Rating: 
Summary: Truth and Charity
Review: If you want to learn the truth about Fr. Maciel I would highly recommend the book "Christ is My Life" by Jesus Colina. I would also recommend that readers visit www.legionaryfacts.org for the truth regarding the Legion and Regnum Christi. It is hard to understand the vitriole and calumny directed toward these good men and women but I urge you to at least seek some balance while exploring this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Cry
Review: In the late nineteenth century, Norwegian artist Edvard Munch painted the now famous image of a man, woman or child (it is impossible to tell), screaming on a bridge, a face so distorted by anguish as to appear no longer human. Visitors to the museum in Oslo stood transfixed before The Cry, is if they could hear
prophetically the sound of the coming century, its victims and their heroic liberators all breaking the silence at once.
In VOWS OF SILENCE, journalists Jason Berry and Gerald Renner
take their stand alongside the many victims of widespread, patho
logically denied (cf. some of these reviews) sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, breaking silence, bearing witness to traumatic wounds both the abuse and its denial have caused.
In riveting, carefully crafed prose, the authors tell the story of two men: Rev. Thomas Doyle, a cannon lawyer by training who breaks rank to confront the Vatican with its complicity in enabling clerical pedophilia; and the narcissistic, megalomaniac Marcial Maciel, an accused pedophile and founder of the secretice, cult like Legionaries Of Christ. Along the illuminating path of these juxtaposed narratives we learn, astonishingly, that Maciel's supporters include former Secretary of Education William Bennett and Lutheran Minister turned Catholoic priest, author John Neuhaus.
Even more shocking is the extent to which Pope John Paul II, while championing victims of totalitarian governments, ignores the moral cancer spreading through the Catholic Church, the most blatant example of which is his bestowing a prestigious award on Maciel, calling him "an efficacious guide to youth." One recoils from this statement, wondering if the modern successor to st. Peter is naive about the way sexual abuse and the silencing of its victims has made much of his church an incestuous, dysfunctional family or if, in fact, he simply does
not WANT to know.
Jason Berry's previous work as an investigative journalist explores such diverse subjects as religion, the intersection of
Native American and African American culture, the civil rights movement, and the history of jazz. AMAZING GRACE: With Charles Evers in Mississippi chronicles in personal terms Berry's involvement with Evers' gubernatorial campaign in 1971, and the groundbreaking LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION: Catholic Priests And The Sexual Abuse Of Children achieved national renown, earning Berry respect within and outside of the Catholic Church.
Gerald Renner, recently retired from The Hartford Courant, was an award winning staff writer specializing in religion.
In VOWS OF SILENCE, Berry and Renner may well have written the most important, far reaching book yet in the literature of religious scandal. Like Edvard Munch's unforgettable painting,
their work is a cry for justice.
Rating:
Summary: Heart breaking accuracy!
Review: Incredibly accurate. I am a former member of Regnum Christi for many years. It all rings too familiar. I am saddened to see how much harm the Legion of Christ has done, but I am relieved to see that it is finally coming to the surface in the United States.
Rating:
Summary: Biased and hateful
Review: It is important to note that Jason Berry and Gerald Renner are not impartial journalists trying to tell a story. My reading of this truly awful volume is that the authors are sincere, but biased, and are attempting to smear John Paul II for what is largely a failing of local bishops. No doubt Berry and Renner would like to see the laity elect bishops, and would like to see the moral teaching of the church become accountable to the democratic process. That this is offensive to serious Catholics should go without question. In vows of silence two seriously biased reporters attempt to use the sex scandal in the church (which we now know thanks to recent reports peaked in the 70's BEFORE and EARLY in John Paul II's reign as pontif) to further an agenda that would turn the Catholic church into a demoniation ruled by democratic fiat. Strongly not recommended.
Rating:
Summary: An insider's view
Review: It may seem strange that one of the subjects of "Vows of Silence" writes a review, but the book is far too important to pass up this opportunity. Besides, the Legion of Christ has front-loaded the net with its own reviews.
