Confidentiality

Concilium Allocutio June 2010

By Fr. Bede McGregor O.P.

Spiritual Director to the Legion of Mary

Confidentiality

The fourth and final item in the Standing Instruction is about confidentiality in the Legion system. Commitment to confidentiality inside and outside the Legion was an outstanding characteristic of our founder, Frank Duff. Bishops, priests, religious men and women and laity from all walks of life confided in him and besides giving them an attentive, sympathetic, listening heart they knew he could be trusted with their deepest secrets and concerns. His spirit of confidentiality was rooted in his absolute respect for the dignity of the human person and the demands of an authentic friendship. He was totally convinced that his whole apostolate and influence depended on his respect for the confidential nature of the information that he received from those who shared their very lives with him. He was outstandingly trustworthy.

The words he put in the Handbook are very strong: ‘The Standing Instruction, read to members month after month, should bring home to them the all important place of confidentiality in the Legion’s scheme of things. Lack of courage in a soldier is accounted shameful, but it is treachery to the Legion to repeat outside matters of a confidential nature learned or discussed at a praesidium meeting.’ I think that one of the easiest ways of understanding the importance of confidentiality is to remember how we felt when we said something to a friend in confidence and discovered it had been shared with a third party against our wishes. Trust vanishes and friendships are destroyed. Or at least we will not share anything of importance with that person again.

The Handbook says that the Legion is akin to a family and its discussions should be like those of a family when it discusses family secrets. Intimate family concerns are not communicated outside the family circle. Where there is a lack of trust because of leaks on confidential matters the praesidium will sooner rather than later disintegrate. Members will cease to speak at the praesidium meeting and so problems will not be properly discerned and tackled. Fortunately, the record of the Legion in this matter is remarkable but we do need to be continually alert because human nature can be very weak in this area. The worst possible indictment of a Legionary would be the reputation for gossiping. But it would be just as bad if he were to be seen as someone who couldn’t keep a confidence. The Handbook suggests such a person should be expelled from the Legion because of the damage to souls and the apostolate that he would cause.

Some rare cases may arise when a legionary is perplexed about the keeping of confidentiality or not. The Handbook advises that the Legionary should immediately have recourse to the Spiritual Director or if he is not available to some other competent advisor.

There are many other things that could be discussed about confidentiality that would extend this allocutio too much. We could compare the legionary commitment to confidentiality with that of doctors, counsellors, solicitors, journalists, and so many others. But the Handbook gives us all the basics required for this theme. We need to read it frequently because so much is at stake. As legionaries, we are responsible not only to ourselves and those we meet in the course of our Legion work but to Mary herself. We act in her name, as her representative so to fail in confidentiality we are betraying Mary to some extent and spoiling her name among people who may not know her. The spirit of Mary is our model and inspiration in this as in everything else. Let us turn to her and ask for a share in her discretion and respect for the secrets of the heart that we meet in the course of our apostolate and in all our meetings.