He continued by noting that when members of the Legion have left, many have suffered “deep psychological distress for dependency and need prolonged counseling akin to deprogramming.”
Jim Fair, U.S. spokesman for the Legion acknowledged to The Catholic Review that the news about their founder has caused “great disappointment” to its members.
“We’re processing that mystery, that the Holy Spirit could use what was very clearly a flawed instrument to do good,” Fair continued. “The Holy Spirit does that with all of us. We think it did it with Father Maciel. So while this is certainly disappointing, we have a charism that is approved by the church and we’ll continue to work on behalf of the church on our various apostolic works.”
Fair also noted that the Legion is interested in working with the Vatican to address concerns about the movement. “We’ll be double-checking our policies and procedures to ensure that we’re in a good position to ensure the integrity of the group,” he said.
The spokesman added that he hoped the Legion will be able to prove to Archbishop O’Brien that “we have some value that would help his ministries and the archdiocese.”