Not being or every having been Catholic, I found this surprising.
The Legionaries of Christ, a hitherto dynamic conservative order of 800 priests and 70,000 lay affiliates, is on the verge of falling apart following reports that its founder, the late Fr Marcial Maciel, fathered at least one child at a time when he was demanding the strictest moral standards from his cult following.Maciel, a Mexican priest who died a year ago aged 87, was lavishly praised by Pope John Paul II but sent into exile by Pope Benedict XVI as punishment for sexual assaults against young men decades ago. It was widely thought that he wasn't a ladies' man. So you can imagine the shock when it was revealed this week that, in old age, he secretly fathered a daughter.
This new scandal is tearing apart the Legionaries, conservative priests known for their extreme preachiness and natty dress. And their lay affiliate organisation, Regnum Christi, is also on the verge of collapse. It's becoming clear not only that Maciel was a liar of the first order, but so that his lieutenants covered up many details of his life while demanding that he be treated as a living saint.
Discovering that a priest engages in sexual depredations has been par for the course for generations, like Democrat officials with mistresses and unpaid taxes.
No, the real surprise to me is that the church apparently condones cults of personality within the church itself, and to what extent. It easier to understand among Protestants because there is no central authority or priesthood hierarchy to constrain the rise of charismatic leaders and doctrinal side trips.
For a hierarchical organization like the Catholic church to wink at the create of cults of personality among its priests suggests extreme weakness in the organization. My relatives in Austria are all nominally Catholic, but non-practicing, which essentially means that the church has virtually no role or influence in their lives. I saw this in France as well---Catholicism was a kind of benign cultural tradition with no real power in people's personal lives and no role in public life. It is within this context that a priest who can demand the fealty of 70,000 adherents creates a powerbase within the church desperate for relevance.
That's a suicidal policy. The tail wagging the dog.
When a Ted Haggerty gets literally caught with his pants down, it hurts his congregation, but not Christianity as a whole. Anything and everything that happens under the umbrella of the Roman Catholic church serves to enhance or diminish it, which makes organizational discipline a life or death necessity.
I have to wonder if the church is now past the point that spiritual renewal is even a remote possibility. I may witness, in my life-time, the death of a religion--by suicide.
