When I awake at 5 A.M. and cannot get back to sleep, I meditate on my sins, mortality, whether the alarm system is turned on, and whether we have enough milk for breakfast. Sometimes my mind has been chewing on a problem while I sleep and comes up with some interesting reflections. Last night was one.
Maciel’s life was, if one tenth of the stories are true, both stunningly corrupt and stunningly successful. I wonder whether he was not simply a sinner and a psychopath, but something far more sinister: a false prophet.
Remember that the false prophets can lead astray, if possible, even the elect. That is, their message will be so close to the truth that even sincere followers of Christ could be deceived, and therefore we must be ever vigilant against them. We cannot even rely on the official approbation of the Church as an infallible guide. Infallibility covers doctrinal propositions, not prudential judgments.
Almost everything that Maciel taught was standard Catholicism; but there was a personal twist to it, and that twist was perverted. He encouraged and even mandated the cult of his personality. That alone should have been a sign that his ego, and not God, was the center of his message.
The most recent crop of false prophets (The Bakkkers, Bruce Ritter, Graham Pulkingham) have been often been exposed because of gross sexual immorality; but if they had not fallen into such obvious sin would their followers ever have been undeceived?
It is perhaps a mercy that God lets this happen. Gross sexual immorality is still shocking, and forces followers to look more closely at the whole message. A chaste and honest false prophet would be even more dangerous.
After years of reading, seeing and hearing about these people who start organizations involving young people, I firmly believe the primary reason is for them to have a continuous supply of fresh young meat. And to feed their monstrous egos.
The perversion and hypocricy of Maciel and these others, like Dale Fushek in Arizona, is beyond stunning.
False prophet? Probably. Sinner? Sure. Sociopath? I don’t think there is any doubt. But you have to remember, we ALL meet this criterion. You do. I do. Everybody does. It is only a matter of degree that separates us.
I think the Legion of Christ is a shadow church and frankly I think it was born in the perennial right wing Spanish tradition of religious goofiness. Opus Dei and the Spanish Inquisition have the same parents, an introspective Spanish cultural predeliction to over-religious nuttiness that overtakes the reason of bored people. This has been going on in the Iberian Peninsula at least since the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and it continues vicariously throughout the wealthier classes of Latin America and Spain. This is as much a cultural thing as it is an odd twist from a sick man and a sicker organization.
Having said that, the Legion has raised much money for the Church. They have built seminaries. Now admittedly, the seminaries are more founded on the Council of Trent than anything else, but at least they are seminaries.
We all need to learn from this. The lesson is simple. CHRIST must be the center of our life. Not over-religious goofiness anchored in the Middle Ages.
Thomas Michael Barnes
This combined with the holocaust denier, sexual abusers and in-denial bishops suggests that false prophets are abundant in the Catholic Church.
Dear Leon, I love you man but wake up and smell the coffee. The entire Roman Catholic church is false prophecy. The bible declares: “In the final days false teachers will abound and many will be decieved.” The bible also states: “The unwise will confound the wise.” Leon, you are a Phd. I am a graduate of Calvert Hall College high school. You might be wise but you have been decieved. Suggestion. Attend a bible teaching church of your choice this Sunday. Kurt Gladsky, Founder: Christian Brothers Sexual Abuse Survivors Network
Judging from a Washington Times story today, (2/10/09) not very many people really care about the LC/RC situation. They made their bed, let them sleep in it. The world goes on, the general public has its own problems to deal with.
I have been in and out of RC and have been a quiet critic for years. I have a few anecdotes about this.
A friend of mine was sent to me because she was about to join RC in another town. She explained that she was excited to join, she thoroughly enjoyed all the activities, but unaccountably old depression symptoms were returning. Her husband noticed that only on the days she had RC activities would she need to take depression medication. She had no conscious awareness of anything wrong with the group.
Another friend went to a Legion mass at a school and ‘got the creeps’. She couldn’t explain it any other way. This was an orthodox Catholic who again couldn’t discern anything obviously wrong – she intuited a kind of spiritual suffering everywhere.
Another friend left RC in St Louis. She called the diocese to tell them some of her concerns about the group. They told her it would be appropriate to have a priest say deliverance prayers over her because the language of the RC incorporation promises speak of ‘binding the soul’ to the movement.
A friend of mine who has been in and out says she has a recurring nightmare of babies drowning whenever she remembers her experiences. Another friend says after she left she actually burned all her notes from retreats because they were like a ouigi board in the closet. Another friend says that recalling anecdotes from her time in was like walking through a haunted house.
Does this all sound normal to you?