Friday, January 15, 2010

The Legion of Christ: does it have to be black or white?

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When I was a Legionary, I worked for a number of years in the United States at a time when most people here knew very little about us. Not long after I arrived I started to notice that many, perhaps the majority, of our Legionary recruits (this was before Regnum Christi) came from conservative Catholic families. What else would I expect? That's where vocations come from.
In my experience, North Americans (or is it just Conservatives?) tend to see the world as either black or white. I guess the same is now true for "liberals." You are either one thing or another, not many shades of grey. I worried that the influx of right of center young men would not be good for the Legion. Time will  tell. I write about it in the book.

A commentary by Giselle reminded me of my early concern. She writes about a later time, but I suspect her comment supports what I suspected: seeing the world in simplistic binary terms can get one into a lot of trouble.

In Giselle's words: "As a relatively new convert, I saw the world in simplistic binary terms -- those who worked for the Kingdom and those who opposed it. Meeting the Legion only confirmed my nascent views (though I think most young adult see the world as pretty black and white). I didn't take the articles seriously because the authors were associated with the National Catholic Reporter (and I was a Wanderer reader at the time).
I still see the world as a battle between good and evil, but now realise there is far more grey -- not that actions aren't good or bad, but that culpability is harder to gauge, and is God's purview, not ours"

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