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In the 1940s, the founder of the Legion of Christ
traveled and saw firsthand how society was becoming progressively
more secular and it seemed to him that many were not able to
perceive the fact that —as Pope Paul VI lamented in 1975—
“the rupture between the Gospel and culture is without
a doubt the drama of our time” (Evangelii nuntiandi,
20). Pius XII later confirmed his intuition: the Legion would
have to be “like an army in battle array” (Song
of Songs, 6:10) and would have to strive to form Catholics
with leadership for the new times (Private audiences of June
1946 and May 1948).
The Regnum Christi Movement would be, from the
1960s onward, one of the main instruments by which Father Maciel
would seek to form genuinely Christian apostles. A very beautiful
aspect of the Movement is that some of its members would consecrate
their entire lives to God in poverty, chastity, and obedience,
dedicating themselves full-time to works of apostolate.
The Legionaries of Christ gained recognition
as a congregation of pontifical right through the “Decree
of Praise” granted by Pope Paul VI in February of 1965.
In the years of confusion following Vatican II, the Legion of
Christ received an ever-growing number of vocations, consolidated
its internal unity, and extended its apostolic work.
In 1970, Paul VI entrusted the congregation
with the Prelature of Chetumal (today Cancún-Chetumal),
a mission territory in Mexico. For several decades, this mission
was guided by Bishop Jorge Bernal Vargas, LC, and from the end
of 2004 onward, it has been under the pastoral care of Bishop
Pedro Pablo Elizondo Cárdenas, LC.
As a means of passing on the God-given charism,
Father Maciel left an abundant collection of recorded talks
and written letters, not to mention his many personal conversations.
He also wrote the fundamental works of every religious congregation:
the Constitutions of the Legion of Christ and the Statutes of
the Regnum Christi Movement. The Holy See approved the Constitutions
in 1983 and the Statutes in 2004.
As General Director (until January of 2005)
and as Founder, he oversaw the foundation of new centers and
apostolates in various countries, based on the dedication of
many priests and consecrated men and women. The Legionaries
of Christ currently have three bishops, about 750 priests, and
close to 2,500 aspirants to the priesthood, novices, and religious
in formation, with centers established in 20 countries. Regnum
Christi currently has 70,000 members from about 40 different
nationalities. Some of the cofounders died before him, leaving
behind the memory of an exemplary life, including Fathers Francisco
Orozco Yépez, Herminio Morelos, Faustino Pardo, Adalberto
Valenzuela, Antonio Lagoa, Rafael Arumí, José
María Escribano, Javier Tena, and Carlos Mora.
Father Maciel was one of the forces behind the
renewal of priestly formation after Vatican II. He emphasized
the imitation and following of Christ and the importance of
human formation. In decades when Church seminaries were closing
and slowly reopening, the Legion of Christ opened twenty minor
seminaries, nine novitiates, and four centers of humanities,
philosophy, and theology for the formation of Legionary religious.
The Center for Higher Studies of the Legionaries of Christ in
Rome currently forms more than 400 religious. Father Maciel
published the book Integral Formation of Catholic Priests
(Madrid 1990), now translated from Spanish into eight languages.
This book covers some topics which later appeared in the post-synodal
apostolic exhortation Pastores dabo vobis (1992). He
also supported seminarians from particularly needy dioceses
with his counsel, personnel, and resources. His main desire
in this field was to form the formators of diocesan priests,
a topic that he discussed with John Paul II for the first time
on January 27, 1980. In 1985, with the help of experienced Legionary
formators, he started up the Centrum pro educatoribus seminariorum
and in 1991 and 2001 he founded two major seminaries in Rome
and in Sao Paulo (Brazil) to give the secular clergy a select
preparation. By the end of 2007, these two seminaries had prepared
almost 500 priests. Under his leadership in the 1990s, the Legionaries
of Christ also founded Sacerdos Magazine. In 2004,
the Legion of Christ established the Sacerdos Institute
to coordinate and launch some of these initiatives which seek
to help diocesan priests. With the goal of guiding the study
of ecclesiastical sciences in full loyalty to the Magisterium
of the Church, Father Maciel, together with a group of Legionary
priests with extensive academic experience, founded the Ateneo
Pontificio Regina Apostolorum in Rome (1993). It was at
this pontifical university that the first ecclesiastical faculty
of Bioethics in the world was first founded (2001). In 1986,
a group of Legionary priests, led by Father Maciel, launched
the Catholic culture magazine “Ecclesia” to which
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, contributed
various articles.
Through Regnum Christi, Father Maciel established
also an international network of Catholic volunteers: hundreds
of thousands of people who serve in various pressing areas of
social and ecclesial life. In a time of great educational needs
in Latin America, he founded the Cumbres Institute (1954), the
first apostolic work of the Legion of Christ, and Anáhuac
University (1964), both in Mexico City. He especially relied
on the help of several Legionary priests who made these foundations
possible. These two institutions would be the pioneers of an
educational chain that already has more than 200 centers, reaching
some 130,000 students in 21 countries, including 17 universities
and 40 centers of higher education. From the mid-60s onwards,
Father Maciel promoted youth clubs for Christian formation;
in teamwork with Legionary priests and Regnum Christi members,
he created ECYD, which is an international organization of Catholic
adolescents (1970s) and the network of NET kids (New Evangelization
for the Third Millennium, 1990s). In the 1970s, he started up
institutions for the good of families, like FAME and Alfa
and Omega. Under the leadership of the Regnum Christi members,
from 1986 on, the groups of Juventud Misionera
(now known as Mission Youth)
and years later, of Familia Misionera (Missionary Family),
Color Misionero (Challenge Mission Arrow)
for girls, Fuego Misionero (Mission Fire) for boys worked together
to give spiritual attention to a growing number of rural populations...
