It’s hard not to be moved and impressed by a few good men of the Legion of Christ, a Roman Catholic congregation, who, upon learning that their late founder, Fr. Maciel, fathered a child, have not only been honest about that, but are apologizing for defending him in the past.

To say he was human and a sinner isn’t quite enough, for the Legion has been formed by the spirituality of Fr. Maciel, who left behind a trail of accusations of sexual and financial misdeeds. Many, if not all, Legion priests–and lay members of the associated Regnum Christi–have defended their founder when confronted with earlier accusations. Humbly, they’re now asking forgiveness. I know some of these men and can’t imagine the anguish they must be experiencing, knowing that there are victims who have been victimized twice, knowing that the man they’ve held up as a role model was evidently nothing of the sort.

And the true leaders–those who will renew the congregation if it is to be renewed–are those who are not making themselves out to be victims: As Fr. Thomas Berg put it in a letter this weekend: “You feel betrayed? You feel rage? I can only say that the rage, and raw emotions that I have felt these past days (the hardest days of my entire life, emotions like I have never experienced) are only a glimpse of the unspeakable hell that victims of priest sexual abuse must go through. My thoughts and my heart have been so often with them these days . . . ”

The good news is that the Legion of Christ is not the Legion of Fr. Maciel. With a lot of prayer, work, humility, and focus on their true Founder, souls will be salvaged.