In today’s On the Square feature , George Weigel considers what should happen next for the Legionaries of Christ and its affiliated lay movement, Regnum Christi:
1. The prime imperative for the immediate future is to dismantle the “grand narrative” of Legion history within both the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi—the carefully crafted, nurtured, and inculcated story of noble works being achieved after humble and often persecuted beginnings. Some of this dismantling has begun, in recent admissions by Legionary authorities that Maciel committed sins and crimes. But the temptation to hang onto an annotated grand narrative, in which Maciel appears as a flawed man who nonetheless accomplished great things, remains; prior to the most recent concession, by Legionary leadership, of Maciel’s perfidies, some within both the Legion and Regnum Christi were comparing Nuestro Padre to St. Augustine. All of this must stop, and the grand narrative must be destroyed, root and branch.
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