Nihil Obstat

Bishop Checks Queen, Rooks, Pawns

Demanding   what he calls greater “transparency and accountability” from the controversial religious order known as the Legionnaires of Christ and their associated lay movement, Regnum Christi, Archbishop Edward O’Brien of Baltimore directed both groups to disclose all activities within his archdiocese, and to refrain from one-on-one spiritual direction with anyone under 18.

The ban on counseling minors, O’Brien said in an interview with NCR, is related to concerns that the Legionnaires and Regnum Christi practice “heavily persuasive methods on young people, especially high schoolers, regarding vocations.”

In a June 11 interview on the margins of the spring meeting of the U.S. bishops in Orlando, Florida, O’Brien said he is prepared to take the “next step” of barring the Legionnaires and Regnum Christi from the archdiocese entirely if they do not comply.

The directives came in the form of a June 6 letter from O’Brien to Fr. Alvaro Corcuera Martinez del Rio, the Superior General of the Legionnaires.   The letter capped a lengthy series of contacts between the Legionnaires and the Baltimore archdiocese, O’Brien said, which began under his predecessor, Cardinal William Henry Keeler, who resigned in July 2007 at the age of 76.

The June 6 letter, O’Brien told NCR, represents a last-ditch effort to repair relations. O’Brien said he actually reached a decision two to three months ago to ask the Legionnaires and Regnum Christi to leave the archdiocese, but was persuaded to stay his hand by three Vatican cardinals who asked him to meet first with Corcuera.

That meeting, O’Brien confirmed, took place earlier in June.

In the NCR interview, O’Brien also expressed skepticism that the Legionnaires will be able to implement needed reforms until they come to terms with the seemingly persuasive evidence that Fr. Marcial Maciel, the founder, engaged in activity that was “less than honorable, and maybe even sinful.”