This announcement and endorsement by the diocese was critical to securing funds to purchase a facility from which to conduct their ministry.

In a March 1990 letter to Bishop Gelineau, Father Bannon indicated that the Legionaries sought to purchase for the affiliated Regnum Christi movement to conduct a girl’s boarding school and a house of formation for women interested in pursuing a consecrated life. Father Bannon indicated that a Legionaries priest would serve as chaplain.

On October 30, Father Bannon met with Bishop Gelineau to provide an update about the congregation’s plans to establish a school in Rhode Island. He told the bishop that the school would accommodate approximately 100 students in grades 7-9 from Latin America and Italy. The young women would learn English and be immersed in the American educational system.

In 1991, the Legionaries purchased a portion of the then Mount St. Joseph property in Wakefield, formerly owned by the Sisters of the Cross and Passion. The facility served the sisters as a provincialate, or administrative headquarters, and novitiate.

The procurement of the Wakefield property established the Legionaries and Regnum Christi’s presence in Rhode Island and marked the beginning of Mater Ecclesiae College, which would later move to Greenville.

“I was very happy to welcome them,” said Bishop Gelineau, noting that he was “very impressed” with their plans for a school.

“They were not going to be involved in parish work - not going to take over parishes,” he continued, adding that the Legionaries’ focus was to serve the spiritual needs of the students.

The land purchase and establishment of the new school coincided with a period that witnessed a significant increase in vocations for the congregation worldwide. At the time, there were about 250 priests, and 1000 men in formation according to the Legionaries.

On August 7, 1992, Father Maciel, on his way to visit the Legionaries formation house in Cheshire, Conn., stopped at the chancery office to meet with Bishop Gelineau.

“It was just a courtesy call,” Bishop Gelineau recalled. “There was no business.”

Bishop Gelineau noted that he had presented a few lectures at the formation house in Cheshire, and had also once met Father Maciel during a bishops’ synod held in Mexico.

With Bishop Gelineau’s blessing to establish a presence in Rhode Island, the congregation would eventually open three all-female schools in the state.

And then the abuse would begin.

Immaculate Conception Academy was established in 1991 at 4780 Tower Hill Road in Wakefield, Rhode Island by the Legionnaires of Christ. It would grow over the next two decades into three schools and a residence for priests. The land used for the school was donated by a Maciel follower, the previously mention Gabriel Mee, and her house in North Smithfield was used by five Legion of Christ priests.

Of course, the Catholic Church was completely unaware of any systemic abuse of the children who were brought into the schools operated by the Legion of Christ. Noting that some bishops had banned the legion of Christ from their dioceses, the Rhode Island Catholic reported that Bishop Tobin, in 2009, supported them, believing “…that their presence here is good. I think they do provide some spiritual resources for us. They provide some assistance for our parishes…"

He added: “I do think it would serve them well to be a little more transparent and a little more open about their work and in particular, if the priests could relate more to our parishes, I think that it would go a long way to dispelling some of the mystery, too, because I think that even the priests are a mystery to some of our other priests.

“The more they can do to make their story known, to be more transparent, to welcome people to their facilities, to get the young ladies out there and helping — the more they can do that is to their benefit.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of young women were brought into these schools, to prepare for a life of duty to God and the Roman Catholic Church. Many of these women are now writing openly about conditions at these schools at the blog 49 Weeks a Year. They write about having to comport themselves to the rigid religiosity required of girls who should have been going to real schools. They write of being controlled and manipulated by caretakers possessed of religious fervor but no training in adolescent care, and no understanding of human frailty.

On the website, "Sarita" writes: 

Everything was considered God’s Will: the norms, the schedule, your director, and your spiritual director. If you were told to do anything you were expected to obey instantly with a spirit of supernatural obedience and without questioning. Anytime we were late (even if it was minutes) we were considered outside of the schedule and therefore not living God’s Will for us. I was told by one Spiritual Director that disobeying the norms was a mortal sin and that I needed to confess my infractions in confession (that Legionary must have been bored to death listening to our confessions). 

A penance could be anything from a visit to the chapel to all free times in absolute silence. Absolute silence was kept in the dorms and from the period of time after night prayers till after mass the next morning. It could not be broken, and if you absolutely needed to ask a question, you wrote it down on a piece of paper. Once I asked for a penance because I was having trouble keeping silence in the hallways (never mind the fact that I was a talkative 14 year old girl) and I was told to be in absolute silence for all my free times all day.

"M" writes: 

I came out of Regnum Christi suicidal, depressed with dissociation and symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I am not alone. Many young girls have been tossed out of consecrated life like garbage, just as I was, and left without guidance, support, or any sort of help in creating a new life. I do not believe that I was called by God to that life. I believe that I was brainwashed from the age of nine, and that when they got what they wanted out of me, I was thrown to the curb.

"Frances" writes: 

How is it that 80 girls could live so close together, do absolutely everything together for years, and yet know so little about each other? I think we were only allowed to speak a total of about 30 minutes a day, maybe less. The rest of the time we walked about like drones, taking in what we were told we could take in, nothing more, nothing less.

The very essence of what it means to be a human, to have the freedom to choose was taken away and put inside the tightest of boxes: the schedule. Every minute of every day was planned out, to the point that if you got constipated, good luck. Your free time didn't allow enough time to remedy that problem.

There are dozens of stories just like this on the website. This cruel, institutionalized abuse of children was happening here in Rhode Island for for well over a decade, and no one stepped up to speak for these girls and young women.

Meanwhile, the entire Maciel "empire" was crashing down. Accusations against Maciel began to stick. It is now believed that Maciel fathered as many as three children and sexually abused more than a dozen, both male and female. His organization mishandled money, perhaps criminally, using the image of piousness to convince the rich and the credulous to give their fortunes away.

Today we learned that a lawsuit is being brought by the Providence Journal, the New York Times and the Associated Press to unseal the documents of another lawsuit contesting Gabriel Mee’s will. Mee left her entire fortune to the Legion of Christ. The lawsuit was brought by Mee’s niece and thrown out by Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein due to lack of standing.

Despite dismissing the suit, Silverstein said that there was ample evidence that Mee had been unduly persuaded to give the Legion her money. Maciel gave Mee financial advice and another priest helped her with estate planning. Silverstein said, “The transfer of millions of dollars worth of assets - through will, trust and gifts - from a steadfastly spiritual elderly woman to her trusted but clandestinely dubious religious leaders raises a red flag to this court.”

As a Humanist, I often talk about the dangers of religion. I talk about how concepts like "faith" can lead one to reject reason, compassion and optimism. I see lives and fortunes wasted on religious enterprises that result in misery for thousands of people and the waste of millions of dollars. The Maciel case is a litany of crime, greed, rape, repression, wasted lives and horror resting on the inability of people to see through the lies and false piousness of religion, religious institutions and the people that run them. 

I see high ranking members of the Catholic Church and the Rhode Island state government working together to give the appearance of normalcy and rightness to the idea of a woman leaving her entire fortune to a project of questionable, if not criminal scope, instead of to her heirs or some other proven charity. Many of the people who helped perpetuate this injustice no doubt felt they were doing the right thing, blinded by their faith to the insanity of the idea.