El reciente reconocimiento de paternidad de parte de un Legionario de Cristo de alto rango (Rector de la Pontificia Universidad para la formacion de sacerdotes, Mater Ecclesia en Roma) senyala una vez mas (ver caso similar del Padre Thomas Williams, LC hace pocos anyos) la falta de madurez psico-sexual de los miembros, la doble vida del individuo y la colusion y encubrimiento de la institucion que se esconden bajo su fachada intachable.
El caso fue tan sonado entre los mismo Legionarios y en el publico en general que merecio una carta ´explicativa´de parte de la direccion general de la Legion; el sacerdote que habia engendrado dos hijos fuera del matrimonio habia sido el rector de su universidad internacional ´Pontificia´para la formacion de sacerdotes de todo el mundo.
Tambien podria poner de manifiesto la falta de formacion y de libertad de consciencia de los miembros que les lleva a guardar secretos y no usar la direccion espiritual ni la consejeria pastoral cuando esten con problemas.
En realidad, el Legionario con problemas puede sentirse muy solo y aislarse ya que bajo un regimen de vigilancia e incomprension llega a desconfiar de todos y no abrirse a companyeros, directores esprituales =superiores ni consejeros pastorales ¨de fuera¨.
Como sucede en estos casos, no se hace mencion de la madre del hijo del sacerdote: como se encuentra ella, que si fuera manipulada, enganyada, explotada, que si hay diferencia de edades, que si se trata de algun tipo de abuso , que como se manejo el caracter clandestino de la relacion….
ni se dice nada importante acerca de los hijos que habran tenido una vida algo extranyo hasta este punto de su existencia…
Those who do not read Spanish may be interested in these English-language documents relating to this story:
Comuniqué from the Legion: http://www.regnumchristi.org/sites/dg/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2017/10/communiqueENG.pdf
Personal statement from Fr. Óscar Turrión: http://www.regnumchristi.org/sites/dg/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2017/10/personalletter06102017.pdf
So here we go again – yet another high-ranking priest within this discredited organisation shown to have been leading a double life. What I find striking are two things from Turrión’s personal statement. First he seems to be seeking to throw some of the responsibility for what he did on to the Legion and indeed the Catholic Church when he writes: “Due to certain circumstances in the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ and many other circumstances in the Church, I began to lose my grounding and became more and more disillusioned… During this time I reestablished contact with the woman and bit by bit fell in love with her.” Actually I feel I can sympathise to some extent with what what he is saying here and with the torment he must have gone through. Then later he claims that “I am resolved to continue ‘doing the truth’ in my life.” Surely this is rather an unfortunate choice of words from someone who has been living a lie since at least nine months before the birth of the first child!
So now we have (at least) three senior priests in the Legion who have had secret children, surely trashing its reputation even further. It makes me think that Pope Benedict made a big tactical error when he sought to reform the Legion rather than just closing it down.
Something or someone must have been holding him back. And I doubt it was the Holy Spirit. I was surprised when de Apostolic Delegate stated that his mandate was to “renew” the Legión, avoiding the term “reform”. So the intervention, right from the start, was very lukewarm, timid, pusillanimous
What has become much clearer since the original blog post back in October last year is the scale of the problem across the whole of the Catholic Church (not just in the Legion of Christ) of priests fathering children. For example, read https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/22/children-catholic-priests-reveal-secrecy-neglect-vatican and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/truth-celibate-priests-father-children-abandon/
In virtually all cases the fathering of a child by a priest involves secrets and lies. These are perpetrated both by the father, the father’s colleagues/superiors in the church and by the mother, who is often bribed into secrecy either by the father or by the church authorities. Based on Richard Sipe’s research into how many priest are sexually active (http://www.awrsipe.com/Articles/Celibacy_is_a_Problem.html) and a conservative estimate of the percentage of this sexual activity that will result in pregnancy, we can be certain that there are hundreds of priests’ children here in the UK (where I live) and thousands of priests’ children globally. Most if not all of these children will have been psychologically damaged by the secrets and lies that surround their very existence. So this is a huge problem and yet another emerging scandal for the Catholic Church. Perhaps this is one area in which the Legion of Christ is no more mendacious than the Church as a whole. Perhaps it is the Church as a whole that needs reform/renewal, not just the Legion of Christ.
Wait! How is this possible? I thought the Legion had gone through a reform. Was this guy hiding? Oh yeah! in his girlfriend’s bedroom.