Más Maciel

[Via Amy Welborn]

Regarding an article on Sandro Magister's blog - apparently, as of yet, untranslated from the original Italian:

The article [appearing in Il Regno, 6/15/2006] undercores that "at present, the Holy See, the legionaries and bishops have converged in emphasizing the charism of the foundation itself as opposed to the charism of its founder, the fruits of the Legion's apostolate rather than the personal intuitions of Fr. Maciel," and observes that "this is not unprecedented in this history of religious orders."

Maciel certainly has his enemies, but I'm not one of them. All the same, I think this is a good thing (and I've been thinking it for a while, so I'm glad that someone else thinks this too). The Dominican order, for example, has an incredibly rich tradition - so much so that it would be tragic to focus so intently on Saint Dominic that we forget about Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Martin de Porres, and so on.

It is rare to see an order fluorish so much within the living memory of its founder, and because of this, there is a temptation to see it as sort of a cult, formed around Fr. Maciel. I don't agree with this characterization; the Legion has long since grown into something far larger than any one man.

This is an interesting development indeed.