Miles Jesu - History of Miles Jesu

History of Miles Jesu

The founder was the Spanish Claretian priest Alfonso María Durán, who was sent to the southwestern United States in 1958 and there propagated the Cursillo movement, which practices an intensive retreat that emphasizes the call of the laity to holiness and apostolate. A few young men who made such a retreat in Phoenix decided to dedicate their lives and secular careers to answering that call. Under Father Durán's guidance, they formed the first Miles Jesu community on January 12, 1964. In 1970, membership was opened to widows and, a few years later, to young unmarried women, with separate branches for men and women. Communities were established also in other countries from 1984 onward and the institute's general house was moved to Rome.

In 2004 complaints surfaced about the governance of Father Duran, who had been superior general since the foundation of Miles Jesu. The English Traditionalist Catholic publication Christian Order (which criticized the institute itself for celebrating Mass in what has since 1969 been the ordinary form of the Roman Rite rather than in the Tridentine Mass form preferred by traditionalists, and for not sharing traditionalist views on the state of the Church) spoke of Father Durán as "a somewhat domineering figure".

In May 2007 the Vicariate of Rome, where the general house was situated, removed Father Durán from his post of superior general because of serious mental and physical health problems. At about the same time thirteen of the members requested an official investigation into Miles Jesu. This investigation began in June 2007. Carried out by Father Anthony McSweeney, SSS, it confirmed the existence of questionable conduct on the part of Father Durán, in addition to an erratic exercise of authority facilitated by instilling into the members an unhealthy sense of obedience that was not in accord with the discipline of the Catholic Church.

On 25 Mary 2009, Father Barry Fischer, CPPS was appointed commissary to revise the practices and customs of Miles Jesu and to revise the constitution with the assistance of a council composed of members of the men's and the women's domus branches and in consultation with the whole membership.