I’ll be writing later today about the methods some Catholic groups (by all accounts, the LC/RC among them) use and sometimes tragically abuse for maintaining control of its “public face”—methods which they share with cults. But first, I’d like to touch upon the related notion of “transparency,” one of the most frequently heard words of late in connection with the Maciel scandal and the LC/RC.

From the moment of its origin, and in some places still today, where believers are persecuted, Christianity has from time to time been an “underground” religion, requiring a high level of secrecy in its operations to survive. Too, times of great religious turmoil, such as the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, have encouraged the hierarchy, the Vatican, and sometimes the leadership of religious institutes to operate, justifiably or not, depending on circumstances, under the assumption that honesty, or at least transparency, would not be the best policy.

Unfortunately, the conviction that one is surrounded by enemies and potential Judases is not only a sign of potential paranoia and imbalance, it is also a standard reason given by over-controlling group leaders of every persuasion for demanding absolute obedience—in particular, obedience to the leader’s demand for absolute silence to “outsiders” about his modus operandi. This is, of course, also standard procedure for every group with temptations to cult-hood.

Or, as one Catholic group leader of my acquaintance used to say, whenever challenged on his obsessive habits of secrecy, both within and without his organization, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” The “they” in question were as often as not visiting members of the clergy, religious, and hierarchy.

But just as Perfectae Caritatis calls on religious institutes to adjust their charisms to the needs of the times, if the Maciel scandal proves one thing, I should think it is that, in this age of blogs, e-mail and YouTube, the old habits of Circling the Wagons and spin-doctoring problematic practices simply do not work. Worse, they turn what might have been just a small organizational grass fire into a conflagration.

An example comes from an entirely different sphere of culture.  Nearly the same day that the news of Fr. Maciel’s double life exploded in the blogosphere, actor Christian Bale, shooting an intense scene for the new Terminator movie, became enraged with what he viewed as unprofessional conduct on the part of the film’s young cinematographer. Bale, an actor I otherwise much admire for his on-screen intensity, proceeded to ream the poor fellow in a four-minute, F-bomb laden rant that, unluckily for all concerned, was picked up on the mikes. Before the day was over, the rant was all over the internet. Within hours, an entrepreneurial music video geek had turned Bale’s rant into a sort of “rap video,” and by the evening of the second day the video had received six hundred thousand hits on YouTube.

My point being, though the Faith never changes, our understanding of it, and particularly our understanding of the best ways to live it and share it in a particular time, do change and develop. Like it or not, we are living in an age of instant communications and “viral marketing.” Surely if ever there was a time for the new movements to adopt a “methodology” of transparency, it is now.