Allocutio at July 2014 Concilium Meeting by Fr. Bede McGregor, OP

True Devotion to the Nation
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One of the fruits of the monthly meeting of Concilium is the growing awareness of the universal presence of the Legion in the modern world. The Legion is present in the vast majority of the countries of the world and in many of them the Legion is thriving. In some countries the Legion is surviving in the midst of truly major difficulties: it struggles but heroically perseveres in war zones, in places of aggressive persecution of Christians, in areas of great poverty, social injustice and underdevelopment and from time to time there are massive natural disasters in parts of the world where the Legion has been planted. The heroic legionaries in those particular areas need the support of our daily prayer and we continually thank God for their heroic Christian witness.

In Europe and North America and perhaps in Oceania too the Legion may be facing even greater challenges because while the majority of the people in these areas may enjoy some degree of material prosperity and representational democracy there is a real danger that the economically developed world is losing its very soul. There is a relentless effort to normalise the evils of contraception and abortion, euthanasia, same gender partnerships, the exclusion of religion from public life, economic policies with little or no moral or ethical dimension. In short one could reasonably argue that there is a profound crisis of faith and basic human values in the materially developed world. Frank Duff quotes in the Handbook one of his great mentors, Blessed Cardinal John Newman: ‘a material advance unaccompanied by a corresponding moral manifestation is almost too awful to consider. The correct balance must be preserved.’ A True Devotion to the Nation is an absolute necessity everywhere in the world today as always.

The question then arises very sharply: what does the Legion have to offer countries of the world where it is present? What contribution if any can the Legion make to the socio-economic, political, and cultural spheres of a nation? What role could the Legion play in a true building up of a Nation, or in the transformation of a culture that has lost its way in so many important areas? The response of the Legion to these types of questions is to be found in its commitment to the True Devotion to the Nation. Our founder Frank Duff gave a great deal of thought to this theme and it remains a rich part of his legacy to the Legion. While much of his writing and the testimony of his life on this True Devotion to the Nation are couched in terms of his experience in Ireland, the basic principles he sets forth are universally valid and are now enshrined in the Handbook. However, I can only touch on a few points within the compass of a relatively short allocutio, but let me make a start and continue our theme in later allocutios.

Let us begin with a working definition: ‘The True Devotion to the Nation i.e. that patriotism is not just a wartime virtue, but more a work of peace; that each individual is responsible for his neighbour; that he must serve his community with self-sacrifice and that is the only realistic way of fulfilling the Christian programme of loving all men.’ He puts the same thought in another way: ‘Each man must think in terms of his neighbour, not only his soul but of the whole man, his body and his environment. This is the centre point of a rightly understood patriotism. All nationhood depends on the proper understanding and application of that rule of thought.’

There can be no surprise in saying that the Legion takes its motivation for True Devotion to the Nation from Mary and the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. We must never tire of reminding ourselves that the spirit of the Legion must be the spirit of Mary. Our idealism and our action must be deeply rooted in our Mother. Bro. Duff writes: ‘Mary was the perfect citizen at Nazareth in order that she would be the perfect mother and model in heaven, loving each of her children individually and being utterly concerned in all their affairs. Note that it is not enough to love people in bulk… Not of that general remote type is Our Lady’s love for mankind. Being in God, she sees each one separately, distinctly, in minute detail. She knows all about us, almost infinitely more than would the most attentive mother on earth. And she devotes herself to each one as if there were no other person. Indeed she goes far beyond that. She loves and tends each one of us as if we were her own Son, Jesus; which in truth we are through the wonder of the Mystical Body… She could not be uninterested in anything which bore on us.’ This spirit of Mary would radically enrich any devotion to the nation and this is what the Legion aspires to do.

Inseparable from the Marian dimension of true devotion to the nation or authentic Christian patriotism is the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. Our founder writes: ‘I begin without further ado by saying that the only root, or ultimate justification which I can discover for patriotism is the Christian doctrine of the Mystical Body.’ Every member of the Body of Christ without any exception is called to play a role in the health and growth of the Body. Any failure on the part of an individual whether seen or unseen contributes to the weakening of the Body. And of course, any good that is done whether noticed or unnoticed benefits in reality the whole Body. The same thing is true of the building up of a nation. Everyone has apart to play and the good or bad we do strengthens or weakens the nation.

To come back to our original question as to what the Legion has to offer in its formulation of true devotion to the nation. Well, it seeks to offer idealism, the strongest possible motivation, selfless action, a person to person methodology and above all a profound Christian spirituality. The Biblical witness is so clear: ‘Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain, (Psalm: 127) or as the Handbook puts it quoting the pungent words of Brian O’Higgins: ‘Men who deny God, who are traitors to God, will be false to every person and to everything less than God, to all things on earth and in heaven.’ History proves this to be so true. Amen.

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