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with few priests to take care
of them. In the year 2007, 70,000 missionaries set out for
Holy Week missions, including tens of thousands of local catechists
formed by the Full-time Lay Missionaries, an apostolate
that, since 1989, forms and accompanies pastoral agents who
are dedicated to working full-time in catechesis and the development
of Christian life under the direction of their pastors and
bishops. Currently, 672 full-time lay evangelizers are working
in 56 dioceses in four countries. From 1996 on, medical missions
were added onto the evangelization missions. In 1976, Father
Maciel thought of founding the pontifical catechetical institute
Escuela de la Fe (School of the Faith), which is
now present in 10 countries. For evangelization through the
mass media, he supported the interest of various Legionary
priests and Regnum Christi members to develop some national
and international media like the “Hombre Nuevo”
radio and television stations, and “Guadalupe Radio”
in Los Angeles (USA), the Catholic internet web page Catholic.net
and the American newspaper “The National Catholic Register.”
In 2004, with the generous help of Regnum Christi members,
he created the Altius Foundation for the purpose of grouping
together various charitable initiatives that had arisen through
institutions he had founded in the 1960s. Some of these initiatives
include the Mano Amiga school network for underprivileged
children, which today has 28 schools in seven countries, and
the four CIDECO living complexes (in Mexico and El Salvador),
which were built for those who were left homeless in the wake
of natural disasters, and which included various programs
of financial and sanitation assistance.
Father Maciel undertook various
projects in order to meet particular needs of the Church,
as requested by several popes. One of the most important was
the construction of a national Mexican church consecrated
to Our Lady of Guadalupe (1958), the sending of European and
American vocations to Latin America from the 1950s onward,
the increase of an evangelizing presence in Europe from the
1990s onward, the preparation and start of Regnum Christi
and its apostolates in Asia from the second half of that decade
onward, and his participation in meetings with the founders
and directors of the new Catholic movements.
Invited by Pope John Paul II,
Father Maciel participated in the bishops’ synods on
priestly formation (1990), on consecrated life (1994), and
on the Americas (1997). He also took part in the Fourth General
Conference of the Latin American Episcopate in Santo Domingo
(1992). He participated in the official presentation to the
press of the apostolic exhortation Pastores dabo vobis (1992)
and in two congresses organized by dicasteries of the Holy
See (1995 and 2000). In 1993, John Paul II named him a member
of the Permanent Interdicasterial Commission for a More Equitable
Distribution of Priests Throughout the World, and in 1994,
named him a consulter for the Congregation for the Clergy.
After directing the congregation
for 64 years, Father Maciel declined to accept, in January
of 2005, reelection as General Director. He preferred to see
another priest of the congregation take on the responsibility
during his own lifetime. For this reason, the General Chapter
elected Father Álvaro Corcuera Martínez del
Río as the new General Director.
Father Maciel spent his final
years in a private life of prayer, in a spirit of obedience,
submission, and reverence for the Catholic Church which he
had so deeply loved and taught others to love. His wish was
for the congregation to remain centered on the love of Christ
and on total loyalty and service to the Church. He wanted
an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, at whose feet he was ordained,
to be placed over his tomb.
In Christ Is My Life. Jesus
Colina interviews Marcial Maciel (Manchester, NH, 2003),
Father Maciel left a published summary of his thought. For
him, the experience of the love of God, revealed above all
in the Incarnation of the Word of God for our salvation, is
the starting point of an authentic Christian life, understood
as an effort to respond fully to that love. Thus, the charism
of the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi Movement consists
in “knowing, living, and preaching the commandment of
love that Christ the Redeemer came to bring us by his Incarnation”
(Decree of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated
Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Prot. n. R. 111- 1/2004).
The spirituality of the Legion
and of Regnum Christi is Christ-centered; that is, it emphasizes
a personal encounter with Christ, whom one must know, love,
imitate, and share with others. The authenticity of Christianity
is proven in Gospel charity, expressed through speaking well
of others and of working to bring as many people as possible
to know Christ within the Church he founded.
Thus, Father Maciel conceived
the Legion of Christ, the Regnum Christi Movement, and its
apostolates as instruments at the service of the Church, the
Pope, the bishops, and the parish priests. Those who live
this charism insist very much on the “apostolic character
of the Christian vocation” because, like the commandment
of charity, Christ’s missionary mandate is directed
to all of his disciples and all of the baptized who have a
“commitment to holiness and evangelization” (Christ
Is My Life). This is the reason for the importance that
Regnum Christi has given to the specific role of the lay people,
alongside the role of the clergy, in fulfilling the Church’s
mission.
When founding and building up
these apostolates and projects at the service of the Church
and society, Father Marcial Maciel always considered God to
be the protagonist. If thousands of people have benefited
from what he and many cofounder priests and lay people, together
with him, have done to make the congregation of the Legionaries
of Christ and the Regnum Christi Movement a reality, it is
due to the action of God's grace.
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