Apart from the information about me (Doyle),which is 99% accurate, the only inaccuracies being very minor, the immense value of this book is the fact that it courageously uncovers the dishonesty of the Legion of Christ and its sexually abusing founder/leader. Catholics from the Vatican on down to the pews are duped by this outfit. Berry and Renner dug deep into the inner workings of the Catholic Church's strange governing world and found corruption. Many people, lay and clergy, are not able to handle what they found, but find it they did. The Church, Catholics and secular society are much better off because of the honest and detailed rendition of the bizarre story of this cultish organization. If men and women of integrity look for reasons for the senselessness of the church's response to the sex abuse crisis, they will find some valuable and shocking answers in this book. The blindness and the denial of justice starts at the top. Thomas Doyle
Rating: 
Summary: Guess who are the ones who gave it one star?
Review: It's a darned good book. By way of transparency, I think that the reviewers who gave it one star should self-identify: they are not disinterested, but instead are 'in the circle' of the Legion. You can spot 'em a million miles away.
Rating:
Summary: The Truth Will Set Us Free
Review: Jason Berry deserves the thanks of all of us, Catholic and non-Catholic, for courageously taking on one of the most powerful institutions in the world and demanding an accounting for its leaders' abuse of their power. This objective account does not attack the Church so much as take its leaders to task for failing to live up to what they preach. Only by facing up to this truth will Catholic Christians be faithful to the Truth that will set all of us free.
An unsettling, but liberating read.
Rating:
Summary: Vows of Silence
Review: Over the centuries, Church members have silenced clerical unworthiness to avoid causing additional scandal to the faithful. Is it not true that Canon Law protects the inner forum of the conscience against irreverent intrusion? Lamentably, the progressive de-Christianization of society is currently spurred on by abuses of ecclesiastical authority so grave that these crimes against the innocent cry out to heaven for justice. We must be courageous! This book is earnest and timely. But then again, "Ecclesia semper reformanda est."
Rating:
Summary: Every concerned Catholic should read this book.
Review: Read this book and judge the information presented for yourself! There are extensive references, many of which can be easily checked out on the internet.For me, this book clearly documents: (1) how our Church leaders, from the very top on down, have succumb to the temptation for "power and control", which Jesus rejected; and (2) how this sin has been and continues to be destructive to all of GOD's people. I am hopeful that the information presented will tear open the veil of secrecy that the Church hierarchy has been hiding behind for too long and allow all of the faithfull to more fully participate in its government and service as Vatican II anticipated over 40 years ago.
Rating:
Summary: Legion of Christ, Stealthy, offical, 'mainstream' Catholic.
Review: Readers of the DA VINCI CODE will love this book. But, whereas Brown's book is fiction and exaggeration, this is truth and fact.
The general reader will find enough background to be able to understand specific Catholic terms and the workings of the Catholic Church, Roman Curia, etc. As an [ex] member of the Legion of Christ for almost 24 years I can state that the information on the Legion is substantially correct. Despite being 'outsiders' to this secretive organization, the authors have done well in penetrating Legion fences and defences. I commend the wealth of knowledge and painstaking research that went into this book. I can personally vouch that the authors checked and re-checked their stories and sources to get the facts straight. They have done an admirable job of fitting all the pieces together into a cohesive whole that makes fascinating reading. Critical readers interested in the Legion of Christ should compare the book's contents with the official website of this Catholic religious congregation, legionariesofchrist.org, and with info and opinions on regainnetwork.org and other pages to get a feeling for this group and make up their own minds. They will find differences, not contradictions in these sources. As you read you, too, will be asked to form opinions, critique and form judgments about truth or lies.
One of the unusual aspects in this work which is sure to fan the flames of the small but intense debate already raging around the Legion of Christ is that it highlights a respectable, powerful and stealthy official religious order of the Roman Catholic Church. The Legion is like the Mexican version of the controversial [Spanish] Opus Dei. Both, according to researchers, possess 'cult-like features'. I am hoping that conservative Catholic readers will not get side-tracted by Catholic infighting issues such as mandatory celibacy & homsexuality and the role they have played in this debacle. All readers can find a wealth of solid information and facts, highlighting for the first time for English speakers the reality of the Legion of Christ --a 'mainstream', respectable and official Catholic organization-- whose controversial methods have already spawned at least three full length books in Spanish [see regainnetwork for further information]. Let the games begin!
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