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Speaker 1: When I left the Legion in two thousand and one,

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Speaker 1: I thought I had escaped for good. I was thousands

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Speaker 1: of miles away, watching from the outside as the Empire

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Speaker 1: began to crack. From Afar, I could finally see everything

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Speaker 1: Masille had done, all the lives he had ruined, and

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Speaker 1: the men who had there to speak. I read it,

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Speaker 1: all the stories that had once been hidden from us.

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Speaker 1: And even though my time in the Legion felt like

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Speaker 1: another life, I was starting to realize that distance wasn't

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Speaker 1: going to make me free. Knowing the truth didn't make

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Speaker 1: the memories disappear. They just followed me everywhere I went.

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Speaker 1: I was living in New York when I got the box.

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Speaker 1: It was some time after I left. I couldn't go

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Speaker 1: back home to Monterey, even though I missed it terribly.

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Speaker 1: My family was divided by my decision to leave, and

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Speaker 1: the whole community was too. Some people stopped calling, others

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Speaker 1: pretended I didn't exist. So if I wanted to start over,

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Speaker 1: it had to be somewhere new, a place where no

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Speaker 1: one knew who I was or what I had done.

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Speaker 1: My first apartment was small and a little dark. The

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Speaker 1: walls never really looked clean, no matter how much I

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Speaker 1: scrabbed them. The window faced a brick wall, but I

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Speaker 1: was proud of it anyway. It was mine. For the

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Speaker 1: first time, I was completely alone, no one telling me

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Speaker 1: what to think, what to wear, or how to pray,

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Speaker 1: Just me and the steady home of the refrigerator. One morning,

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Speaker 1: I woke up to a strange smell. When I opened

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Speaker 1: the door, there was a box sitting on the floor

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Speaker 1: outside my apartment. My neighbor said it had been there

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Speaker 1: all night. I picked it up, brought it inside, and

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Speaker 1: opened it on the counter. It was a bundle of

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Speaker 1: brown paper. Inside it a dead blackbird. For a moment,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't move. I just stood there staring at it.

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Speaker 1: The feathers were stuck together. The smell was heavy and metallic.

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Speaker 1: Everything about it felt delivered like a message. But there

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Speaker 1: was no note, no name, nothing to explain how it

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Speaker 1: ended at my door. I wrapped the body in a

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Speaker 1: plastic bar, sealed it and dropped it down the garbageth

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Speaker 1: Then I sat on the kitchen floor and tried to

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Speaker 1: understand what it meant. Was it a prank, someone from

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Speaker 1: the lead and trying to scare me, or someone I

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Speaker 1: had heard while I was still inside the Legion, someone

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Speaker 1: I had recruited, reminding me that I couldn't escape what

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Speaker 1: I had done, Because as much as I was hurting

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Speaker 1: back then, I never forgot that I had also heard others,

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Speaker 1: even if I hadn't meant to, I had been part

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Speaker 1: of the machine. I thought about another time, years earlier,

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Speaker 1: when I was working in the Legion's house in Illinois.

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Speaker 1: After a sleepless night, I opened the door of the

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Speaker 1: cabin and I found a dead blackbird on the ground outside.

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Speaker 1: Back then, it felt like an omen a warning I

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Speaker 1: didn't yet know how to read. But that time in

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Speaker 1: New York, it felt different. It didn't feel like death anymore.

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Speaker 1: It felt like a sign that something was ending, so

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Speaker 1: something else could begin. Blackbirds can mean slavery, danger, evil,

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Speaker 1: but in other stories they also mean rebirth and survival.

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Speaker 1: For months after that, I kept turning those ideas over

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Speaker 1: in my mind. What everything I had lived through was

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Speaker 1: supposed to mean, Why had gone through it, Whether there

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Speaker 1: was some hidden lesson I still hadn't seen. And that's

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Speaker 1: when I realized something. Resilience isn't believing that everything happens

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Speaker 1: for a reason. It's making things happen for a reason.

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Speaker 1: It's giving meaning to what once tried to destroy you.

