Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [159]
Another source shared a 2005 Legion study of its database.
This study defined “a critical gift [as] a single, lump-sum cash gift of $10,000 or more.” Between 2002 and 2004 (while Maciel’s case lay dormant at Ratzinger’s tribunal), the study scrutinized 295 Major Donors—as they are called—in that $10,000-and-up category. Direct mail accounted for 48 percent of the contributions.
To understand the critical path these Direct Mail donors followed, 137 dossiers outlining their cultivation history were compiled and reviewed …
Nearly 70% (95 out of 137) of the donors surveyed met with a Legionary priest or brother and in 80 out of 137 (58%) a positive critical incident—that is, an event which made a difference in the way the donor thought about the Legion—could be identified from the notes and actions in the donor’s record …
However, only in the Major Donors program do donors with identifiable critical incidents outperform donors without them, suggesting that critical incidents—and the intimate interpersonal relationships which often produce them—are more important at the major giving level.
In analyzing “critical incidents,” the study explains:
When donors connect with the Legion at its core—either through spiritual direction from a Legionary priest, or by incorporation into Regnum Christi—they respond generously. In the words of [Episcopal] Bishop Alfred Stanway: “Money follows ministry.”
In our case, money follows charism.10
Charism, according to Cardinal Avery Dulles, the late Jesuit theologian, is “a gift of grace, conferred not for one’s personal sanctification but for the benefit of others.”11 Charism in a religious order means the defining trait or vision, its unique character. Dominicans are educators known for preaching; Franciscans for commitment to the poor; Jesuits stress analytical thinking, scholarship, and service as “men for others.”
Legion donors, according to the fund-raising study, “respond to that which makes the Legion different from Opus Dei, the Red Cross, or Notre Dame: the apostolic mission and spiritual formation of priests and lay men and women established by Father Maciel.”
The Legion distributed a spiritual guide by Maciel, Psalter of My Days. After his death the order revealed he had plagiarized from The Psalter of My Hours by Luis Lucia, a Christian Democrat in Spain who wrote the work while imprisoned in the 1930s. Lucia died in Valencia in 1943. A Spanish Legionary told Catholic News Agency that Maciel’s text reproduced “eighty percent of the original book in content and style”12—meaning, he stole it.
Maciel’s charism was fund-raising.
The Legion fund-raising report lists seven individuals in descending order of their donations. Listed next to each name is a “Lifetime cash value” and a “critical incident.” The highest donor had a $10,686,341 lifetime cash value. The critical incident came at the Legion retreat center in Thornwood, New York—“very strong experience … spiritual direction with” two Legionaries identified by initials. “Wants to get active with the LC,” the note concludes.
The second-highest donor gave $1,043,629 and “had a critical incident in getting involved” as “director couple for Familia.”
Familia was a ministry to families that the Legion wrested away from the founders, Paul and Libbie Sellors. The couple hired counsel and received an out-of-court settlement.13 Information on this went to Monsignor Scicluna at the Vatican.
The third-highest donor, at $308,435, had a “meeting with LC priest and brother; daughters incorporated into [a youth program] by Fr. Maciel.”
Of the fourth-highest donor, at $204,772, the report states: “Incorporated into RC indicates integration, death of husband freed up money.”
And so on, down to the tenth major donor, at $145,052, next to whom the Critical Incident reads: “Incorporation into RC”—meaning Regnum Christi, signaling that the deal is closed.
The Vatican communiqué that ousted Maciel