(Alessandra Tarantino/Associated Press) - This Wednesday, May 16, 2012 file photo shows the entrance of the Legion of Christ headquarters in Rome as seen through a gate.
Because of dwindling enrollment — 14 seniors graduated last month — the school recently merged with a Legion-run school in Michigan; in Mexico two programs merged into one that produced 10 graduates this year.
The school’s current director said things have changed dramatically recently and many of the spiritual and psychological abuses corrected. But she acknowledged the harm done, apologized for the women’s suffering and asked for forgiveness.
“For any errors made by our order in the past, we do apologize,” said director Margarita Martinez. “We are sorry these young women have suffered and been harmed in any way.”
In an email response to AP, Martinez noted that not all students experienced the same “level of negativity” as those who wrote the letter, and that regardless the movement was listening to everyone’s experiences as it undergoes a process of Vatican-mandated reform.
Megan Coelho, 30, recalled how pairs of consecrated women would visit her regularly as a child in northern California where she was homeschooled; they told her tales of the wonderful high school in Rhode Island where she might find a vocation and grow closer to God. Coelho, who wanted to be a nun, left home when she was 14 to join.
By junior year, the occasional migraines she had suffered became frequent and debilitating as pressure to conform to the rules and highly structured schedule increased. The migraines would paralyze one side of her body, making her collapse at times. She developed facial tics. Her eyesight became blurry.
“As sweet as they (her consecrated directors) were I was counseled not to tell my parents about it because then my parents would take me home,” she said, referring to the movement’s goal of keeping members at almost any cost. “No one contacted my family. Nobody took me to the ER or got me a doctor’s appointment.”
Eventually, Coelho got so sick she returned home, and the migraines stopped. Feeling better she returned, only to suffer a migraine her first day back. She left for good six months before graduation.
Coehlo’s story is the first on a blog she and other former pre-candidates, as the girls were known, started this past spring, a seemingly cathartic experience since many had never shared their pain with their onetime classmates. The blog, www.49weeks.blogspot.com , is an astonishing read — testimony of a twisted and cruel methodology applied to girls at their most vulnerable age, when even under normal circumstances girls are prone to self-esteem issues, peer pressure and bouts of depression.
Instead of finding support from friends and family, these teenagers were isolated from their families 49 weeks a year, told to unquestioningly trust their spiritual directors and confide only in them. Obedience to the minutest of rules, they were taught, reflected their acceptance of God’s will.
They write about their feelings of inadequacy, humiliation and loneliness, and of idolizing their smiling consecrated counselors. They paint the depths of their depression when seemingly overnight they were told they didn’t have a vocation and should go home.
To read the rest of this story, visit http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/ap-exclusive-vatican-urged-to-close-legion-school-where-teens-suffered-anorexia-depression/2012/07/09/gJQANpL0XW_story.html