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Speaker 1: And that's when I began to write. At first, it

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Speaker 1: was just fragments, small sentences, flashes of memory, things I

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Speaker 1: needed to get out of my body. Years later it

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Speaker 1: became a book. I called it Blackbird. I wrote to

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Speaker 1: let the world know whom MASSI had really was what

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Speaker 1: he had done, but also to remind myself that I

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Speaker 1: was still here, that whatever he tried to take away

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Speaker 1: from me, my voice, my faith, my sense of self,

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Speaker 1: he didn't win. If the box was meant to silence me,

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Speaker 1: the book was my way of answering back, a way

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Speaker 1: of saying, you can try to bury me, but I

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Speaker 1: will keep singing. And I wasn't alone. There were others

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Speaker 1: like me, people whose lives had been burned down by

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Speaker 1: marciel but who chose to speak anyway. We were all

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Speaker 1: trying to rebuild something from the ashes, to turn pain

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Speaker 1: into something that could finally breathe again. My name is

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Speaker 1: Elena Sadah, and this is secret Scandal, the many Secrets

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Speaker 1: of Marcelle Moseille Episode ten, Rebirth will be right back.

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Speaker 1: If you type Legionaries of Christ into Google maps, you'll

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Speaker 1: see one of the institutions pop up nearby. That's true

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Speaker 1: whether you're in Canada, Colombia, Brazil, the Philippines, South Korea,

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Speaker 1: or Spain. It may be called a spirituality center, an academy,

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Speaker 1: or renow Christian retreat. But the Legion never disappeared. They

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Speaker 1: just rebranded. Today they operate in twenty three countries. They

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Speaker 1: manage more than one hundred schools and almost a dozen universities,

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Speaker 1: and lead a global network of thousands of lay members

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Speaker 1: and a thousand priests. Each year they educate almost two

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand students. That's more than ever before, and every

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Speaker 1: descent in Rome they still broadcast the ordination of new priests.

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Speaker 1: This past year, twenty two more were ordained. Sometimes I

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Speaker 1: wonder how that's even possible, how the Legion could survive

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Speaker 1: after so much scrutiny, And then I remember, this is

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Speaker 1: what Masille did best, turning faith into a brand. If

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Speaker 1: someone knew how to do marketing in the name of God,

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Speaker 1: it was him. Around the same time I was in

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Speaker 1: New York felling diary after diary, sitting in a small desk,

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Speaker 1: trying to make sense of everything I had lived through.

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Speaker 1: Masille was also working on a book, A book about

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Speaker 1: his life, the version he wanted the world to remember

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Speaker 1: the biography of a saint, a boy born in a

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Speaker 1: small town who, despite adversity, built an empire in the

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Speaker 1: name of God. But the book was never really about

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Speaker 1: faith or God. It was about him. When he began

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Speaker 1: to sense that people were starting to see the cracks

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Speaker 1: in the story he'd spend decades constructing, he became obsessed

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Speaker 1: with his legacy, with how future generations would remember him.

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Speaker 1: He wanted to be immortalized and worshiped as a modern saint,

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Speaker 1: so he commissioned what was essentially a public relations campaign.

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Speaker 1: There was the book and also a television series to

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Speaker 1: be produced, nineteen episodes of miracles, virtues and carefully edited

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Speaker 1: memories a new Gospel. According to Masiel, it's strange to

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Speaker 1: think that both of us were trying to rewrite our

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Speaker 1: lives those years, but for completely different reasons. I was

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Speaker 1: writing to cleanse my soul. Massiel was writing to cleanse

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Speaker 1: his image. He tried really hard to rewrite history, but

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Speaker 1: by the end of the two thousands, the truth was

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Speaker 1: already out. Even the Legion's powerful pr machine couldn't compete

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Speaker 1: with the avalanche of reports of addiction, money laundering, and abuse.

