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Dear Father DIAKon,

Is not a similar personality cult associated with Opus Dei?

Alex

Or St. Francis, or St. Teresa, or St. Bernard, or St. Ignatius, St. Louis de Montfort, St. Antony of the Desert, St. Symeon the New Theologian, St. Gregory Palamas? St. Mary the Theotokos?

Canonical sainthood itself is predicated on a "cult of personality" none greater than that associated with the Mother of God.

Eli

I believe on an Orthodox Forum John Paul II was also accused of creating a Cult of Personality around himself as well.

What ever became of Living Colour?

There seems to be a great difference, however, in the "cult of personality" within the Legion and that of other orders and movements. The first being that this cult appears very unhealthy and not necessarily pointing towards Christ, which all Christian saints do. Another difference is that the object of the cult appears to cultivate it and encourage it.

For example, while Mother Teresa was alive, the Missionaries of Charity were known as "Mother Teresa's order". However, in all my dealings with them, I never encountered a cult within the order towards Mother Teresa. They most definitely followed her spirituality, and they greatly respected her, but she was seen as secondary to the work of Christ in their order.

Likewise, I have had many dealings with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and at no time have I see any cult of personality form around Fr. Benedict Groeshel, even though he clearly has done much great good for their young, growing order.

On the other hand, from my first dealings with the Legion, it was clear that Fr. Maciel was to be considered a "living saint", and that the entire Legion and Regnum Christi movement was centered on him, and him alone. I immediately felt uncomfortable with that aspect of the movement, and pulled away from them. However, I have many good friends who are in Regnum Christi, and everything they say and do indicates an unhealthy devotion to this one man above all else. The reaction the Legion has had to this most recent news does nothing to diminish my concern for their unbalanced views. And, most importantly, I see no evidence that Fr. Maciel himself has done anything to diminish this cult (like his recent book that was basically a self-hagiography).

So although on the surface there may be similarities between Fr. Maciel and other founders, I think there are fundamental, important differences between them.

I disagree. The cult of saints is associated with the sanctity of life or virtues of the saint, or of their intercessory powers or both - both of which further the praise and glory of God working through the saint. Neither can be likened in this case to Fr. Maciel.

Francis has spoken well and I have nothing to add other than agreement with his statement. I believe the writer of the article has done his homework regarding Fr. Maciel, and has confirmed some things many previously suspected.

Like Francis I have some personal experience through friends and families of former seminarians, including a close friend who spent nearly ten years with them in formation and left for many of the reasons cited by the article (which he had to find out on his own) as well as my own contacts with Regnum Christi.

Alex - regarding Opus Dei I am not competent to answer as I do not know a great deal about them. I do not see the overt requirement for adherence to one party line emanating from the mouth of one man, but again I am not competent to speak to that from my own lack of experience.
FDD

Dear Father Deacon,

My point was not to claim that Father Maciel was a saint. My point was that most of the characters that I mentioned were hardly unanimously considered saintly in their own time, so that one must take a position of "taste and see" and "wait and see" before hammering home a judgment with any kind of grim finality.

With respect to the congregation itself I think we need to be even more circumspect to see where things go under new leadership.

I suppose I need to pause here and explain my literary style, but I will save that for a new thread if I am called to task.

I hope you are not offended by any of my talk of "grim finality" since it is only talk. I offer no offense or terribly negative judgment against you or your's. I simply find our negative judgments in the Church against Father Maciel, however well informed, a tad premature and limited by the very things I have mentioned in this thread.

Eli

As a life long resident of CT, I remember when "The Hartford Courant" first broke the story of alleged abuse on the front page of the paper on a Sunday. This was a very long time ago. It sent shock waves out in this area for quite a while considering that the LC seminary and US headquarters are both in the state. It's still amazing to me that it took this long for an ecclesiastical investigation and this censure to happen.

My library has it, so I will give it a read. I put it on hold tonight.

Andrew

Dear Eli,

My usage of "cult of personality" is distinct from that of the cultus of dulia given to the saints.

I mean by this a focus of people on a living person based on that person's "charisma" that draws people to that person on the basis of a kind of "psychological enthusiasm."

Not that any real "cultus" veneration is paid to such a person, but that the person becomes a real "raison d'etre" of the group assembled around him or her in a way that could be unhealthy or controlling.

Alex

Dear Alex,

Certainly I understand what you are saying and I am not going to belabor this more than just to say that if you read, for example, the lives of SS. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, they were hardly thought of as saints in their day, one being imprisoned and beaten by his own brother monks, and the other coming -this- close to being accused by the Inquisitor.

Certainly they had a following based upon their own personal charisma, and their following followed at great risk to person and to vocation, for the Church's hierarchy were not entirely convinced either, any more than the hierarchy in the existing Carmelite order. And if you read some of their writings in official translation from the Spanish that does not attempt to make them palatable for today's audience, they may sound exceptionally self-absorbed, and occasionally self-serving. Furthermore their ideas of orthodoxy were in direct conflict with the prevailing tendencies in the Church and they pushed that orthodoxy also at great and terrible risk to themselves, and were actively cautioned against drawing undue attention to themselves, or they would wind up on the flames.

Now I realize that there are many differences, some of them matters of scale, and the organizational opportunity for attracting a great influx of laity that did not exist for the orders in centuries past, and the technological ability to arrive in a private plane, and communicate the person and personally across great distances.

These things all add to the "mystique" of a founder in the modern world and we cannot compare some things because of the great changes. I am not attempting to make direct comparisons at all.

I am simply merely and only pointing out that in their day, many saints, were seen as sinners, heretics, madmen or women or all three together and in spite of the actions taken against them, and some of those actions extreme and leading to the eventual death of the saint, they, the saints, drew people to themselves as persons, and one day that cult of personality became what we see today. It rarely began as we now see it.

It takes time, distance and perspective to make a canonical saint. Some founders will make it, some won't but it does not begin there no matter how devoted the followers and how convicted they are of the sanctity of the founder. That's my only point.

What I keep cautioning against in the Father Maciel case is the gratifying tendency to point and say "Ahhhyes...I knew all along."

No. We don't even know with and great certitude even now, and one does not run risk of false attribution in order to say later "I told you so." That is not Christ-like and may well be sinful.

Eli

Dear Eli,

Well, as someone in training to be an oblate of St Benedict, I think the world of that Saint!

Holy Father Benedict, pray unto God for us!

Alex

We really need to move on. We have become bogged down here and it does not seem to be Church News anymore. Certainly not Byzantine Church News.

Dear Pavel,

I'll have you know that the Cross of St Benedict is a Greek one!

Alex

http://www.osb.org/gen/medal.html

Some info on the St Benedict medal.

I have seen somewhere a Serbian Icon with St Benedict and St Basil together. I just wish I could recall where I saw it.

Recent Article [latimes.com]

I am a "Survivor" in the Byzantine Rite. I have also been in seminary formation for 12 years. I fear if I say anything else my post will be deleted, I'll be booted out and accused of being un-christian.

Christ spoke of a "Millstone" rather than Sainthood.

The primary problem is continued denial and no one want to believe. In the middle of my investigation the priest was promoted and transfered out of State. In reality there was no real investigation similar to L of C. This is not new because the process began in the 70's and some will think "Why NOW"? Why did it take so long.... Denial.