Maciel Investigation Reopening

[HagiaSophia]

EXCERPTS from the story

FROM TODAY’S COURANT
Vatican Revisits Abuse Charges
Accused Priest Is Close To The Pope

January 3, 2005
By GERALD RENNER, Special to The Courant

The Vatican has reopened an investigation into charges first reported nearly eight years ago that a powerful Mexican priest close to the pope sexually abused seminarians.

The allegations focus on the actions of the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, now 84 and based in Rome. He leads a religious order known as the Legionaries of Christ, which claims 600 priests in 18 countries. Its U.S. headquarters is in Orange and it has a seminary in Cheshire…

A week later, the complainants against Maciel were told the Vatican was reopening a canon law investigation that had been squelched without explanation in 1999.

The canon law case had been lodged formally by the former Legionaries against Maciel in November 1998. A high-level Vatican agency, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, accepted the complaint as credible for further investigation. But it never proceeded and no investigation was made.

Under a 2002 policy adopted by the U.S. hierarchy, an American priest facing allegations such as those made against Maciel would be suspended immediately while an investigation was conducted. The Vatican has no such policy.

In a letter dated Dec. 2, Martha Wegan, a Vatican-approved canon lawyer who is an advocate for the men’s case, informed them that a new “permanent promoter of justice” for the congregation has been appointed and wanted to know if they wanted to proceed.

“It seems to me that now the case is being taken seriously,” she wrote.

“They say now they are taking it seriously? Before it wasn’t serious?” scoffed Juan Vaca, a former priest who headed the Legion’s U.S. operations in Connecticut from 1971 to 1976. He now teaches psychology at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.

Maciel and the Legionaries of Christ have vigorously denied the allegations of abuse. Maciel has accused the nine men of a conspiracy to defame him.

Barba said it appears to him that Vatican authorities are heavily divided about how to handle the complaints against Maciel, accounting for praise from the pope one week and a decision to investigate him the next.

There is such a division in the church in Mexico. It was not until 2002 that the charges against Maciel were aired at a meeting of the Mexican hierarchy, when it was acknowledged for the first time publicly that the Mexican church had a problem with priestly sexual abuse, as did the U.S. church.

Two Mexican priests who helped Maciel’s accusers advance their complaints say their careers suffered.

One, the Rev. Antonio Roqueni, who helped draft the canon law complaints, lost his job as a canon lawyer for Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City.

The other, the Rev. Alberto Athie, was an adviser on social-justice issues to the Mexican bishops’ conference and an officer of Caritas, the bishops’ national charity. He said he was marginalized and felt compelled to resign his positions after he tried to bring to the attention of church authorities accusations by a dying former priest that Maciel had abused him as a teenager.

Gerald Renner, retired religion writer for The Courant, is the co-author, with Jason Berry, of “Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II.”

ctnow.com/news/custom/topnews/hc-maciel.artjan03,1,7178321.story?coll=hc-headlines-topnews

 

[mlchance]

The original accusations against Fr. Marcial was not “squelched without explanation in 1999.” They were investigated and found meritless, especially after one of the accusers later recanted his testimony, tellings investigators that the other men involved were fabricating the charges to slander Fr. Marcial for their failure to complete the Legionaries of Christ youth program.

From First Things magazine (with some editing for clarity):

Jason Berry and Gerald Renner address a very important question in Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II (Free Press). That question is the role of secrecy in church leadership. The simplistic answer is that there is no legitimate place at all for secrecy, nor for confidentiality, nor for discretion. Whether it be churches or corporations or government or the personal lives of public and not-so-public figures, everything should be exposed to the sunshine laws of “transparency.”

The great exception, of course, is journalism. Reporters have an absolute right to hide their sources and methods because they are the good guys and are not susceptible to abusing their power. Regrettably, the authors of the present book subscribe to that simplistic answer, and the result is yet another sensationalist screed that is likely to find few readers beyond those who have an insatiable appetite for Catholic-bashing.

The book carries glowing endorsements from the egregious masters of that niche market: James Carroll, author of Constantine’s Sword; Father Richard McBrien of Notre Dame; and Robert Blair Kaiser, formerly of Newsweek, who has lived a long and embittered life off the invention of nefarious Vatican conspiracies. Along with the authors of the book, they are all Catholics of a sort. By choosing such company and their accustomed style of crude accusation, the authors have almost certainly guaranteed that nobody in a position to do something about the problem they want addressed will take the book seriously, or even bother reading it.

The book itself is a tediously familiar rehash of the sex scandals, combined with an uncritical celebration of Father Thomas Doyle, a Dominican who early on warned the bishops about the prevalence of sex abuse and in the last two years has become a much-lionized champion and cheerleader for sundry dissident organizations and the expert witness of choice for trial lawyers extracting millions from the Church and its insurance companies.

The rest of the book is a repetition, in wearying detail, of complaints against the Legionaries of Christ and its founder Father Marcial Maciel (for a discussion of the complaints and what to make of them, click here). Jason Berry, let it be said, rendered an important service when, in Louisiana in the 1980s, he was among the first to throw public light on the incidence of priestly sex abuse. Gerald Renner, on the other hand, has made a long and undistinguished career of beating the Catholic Church with any stick at hand. Vows of Silence is a distinct disappointment, but perhaps I was wrong in hoping for something better.