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Speaker 1: Faced With the truth too public to deny, the Legion

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Speaker 1: changed tactics. They started to use new language to defend

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Speaker 1: what Mosielle had done. Instead of talking about crimes and lies,

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Speaker 1: they started talking about errors and human weakness. But the

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Speaker 1: evidence was too damning, the attempts to sell masiel as

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Speaker 1: a saint too absurd to stomach. The TV show never aired,

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Speaker 1: that book never made it to print, and little by

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Speaker 1: little people began to back away. The number of people

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Speaker 1: like me who once had bared him and now saw

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Speaker 1: him for what he truly was, grew with each passing day. However,

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Speaker 1: inside the world Masille built, devotion blurred into idolatry. No

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Speaker 1: matter how much evidence surfaced, some people refuse to see

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Speaker 1: the truth because when a man like Masille falls, he

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Speaker 1: doesn't just bring down an institution, he breaks everything around it.

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Speaker 1: The Legion wasn't just the church. It was an identity

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Speaker 1: and a way of life, and if you try to

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Speaker 1: take that from someone, resistance is bound to happen. Seeing

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Speaker 1: the truth made friends stop speaking, parents and children found

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Speaker 1: themselves in opposite sides of the same story. Being part

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Speaker 1: of a cult doesn't just hurt the victims it. There's

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Speaker 1: families apart. My cousin, Robert Tararts, a journalist who have

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Speaker 1: spent years studying high control groups, remembers it clearly.

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Speaker 2: And it became the crazy, you know, the crazy woman

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Speaker 2: of the family because it was like, you're an idiot.

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Speaker 2: You don't know what you're saying. He was a holy man,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. Why are you saying that you have no basis?

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Speaker 2: So that began sort of to a road, this sort

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Speaker 2: of unity we have because we were again, we were

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Speaker 2: one of those families that we had lunched together every

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Speaker 2: weekend and we played guitar together, and it was like

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Speaker 2: this prototypical My mother was one of those, of course,

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Speaker 2: being a Catholic conservative, was stay home at home mom.

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Speaker 2: We did a lot of activities together. We went on picnics,

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Speaker 2: that kind of thing. We made a point of, you know,

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Speaker 2: getting together and talking about our lives and whatever.

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Speaker 1: But Marsiel had become a forbidden subject. His name alone

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Speaker 1: could split a table in two.

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Speaker 2: So the people in my family that were that had

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Speaker 2: been especially close to the legion and that were incredibly

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Speaker 2: let's say, brainwashed, wou would you stud poorly as brainwashed

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Speaker 2: by them? First I remember, for example, my sister when

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Speaker 2: we came together at this launches and I began, you know,

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Speaker 2: something came up. The topic came up, and I began questioningly,

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Speaker 2: why is he doing this? Why is my heill doing this?

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Speaker 2: Why is he accusing these people if he has no basis?

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Speaker 2: And my sister would just get up and throw the

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Speaker 2: chair and just leave.

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Speaker 1: What had once held them together, faith, loyalty, tradition became

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Speaker 1: the very thing that tore the family apart.

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Speaker 2: And in the end we just ended with two parts

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Speaker 2: of the family. I mean, of course everything has degreased,

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Speaker 2: but the people that were very much, very close to

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Speaker 2: the religion, my elder sisters and brothers specially, they sort

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Speaker 2: of drifted apart from the younger siblings. And some of

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Speaker 2: them stayed in touch and some didn't. But it definitely,

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Speaker 2: I mean, we haven't seen each other in years, like years.

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Speaker 1: For me, that was the reason I couldn't go back home.

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Speaker 1: My parents couldn't accept my decision to leave. My father

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Speaker 1: eventually tried to understand, but for years my mother couldn't

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Speaker 1: bear the idea that her daughter had become a treator

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Speaker 1: to the legion, and that was precisely the Legion's intent.

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Speaker 2: So what happens is they pit children against their parents

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Speaker 2: because for them, the only thing that matters, the center

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Speaker 2: of the moral universe of anyone should be the Legion

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Speaker 2: of Christ. So if you leave, if you're a daughter

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Speaker 2: that wants to leave, that's a scene. That's an incredible scene.

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Speaker 2: That's a transgression. And if you commit that kind of transgression,

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Speaker 2: you're seeing as someone undesirable. Oh but that's my daughter.

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Speaker 2: Oh too bad, Too bad.

