One of the most frequent strategies of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) is to appropriate the achievements of its members and, at the same time, dissociate itself from their failures. When a priest or religious does a positive work, the Institute boasts of it as if it were irrefutable proof of the goodness of his charism and his system of formation. On the other hand, when scandals or serious falls appear, the official discourse insists that they are personal weaknesses, individual sins, without any connection to the institution.
This logic is deeply misleading. In reality, the truth seems to be just the opposite. The personal successes of many members of the IVE are not a consequence of the formation received within the institution, but rather of the character, virtues and faith inherited from their Christian families. Most vocations that persevere arise in deeply believing homes, where the values of effort, charity and prayer were transmitted from childhood. These fruits are personal and familial, not institutional.
On the other hand, the failures and sins that so many members of the IVE have exhibited over the years do have an institutional root. Internal education is deficient, formation programs lack academic and spiritual soundness, and the bad example of superiors marks communities with fire. Added to this is an ecclesial structure that, far from healing or correcting, is corrupt to the core, reproducing patterns of abuse of power, manipulation and systematic concealment.
Therefore, it is necessary to invert the logic of the official narrative: the achievements of the IVE are not theirs, but those of the people and families who knew how to transmit virtues; On the other hand, failures are not simply personal, but the direct result of an unhealthy formation and a profoundly deviated institutional system.
Recognizing this is essential not to be deceived by triumphalist propaganda and to understand that the problem is not in the generous young people who once entered the Institute, but in the very fabric of a structure that multiplies defects and extinguishes the true gifts received from God.
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