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When I was 18, I entered the Argentine order the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matara; they fall under the branch of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (Instituto del Verbo Encarnado, IVE), and my experience was nothing less than horrific.

It's a cult, not a religious order. Tweet
It's a cult, not a religious order. Here are a few details, along with the intense connection of this order to defrocked Theodore McCarrick.

McCarrick lived at the seminary in Maryland while I was in the order. There was a small house in the middle of the parking lot of the seminary. McCarrick lived in that house with two or three seminarians. We were told at the time that he "chose them because he saw great promise in them." To a naive 18-year-old, I did not think much about it. Looking back however, I think we can all put two and two together.

There is a summer house in a rural part of New York that's owned by the order. Every year there is a retreat in May for young people, hosted by the order. And every year I went as a young teenager. McCarrick would be there, hanging around the seminarians.
On top of this, he would always make the same speech and talk about how much he loved the order and that he dubbed himself the "protector of the order" because, according to him, there were forces in the Church who did not truly understand them; according to him and the superiors, he was the savior because the IVE "family" was the absolute best.

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Once, there was a sister and priest from Rome (they were not part of IVE) who came to "interview" the sisters. I, along with several other girls, weren't permitted to speak, or even be in the same room with the two. We overheard the superior instructing the remaining sisters to only say positive things; they were not to reveal anything too unpleasant regarding the order. And, like always, we were reminded to be on our best behavior. I truly wonder how much Rome actually knows about this.