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Speaker 1: Delberta wasn't the only one who lived through that kind

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Speaker 1: of divide. It happened in my family too. After Masille's death,

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Speaker 1: battle lines were drawn. You could believe the victims and leave,

194
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Speaker 1: or believe the church and stay. There was no middle ground.

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Speaker 1: When I left, I knew what that choice could cost me.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't just that church I was walking away from.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't my family too. People I loved stopped speaking

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Speaker 1: to me. Some said I had been manipulated, Others called

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Speaker 1: me a traitor. But I couldn't pretend anymore. The truth

200
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Speaker 1: was too heavy to keep. Living inside the line, a

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Speaker 1: strange from my family, without a community to rely on,

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Speaker 1: and living in a city that didn't know my name,

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Speaker 1: the only rest I found was in writing. Putting my

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Speaker 1: memories on paper gave my pain in shape a reason.

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Speaker 1: But there were days when I lost that direction, when

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Speaker 1: the purpose of it all seemed to dissolving to loneliness.

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Speaker 1: I would sit by the window, watching people pass below,

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Speaker 1: and wonder what any of it was for, If the

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Speaker 1: Legion would go on, if the institution would survive, no

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Speaker 1: matter what, then what was the point of my story?

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Speaker 1: I didn't know the answer yet, but I would soon.

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Speaker 1: And I wasn't the only one more on that. After

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Speaker 1: the break, after everything, what gave me strength was realizing

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Speaker 1: I wasn't alone. There were others who had walked the

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Speaker 1: same path, women who had given their youth, their trust,

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Speaker 1: and their silence to the Legion. Some left oken, others

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Speaker 1: found a new beginning.

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Speaker 3: Mariana Martinezos Marianna Martinez is one of them.

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Speaker 1: She now runs a human resources company, but before that,

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Speaker 1: her story became the same way, minded with faith, devotion

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Speaker 1: and the promise of belonging.

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Speaker 3: Youconda then lend Cristo Durante, Satam and mividaosa locals Trina.

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Speaker 1: She was a Mexican concerrada for almost ten years. All

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Speaker 1: through her twenties. Our stories share some similarities, but many

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Speaker 1: differences as well. We were both looking for answers inside

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Speaker 1: the church, and we both wanted to help. Both she

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Speaker 1: and I had genuine and honest intentions to do good.

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Speaker 3: You're around AAA di Verdia and Studiandomalkarera Soava Communication impressil Nanobios.

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Speaker 1: Before joining the legion, Paniena was a lively girl. She

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Speaker 1: loved going out, had boyfriends, and was studying corporate communications

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Speaker 1: about a third of the way through her degree. She

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Speaker 1: had a life that looked like anyone else's prusimbre.

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Speaker 3: Ikemas hyperc exists, bruno existence, compass, but.

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Speaker 1: She always carried a kind of restlessness. Since she was

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Speaker 1: a child, She's asked herself the same questions, why am

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Speaker 1: I here? What's the point of my life? So when

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Speaker 1: she turned twenty, she made a decision that would change everything.

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Speaker 1: She chose to dedicate her life to the Legionaries of Christ.

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Speaker 1: After three years of hermation, she became a concertrata and

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Speaker 1: was sent to Madrid. But after around nine years of

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Speaker 1: a very silent and disciplined life, she started questioning if

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Speaker 1: she wanted to keep going in that direction. She spent

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Speaker 1: most of her time in a convent, doing daily chores

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Speaker 1: of cleaning and studying the Bible, but from time to

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Speaker 1: time she would get to travel to other countries to

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Speaker 1: spread the gospel, meet people, and ultimately to do what

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Speaker 1: she always wanted to do, to help people directly.

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Speaker 3: A fog on the umpse Ake or second Convent as

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Speaker 3: reflects promise us I is.

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Speaker 1: On the us. That's when Marianna began to realize she

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Speaker 1: felt happier outside than within the convent. Each time she

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Speaker 1: reflected on her vows of obedience, poverty and chastity, she

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Speaker 1: felt a growing certainty that this life wasn't meant for her.

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Speaker 1: And on one of those trips, she met someone who

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Speaker 1: would change her life forever.

