Las Hijas de Maciel

"¿Es ella, la ahora famosa, más hija del P. Maciel que lo que soy yo? No, creo que no."

Is she, the now famous, more "daughter" of Fr. Maciel than I am? No, I think not.

"Esa chiquilla, hasta ayer desconocida, sin deberla ni temerla, se ha hecho famosa en el mundo entero en un solo día y no puedo negar que eso me ha hecho sentirme un poco celosa, pues yo no saldré publicada en todos los diarios (tal vez en ninguno) y ¡también soy hija del P. Maciel! No llevo su sangre en mis venas , pero gran parte de lo que soy (casi todo) se lo debo a él. Sí, el P. Maciel es mi padre (Nuestro Padre, como cariñosamente le llamamos los miembros del Regnum Christi) y lo digo con mucho orgullo."

This little girl, undiscovered until yesterday, without owing or fearing her, has made herself famous in the whole world in only one day and I cannot deny that this has made me feel a little bit jealous, since I will not come out published in all the daily news (perhaps none) and, I too am a daughter of Fr. Maciel! I do not carry his blood in my veins, but a great part of what I am (almost all of it) I owe to him. Yes, Fr. Maciel is my father (Our Father, as we, the member of Regnum Christi, lovingly call him) and I say it with much pride.

--Comments from a story on Univision.com with my own translation.

Before I write a longer post explaining my fascination with the recent developments in the Maciel scandal, I wanted to mention a trend I have been reading from Legionaries of Christ writing in response to Latin American (for the most part Mexican) coverage of this story. In a fascinating twist of prose, there are a great number of women who are posting as the other, or another, "daughter of Maciel." Now, by this they mean spiritual daughters. But, they seem to express a certain dismissal--and even envy--of the biological daughter of Maciel since, after all, they are just as much his daugthers too.

If you read Spanish, you will find a striking difference in the rhetoric and polemics on this issue. For my part, I find it fascinating and gut-wrentching. There is no doubt, however, that the Spanish commentary reveals what most English-speaking sensibilities will not. In that graphic and less-deodorized rhetoric there is much to be learned from.

In my next post I will begin, at personal risk of crossing into the realm of self-pyschoanalysis, to describe my own reasons for finding these tragic events so important. I hope whatever lessons I might convey will have some impact on the culture at large (or small).