RI Records Show Inner Workings Of Legion Of Christ

This isn't my usual subject matter - as I've found discussion of any and all things spiritual or religious tends to end with a lot of yelling and damaged relationships. But this article I found on the AP raw feed was so intriguing me to that I had to break protocol and share with the ATS community.

Documents released Friday shed light on the inner workings of a secretive and now-disgraced Roman Catholic order called the Legion of Christ, including new details on how the organization solicited money from an elderly widow, eventually persuading her to bequeath it $60 million.

The documents, previously sealed in a lawsuit brought before Superior Court in Rhode Island, include thousands of pages of testimony from high-ranking leaders at the Legion, its members and relatives of wealthy widow Gabrielle Mee. They are the first-ever depositions of high-ranking Legion officials and include how the order's former second-in-command learned in 2006 that its founder had fathered a child.

The No. 2 said he didn't go public with the news of the paternity because the founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, had already been sanctioned by the Holy See for having sexually abused seminarians and forced into a lifetime of penance and prayer.

Pope Benedict XVI took over the Legion in 2010 after a Vatican investigation determined that Maciel had lived a double life, including fathering three children by two women. The pope ordered a wholesale reform of the order and named a papal delegate to oversee it.

Source

While I know that there are those who despise Catholicism, just as there are those who will blindly defend it - My personal opinion is things are rarely wholly good or wholly bad. The Church, IMO, falls into that mix. This article definitely speak to the negative aspects of an organization that is in dire need of an image overhaul and maybe some truly meaningful introspection and change.

As my thread history demonstrates, I have a great deal of interest in the subjects of manipulation and mind control and, no matter what ones opinion of the Church, the truth is that they have been pioneers in utilizing guilt and shame as behavior modification and control devices. As evidenced above, tools still being actively used even in our modern era.

For the story itself? I imagine that Dan Brown is probably already writing the novelization and several major studios are fighting over the rights. Truth often is far more scandalous and inventive than fiction.

~Heff

the Holy See willfully ignored credible allegations of abuse against Maciel for decades while holding him up as a model of sainthood for the faithful because he brought in money

they are Legion, they are many.

the curch is into some ugly s

I feel that when one blames the church it ruins the point of a church. The fact that these negative incidents are happening is because every facet of our society has been infected with cancerous slaves of money. The church is one of the biggest scapegoats because a church exists to bring man closer to his creator. Our churches, banks, corporations, law enforcement, elected officials.... all have some that bow to the dollar before all else. Blaming the church just makes an outsider look at 'church' in a specific way. The whole point is to corrupt and take the good out of the names of formerly astute institutions, created in good will.