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Speaker 4: Clara Meda in factore.

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Speaker 3: Oniok is me at all parejaspos.

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Speaker 1: She met a young seminarian. He was interesting, intelligent, smart, curious,

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Speaker 1: and they were around the same age. He was unlike

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Speaker 1: any other legionary she.

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Speaker 3: Ever metmu and conjunto Azemists Adoles Santos de Madrid, and

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Speaker 3: to commode mission, they were assigned to work with the

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Speaker 3: same group of teenagers at a school. Two people who

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Speaker 3: had both given their lives to the Legion, both trained

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Speaker 3: to obey, both starving for something real, and somewhere in

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Speaker 3: that routine, between the prayers and the silence, they fell

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Speaker 3: in love, but love had no place inside that world.

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Speaker 3: Every time they met, she would return alone, rock the

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Speaker 3: same quiet holes, eating silence, praying silence, sleep in silence,

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Speaker 3: all while her soul screamed for air. Eventually they decided

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Speaker 3: to leave, he went for first. Six months later, she followed.

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Speaker 4: Ena bas Ok, Come on miama Felie.

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Speaker 3: Then does as primeras It's navidaves al mundo Macoperto Mexico,

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Speaker 3: compra jeans.

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Speaker 4: In bikinistes.

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Speaker 1: She vividly remembers her first day back in Mexico. She

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Speaker 1: went out to buy jeans, a sweater, a bikini and earrings.

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Speaker 1: After ten years away, she suddenly had to rediscovery world

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Speaker 1: she left behind, and even asked herself, so what is

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Speaker 1: in style now?

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Speaker 4: Param f masifil jodana trintanos?

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 4: Dat Christisavian position, look.

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Speaker 1: Yesavi. For Marianna, living was harder than joining. She was

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Speaker 1: thirty and most of her friends already had their own lives.

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Speaker 1: Hers had only ever existed inside the Legion. She had

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Speaker 1: a role there a purpose. Stepping away felt like standing

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Speaker 1: on the edge of the navis, wondering what she could

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Speaker 1: possibly do after so many years of knowing only how

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Speaker 1: to pray. But somehow all those years of prayer and

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Speaker 1: silence became useful without even realizing it. Life as a

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Speaker 1: Concertrata had taught her a lot about people, how to listen,

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Speaker 1: how to meditate, how to keep a group together. The

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Speaker 1: same skills she once used inside the Legion now help

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Speaker 1: her build a new life outside of it.

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Speaker 3: You know, you creole the mister princes Man's grande applico

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Speaker 3: tantivida personal vida matrimonial visaiel is elconosim into personnel selfinale frondesos,

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Speaker 3: the muchoslencio, the mucha reflection so to pinsente, those basis

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Speaker 3: area your messia on examined, the concinia i makin del nivel,

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Speaker 3: the focoreti.

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Speaker 1: For Marianna, those ten years inside the Legion became a

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Speaker 1: strange kind of training, use of silence, of constant self examination.

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Speaker 1: Twice she would sit down and analyze her thoughts, her words,

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Speaker 1: her actions, looking in what she could almost see through herself.

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Speaker 4: El joer.

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Speaker 3: Connours to stall me processes the leader as well stambasaus

307
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Speaker 3: and experiencia the personal caparin Diduran.

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Speaker 4: This was design.

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Speaker 1: That habit stayed with her. It became the foundation of

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Speaker 1: her new life, something she now applies in everything she does,

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Speaker 1: in her marriage, in her work, in the way she

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Speaker 1: relates to others. Having gone through all of it allows

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Speaker 1: her to guide others towards knowing themselves. Today, all her

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Speaker 1: leadership programs are built around the same idea, the deep

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Speaker 1: self awareness she learned during those ten years of silence

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Speaker 1: and their non professional life. Marianna and her husband Louis

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00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:11,160
Speaker 1: also thrived. Louis, being from Spain, followed her to Mexico

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Speaker 1: and the rest is history.

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Speaker 3: Aarrinale is the toluyo Ela morsaia Alano, Medio Anillo Lanzi

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Speaker 3: and des casamos Mexico disposiso to be thesihos.

