Author: Joseph Contreras
Publication: Newsweek International
Date: June 16, 2003
The ultra-orthodox Legion of Christ
displays its clout
For a sense of the new forces stirring
inside Mexico today, consider the Legion of Christ. The once obscure religious
order, founded 62 years ago in the basement of a Mexico City town house,
ranks as the world's fastest-growing branch of Roman Catholicism. It attracts
more recruits to the church's aging priesthood than any other Catholic
congregation on the planet, per capita. The legion's ultra-orthodox doctrine
mirrors that of Pope John Paul II, and its influence reaches into the highest
echelons of Mexico's business and political elites.
THE LEADER OF this order-the octogenarian
priest Marcial Maciel, based in Rome-hasn't lived in his native land for
more than a half century. Maciel was just 20 years old, not yet ordained,
when he established the legion in 1941 as a Catholic army of soldiers in
soutanes, battling to "establish the kingdom of Christ throughout the world."
In practice, that has translated into the courtship of Latin leaders across
the hemisphere-and the order has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. No
other religious figure wields more influence in Mexico than Maciel-not
the ranking Catholic prelate, Cardinal Primate Norberto Rivera Carrera,
nor any of his 110 bishops. Close friends and associates include Lorenzo
and Roberto Servitje, the head of Mexico's multinational food giant Bimbo,
and the country's First Lady, Marta Sahagun de Fox.
The Legion of Christ is no ordinary
religious order. Instead of running neighborhood parishes, its followers
concentrate on missionary work and educating children of the faithful,
the list of whom read like a Who's Who of the Mexican private sector. The
legion owns an impressive network of 10 universities and 154 mostly upmarket
private schools-prompting some wags in the Mexico City press corps to dub
the order the Millionaires of Christ. Its conservative teachings and strict
discipline have struck a chord with millions of Latin American parents-and
not just affluent ones. The legion also runs 17 Mano Amiga (Spanish for
"friendly hand") schools dedicated to the education of indigent kids-nearly
11,000 in total, scattered across Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, El
Salvador and Venezuela.
There is a darker, even somewhat
medieval side to the Legion of Christ. Former members of the order say
that young seminarians to this day are required to practice self-flagellation
as a way of atoning for their sins; many wear an uncomfortable device around
their thighs to discourage so-called impure thoughts. Legion officials
have reportedly hired private detectives to snoop on some of their own
priests. In a 1997 investigative report in a U.S newspaper, nine ex-legionnaires
accused Maciel himself of sexual abuse, a charge he has indignantly denied.
That same article revealed the Vatican had absolved Maciel of similar charges
in an investigation in the 1950s.
None of this has dimmed the legion's
influence. If anything, it looks set to grow under the country's center-right
president, Vicente Fox. The former Coca-Cola executive's triumph in the
2000 election toppled the Institutional Revolutionary Party-and seemed
to threaten many of the overtly anticlerical laws and policies adopted
by the party during its 71-year reign. In Fox, the country's first openly
devout Catholic president in nearly 100 years, many conservative Mexicans
see their best hope yet for restoring the church to its rightful place
of social authority.
Fox is by no means in thrall to
the Catholic establishment. Only two weeks ago the government announced
that five unnamed clerics could face steep fines for allegedly telling
Catholics how to vote in next month's congressional elections. Still, even
as many of his political reforms have stalled in Congress, the Mexican
president has pushed through measures that please the church. Two years
ago he abolished a longstanding ban on clerical visits to prisons and public
hospitals-a measure enacted by the PRI with a view toward separating church
and state. His administration has also slashed the annual budget of the
Health Ministry's highly successful Planned Parenthood program, and a number
of openly right-wing Catholics have been named to key government posts.
Among them is Labor Minister Carlos Abascal, a prominent businessman who
has criticized school syllabi as too liberal. The Interior Ministry official
in charge of religious affairs, meanwhile, favors a constitutional amendment
allowing religious "associations" to acquire radio and television stations.
"The [Catholic] right wing is thriving," says Edgar Gonzalez Ruiz, a Mexican
academic and author.
Many political analysts see in this
the hidden hand of the First Lady, whose association with the legion goes
back nearly 20 years. Sahagun first came to national prominence as the
press secretary in Fox's presidential campaign. But in his home state of
Guanajuato, where Fox previously served as governor, the divorced mother
of three had another identity. In the mid-1980s, when Sahagun was still
married to her first husband and living in the city of Celaya, she was
appointed treasurer of the local branch of the legion's lay movement. Perhaps
that's no surprise; her father comes from the same small town in Michoacan
state where Marcial Maciel was born.
Vatican sources say that Maciel
is working to bolster those ties. The priest was instrumental in organizing
separate papal audiences for Fox and Sahagun during their visit to Rome
in October 2001. He is also, according to Mexican press reports, lobbying
the Holy See to annul their previous marriages, paving the way for a religious
wedding in the not too distant future. At least two of Fox's children,
from a previous marriage, have studied at legion schools.
In a rare interview with NEWSWEEK,
Maciel's deputy Luis Garza Medina denied reports that the legion is actively
seeking an annulment of the First Couple's earlier marriages. (Fox and
Sahagun were married in a civil ceremony two years ago.) The 45-year-old
priest, a younger brother of the Monterrey industrialist Dionisio Garza
Medina, also dismissed talk that the order exerts any undue influence over
the president through his wife. "Fox had a relationship with us when he
was governor, and there have been gestures of appreciation," he says. "But
he is a president for all Mexicans, and no favoritism has been shown toward
us." Father Luis also notes that the legion does not adopt public-policy
positions of its own. The Conference of Mexican Catholic Bishops is the
proper channel for that, he argues, and he bristles at suggestions that
the order cultivates relations with the rich more than the poor. "We make
no such distinctions," he says. "For us, everyone is in need of hearing
the Gospel of Christ."
Perhaps. But while some Catholic
orders such as the Jesuits have distinguished themselves by helping the
poor, the legion under Marcial Maciel has demonstrated a marked talent
for cultivating the more privileged constituencies of Roman Catholicism
at the same time. And in a country with the second largest Catholic flock
worldwide, that ensures the Legion will continue to exert influence far
beyond its numbers for many years to come.