There is no doubt that bishops and curial officials sometimes invoke secrecy “for the good of the Church” in concealing what need not and should not be concealed. That is a big factor in the current scandals. The moral lines between secrecy and deception, between discretion and dishonesty, must be clarified, even as we recognize that no institution can flourish without a reasoned measure of trust in its leadership. Bishops need to hold one another accountable, and to give a believable account of their stewardship to the people whom they would lead.

Responsible journalism has a legitimate role in encouraging them to do that. The prosecutorial zeal of Berry and Renner in full attack mode, however, will, if it is noticed at all, only exacerbate the problem they say they want to help remedy. A bishop wouldn’t give these fellows the time of day for fear of how they would find a way to turn it against him. There are amusing moments in the book. There is, for instance, the extended discussion of “Father X” and his views on the evils of secrecy in the Church. There really is a “Father X,” we are assured, and he is an expert on secrecy. Who is “Father X”? Don’t ask. It must remain a secret, so severe is the problem of secrecy in the Church.

Then there is the reported time a group of American bishops requested the help of John Paul II with the abuse scandals. The authors quote the Pope: “‘You’ll get no quick fixes out of me,’ he declared.” I have over the years spent hours in conversation with the Pope and anyone who believes that he ever said that to anybody about anything at any time has passed the credulity test for reading Vows of Silence.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

For the facts try Rebuttal

I have heard that the Bishop of Hartford is les than pleased with the Legionaries orthodoxy and regards their seminary in Connecticut as a thorn in his side He has encouraged the Courant to run a continuing investigation of them.

 

[Toni]

Cardinal Ratzinger took care of these charges after an investigation. It is sad that someone who has worked has hard as Fr. Maciel continues to carry the cross of these men. Back in the 60’s these same men claimed it was drug abuse and when sexual abuse began being published they jumped up again accusing him that time of sexual abuse. Their story has no merit, it has changed like MI weather. As far as the Bishop in CT is there a problem today of orthodox priests that I am unaware of? No sorry I am quite aware of the problem of liberal priests and bishops who think orthodox priests are simply a thorn in their sides. PLEASE! By their fruits you will know them isn’t that what Christ said, do you see any other order growing as quickly. They produce good fruit and so they continue to grow.

 

[HagiaSophia]

From John Allen’s December column:

Several readers have written asking about recent signs of approval from the Holy See for the Legionaries of Christ and their founder, Mexican Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado. Among other things, the pope recently entrusted to the Legionaries the administration of an important church institution in the Holy Land, Jerusalem’s Notre Dame Center.

He approved the statutes the Regnum Christi movement, a lay branch of the Legionaries. A top Vatican official ordained 59 new Legionaries of Christ priests from 10 countries in a Rome ceremony. By letter, John Paul II also congratulated Maciel for 60 years of “intense, generous and fruitful priestly ministry.” The pope said he wanted to join in the “canticle of praise and thanksgiving” for the great things he has accomplished and said Maciel has always been concerned with the “integral promotion of the person.”

What should one make of all this, readers have asked, in light of charges from several former members of the Legionaries of Christ that they were sexually abused by Maciel, charges documented in the book Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II by American journalists Jason Berry and Gerry Renner?

I think the only honest answer is that the pope and his senior aides obviously do not believe the charges.

I’ve discussed the case with people in the Holy See, and not everyone is prepared to dismiss out of hand the claims documented in the Berry and Renner book. Most Vatican officials, however, believe the evidence is old and ambiguous, and in any event they say it would not surpass the burden of reasonable doubt in a court of law. Absent a “smoking gun,” and given what they regard as the fruits of Maciel’s priestly career and the community he founded, they don’t see a basis for action.

It’s not for me to say whether these conclusions are justified. But from a descriptive point of view, it’s not a matter of the pope or the Vatican being ill-informed. They are well aware of the material Berry and Renner have collected, and support Maciel and the Legionaries despite it.

The Legionaries are present in 20 countries, counting 500 priests and 2,500 seminarians.

nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/

 

[Toni]

Thank you HagiaSophia for you great post. Fr. Maciel is respected in thousands of peoples eyes as a good and holy priest. For his 60th anniversary he gave the Holy Father 59 new priests. The order continues to grow and produce a lot of good fruit as I stated before. Every time I read these accusations against this good and holy priest it breaks my heart that for years these same former seminarians continue to make false allegations against this priest (and I will state again they have changed with the times, whatever happens to be the crimes in the church at the time) they have did this for years. Even the confessionals are all glass so there is never a chance for an accusation. If they were not of God then why would he continue to bless the order with so many fabulous priests. Every morning I have the opportunity to attend Mass at the school and it does not matter which one of the priests are saying Mass it is always reverent and celebrated true to the laws of Rome. Father Maciel has changed my life and thousands of others that I know of personally. He has helped the Pope whenever he has been asked to do so. God Bless him for all his hard work for the church.

 

[CBailey]

Always the same two people.

Every time the Legion of Christ or the Regnum Christi Movement is praised, they come out of the woodwork.

See legionaryfacts.org/ for the facts.

And by the way, the Catholic Reporter is not really a “Catholic” newspaper, from what I heard.