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Speaker 1: In the end, everything fell into place. Louis found a job,

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Speaker 1: they got married and had two children, now eight and six.

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Speaker 1: Madianna describes their marriage as happy and real, with the

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Speaker 1: same challenges any couple faces, but grounded in genuine love.

325
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Speaker 1: Like me, Marianna still carries those years of isolation, obedience

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Speaker 1: and discipline with all the good and the bad that

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Speaker 1: comes with them. You can't erase the past like that.

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Speaker 1: All you can do is learn to use it. That's

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Speaker 1: why I understand her, and why I feel close to

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Speaker 1: the hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who have left the

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Speaker 1: legion and started over from nothing, people who like us,

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Speaker 1: chose to speak. People often ask me why I keep

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Speaker 1: writing about this, Why I open the wound again, Why

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00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: tell a story so many would rather forget? The truth

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00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:45,719
Speaker 1: is writing is how I make sense of it all,

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00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,400
Speaker 1: how I give shape to something that could have swallowed

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Speaker 1: me whole. When I started Blackbird, I thought I was

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00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:58,400
Speaker 1: writing for myself, to understand what had happened, to pull

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Speaker 1: the pieces of my life back together. But as I wrote,

340
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:07,119
Speaker 1: I realized I wasn't alone. That there were others scattered

341
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 1: across countries and decades who were also trying to make

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Speaker 1: sense of what Mazille had done to them. The men

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Speaker 1: who came forward in the nineties, like Jose Barba, the

344
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 1: ones who had been abused as boys, like Rawul Gonzalez.

345
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 1: They were the first to break the silence. I never

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00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 1: contacted them directly. I didn't know them personally, but I

347
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 1: knew their names. I knew the price they paid for

348
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: speaking out. They fought for years to bring Macile to justice,

349
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Speaker 1: and Marianna is not a stranger to these issues either.

350
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Speaker 3: So in my concente the los Criminez from Cozados, so

351
00:27:55,840 --> 00:28:03,159
Speaker 3: no concents soloticos. You know the la me due to

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Speaker 3: his birthday, start the muccism because us for eating mucism

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Speaker 3: and patia.

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Speaker 1: She's aware of the crimes committed by Masil in a

355
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: way that moves her to tears. She knows she was fortunate,

356
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:31,200
Speaker 1: yet she's painfully conscious that many others were left deeply wounded,

357
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: whether through sexual abuse or abuse of power. But those

358
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: people also rebuilt. They learned to resignify what had been

359
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Speaker 1: taken from them, to turn the unbearable into testimony. And

360
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Speaker 1: some of us, so still carrying the scars, kept searching

361
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Speaker 1: for our own version of freedom, justice and love me.

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Speaker 3: This is al arme de l lejon partio conun principile

363
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Speaker 3: mass profundo kenm mio de libertada and the jume Sali

364
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Speaker 3: santhiake lalionis suscranias.

365
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Speaker 4: It's a model me.

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Speaker 1: There are many ways Madianna and I have learned from

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Speaker 1: the lives we once lived inside the Legion. For her,

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00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: that knowledge shows up in her work at her human

369
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Speaker 1: resources company. For me, in my work as an educator, or.

370
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Speaker 3: In the model Proposit, proposals and press n supropos it

371
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 3: bandolosias so com a loca rastrasindare claramente.

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Speaker 1: Madianna found that her time in the Legion helped her

373
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Speaker 1: find purpose more clearly, both as a person and as

374
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Speaker 1: a business woman, and now she helps others this over

375
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 1: their own purpose in their work in her business boot camps.

376
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Speaker 1: Whenever she shares an insight or gives advice, she always

377
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 1: finds herself saying the same.

378
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 4: Thing, consuantiment observation. So indigo, come on formacion.

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Speaker 1: I learned this during my time as a nun, she says.

