Freedom, obedience and religious life

Here's an important blog post by Steve Skojec, a Catholic friend of this blog who posts from time to time, about what he learned from his traumatizing time in the Legionaries of Christ. It's about how personal autonomy yielded to a religious superior can destroy a mind, and even a soul. Steve's testimony really is a must-read in its entirety, but here's an excerpt:

What I saw when I was on the inside was not just the fostering of dependence on superiors and spiritual directors, but a fostering of co-dependence. This leads to a deformation of conscience and will that all but completely strips individuals within the system of their ability to make independent, conscientious decisions.

Which is why, in my opinion, there are a number of Legionary seminarians - and even priests - who do not now, nor have ever had, a priestly vocation. I didn't have one, but that didn't stop superiors I loved and respected from telling me that they "knew" I had one. That kind of certitude in a system where the priests calling the shots are telling you "God's will" can be an insurmountable obstacle to young men (or women) discerning whether they are called to the religious life. And the Legionaries' frequent insistence that even those signs that would ordinarily be considered evidence of a different vocation (say, a strong desire for the married life) are nothing but further indications of God's call to ecclesiastical vows often seals the deal.

I spent many years trying to overcome the guilt I felt about following my heart instead of my superiors' and spiritual directors' wishes that I become a Legionary. Intense, gut-wrenching, faith-damaging guilt. And I was only in their clutches for a relatively short time. Imagine what happens to the boys who join them at the age of 12 or 13 and spend more than a decade in seminary.

I'll never forget one priest who was in charge of a large house of apostolate and school where I spent some time living in community as a layman. He told me that he was sure I had a vocation, and when I responded that I appreciated his assessment, but didn't want to be a priest, his response was stunning.

"Who said anything about wanting to be a priest? I didn't want to be a priest. I still don't want to be a priest. But if God wants it..."

I found this through Mark Shea, who adds his own interesting perspective. It seems clear to me that this whole Legionaries thing was a pretty sick operation that severely messed with the heads of thousands and thousands of good, faithful Catholics. But the problems of the Legionaries and their slavish devotion to ecclesial authority are hardly theirs alone. Mark alludes to a much milder version of this he experienced in an Evangelical church to which he belonged. There's nothing quite like listening to Evangelicals crack on Catholics for being Pope-bots, yet they themselves hang on to the words and thoughts given by the pastor du jour, or hot churchy book of the month. There is in Orthodoxy a highly superstitious sort of believer who will ask the priest for a "blessing" for every tiny thing, and for direction in extremely petty matters. I've read that in at least some Hasidic Jewish communities, the faithful view the Rebbe as a virtual oracle of the divine, and submit everything to his judgment.

I have been inspired by accounts I've read about Orthodox monastics, and the traditions they keep of obedience to a spiritual elder within the monastic community. But truth to tell, they also can unnerve me, for the same reasons that Steve Skojec raises in his piece. Having covered (and agonized over) the Catholic sex abuse scandal, and seen how decent people were manipulated by religious authority, and defended the indefensible out of a sincere belief that by standing up for religious authority, they were defending God himself, I am extremely wary of this sort of thing. I spent a long time back in the day on the phone with the brother of an older man who was in a particular Catholic monastery, and who had knowledge of criminal acts committed by the abbot and others in the monastery. According to the brother, the abbot was cracking down hard psychologically on his brother the monk, to get him to keep quiet and not go to the authorities. The monk's family was trying to convince him to go to the police, but the man, who was in his 50s, was so afraid that to do so would be to betray his brother monks and, in turn, the Lord Almighty, that he couldn't bring himself to do it. He even had a heart attack from all the stress. The monk was going to do an interview with me, but cancelled it. It was infuriating, and heartbreaking.

So when I read all these pious accounts of Orthodox monks putting their entire minds and souls into the hands of their elder, part of me thinks it's a beautiful thing, but mostly it scares me. If your elder is a holy and gentle man, you are in a great place to grow in holiness yourself. But if not? As Steve writes, "there is no power over people like religious power."

In the end, this speaks to the problem of authority in our culture. We cannot live without authority, in part because without authority, there is no stability. Yet we fear and resist authority, and not always out of self-centered rebellion. When I left Catholicism spiritually broken, I was grateful for Orthodoxy, but I knew that I could never again trust religious authority as uncritically as I once had done. Mind you, there's a difference between not recognizing legitimate authority, and not allowing oneself to be as devoted to serving those in the authority as others might be. I certainly recognize in principle the authority of the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, once burned...

A final thought: if we are all our own popes and patriarchs, though, and refuse to yield to any authority but our own autonomous judgment, how are we to know when we are abusing and misleading ourselves? We have all known people who thought they were taking the right way down a religious or moral path, but it was obvious to anyone with a lick of sense that they were self-deluded, and would come to ruin unless they listened to their priest, their pastor or someone with spiritual wisdom and authority. Maybe we've been that person. Maybe we might yet be.