380
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Speaker 1: Looking back, Marianna feels gratitude for that formation and a

381
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: depted gave her life. But that does not erase or

382
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 1: excludes all the shadow, all the darkness that lingers on

383
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Speaker 1: top of the Legion of Christ. The hardest part is

384
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Speaker 1: not knowing it the Legion will ever disappear, because even

385
00:30:55,000 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: after all these years, it's still here. I catch my

386
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: self wondering if the Legion will ever face justice, And

387
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: if it does well, would that even mean? Would it

388
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: bring peace? Would it heal the wounds? I'm not sure.

389
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: None of it would change the past. But even though

390
00:31:18,880 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: justice never came the way we hoped it would, staying

391
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: silent was never an option. Silence is what allowed mysell

392
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: to die in peace. Silence is what allowed the system

393
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: to survive him. Speaking, even when it's late, even when

394
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: it hurts, is what keeps that from happening again. And

395
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:50,400
Speaker 1: maybe that's what we've been doing here together. Every word

396
00:31:50,520 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: in this story, every voice you've heard, is a small

397
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: act of justice, not the kind written in courtrooms, but

398
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 1: the kind that lives in memory. Because now you listen

399
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: to this, you know what happened. You've carried these voices

400
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: with me. You've seen how deep the damage runs and

401
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: how much strength it takes to rebuild. Maybe this helps

402
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: someone recognize the signs in a friend, a student, a

403
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 1: loved one who's still trapped in a place like this,

404
00:32:26,480 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: Or maybe it could help that person understand that living

405
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 1: isn't betrayal, that silence isn't virtue, that faith and obedience

406
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: are not the same thing. Not long ago, I sat

407
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 1: with my family again for years, Masielle's name had divided us.

408
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 1: We couldn't even mention his name without someone leaving the table.

409
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: But this time no one left. We talked late into

410
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: the night, circling around the truth none of us had

411
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:03,480
Speaker 1: wanted to name. At some point the conversation turned to

412
00:33:03,560 --> 00:33:09,080
Speaker 1: bigger questions. What makes the cult, what makes a religion?

413
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 1: And how do you tell the difference between them. No

414
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:16,479
Speaker 1: one had all the answers, but at least we were

415
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 1: asking together, and that to me feels like hope that

416
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: a conversation, once drowned in silence, could finally happen, that

417
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 1: a family broken by belief could find a way to

418
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: listen again. I have a family that listens, four blessed children,

419
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: and a life that feels like mine again. Also, I

420
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,880
Speaker 1: have a loving God who created me, which means my

421
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: life must be worth every struggle, and I must still

422
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 1: be lovable in his eyes. These days, my faith looks

423
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:58,600
Speaker 1: different is in my morning rocks, in the smell of coffee,

424
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: in the sound of people I love when they laugh

425
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 1: too hard. It's in knowing that I belonged to the

426
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: world again. When I first opened that box in New York,

427
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: I thought that the Blackbird was a message of fear.

428
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: Now I see it differently. It was proof that I

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Speaker 1: had survived, that even in the darkest silence, life can

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Speaker 1: find its way back to song. Sacred Scandal The Many

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Speaker 1: Secrets of Marcelle Miseille is a production of AHA Podcast

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Speaker 1: in partnership with Iheartmichael Tura Podcast Network, and it is

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Speaker 1: hosted by me Elena Sada, written by Manissa Hendrix and

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Speaker 1: Alvaro Szpedes, Produced by alvaoces Pedes and Roberta Garza. Research

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Speaker 1: and reporting by Roberta Garza, edited by Jasmine Rometo with

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Speaker 1: the help of Carmen Grato. In fact checking by Annabella Toward.

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Speaker 1: The vocal coach for me Elenezada is Ina Tabia. Executive

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Speaker 1: producers at a har podcast are Carmen Gradov, Isaac Lee,

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Speaker 1: and j H. Khr. Mixing and sound design by Patrick

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Speaker 1: and Jones. Original music by Darko and I Am based

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Speaker 1: on Patrick Hart's original composition. Executive producers that I Heard

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Speaker 1: are Leo Gomez and Arlene Santana. Alexis Cardosa also serves

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Speaker 1: as producer. Sircars Scandal was created by Melanie Bartley and

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Speaker 1: Paula Varos