Author:
Rutten
Tim
Posted:
3/31/2010 10:33:21 AM
Type:
Doc_article Topic/Group:
tp_abuse,tp_abuse_churches,tp_abuse_clergy,tp_abuse_psychological,tp_abuse_ritual,tp_abuse_spiritual,tp_child_abuse,tp_exmember,tp_harm,tp_harm_recovery,tp_history,tp_legal,tp_legal_case,tp_religion,tp_religious_studies
Legionaries of Christ (Regnum Christi) (Marcial Maciel Degollado) Publication:Los Angeles Times Vol.:
No.:
Date:
3/31/2010 8:00:00 AM
Page(s):
URL:
Message
A troubling
order for the Catholic Church
Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2010
By Tim Rutten
Opinion
The
resolution of the Legionaries of Christ case also will be a test for its
conservative American supporters.
One of the decisions confronting Pope Benedict XVI as he
struggles to contain an abuse scandal whose tendrils now appear to extend into
the Vatican may have a particular resonance in the United States.
That decision involves what to do about a wealthy and influential order, the
Legionaries of Christ, and the worldwide lay movement it operates, Regnum
Christi. The former includes 800 priests and the latter as many as 75,000
members. Around the globe, the Legionaries operate 120 seminaries,
universities, schools and Catholic newspapers. Their ability to recruit future
priests in an era of declining vocations has impressed the Vatican; today 2,600
are preparing for ordination in their seminaries.
The Legionaries were founded in Mexico in 1941 by a seminarian, Marcial Maciel,
who went on to lead what quickly became the church's fastest-growing religious
order and one of its most powerful. That power came from the socially
well-connected Maciel's ability to raise astonishing sums of money, and from
his insistence on unquestioning loyalty to papal authority.
All of this made Maciel and the Legionaries great favorites of Pope John Paul
II, who believed new, traditionalist orders -- like the Legionaries and Opus
Dei -- would provide a bulwark against secularism. The pontiff publicly called
Maciel "an efficacious example to youth" and took him along as a key
advisor on his trips to Latin America.
This papal approval tended to obscure the Legionaries' creepy internal
organization, which involved a cult of personality built around Maciel,
internal spying and demands for absolute obedience. At ordination, Legionaries
swore a vow -- since abolished by Benedict -- never to speak ill of a superior
and to report anyone who did.
In retrospect, it all seems perfectly designed to shield Maciel from scrutiny
-- something he desperately required because he was a lifelong sexual predator
who molested numerous seminarians and fathered at least one child.
Allegations of molestations circulated for years but broke into the open in
1997, when two reporters from the Hartford Courant produced a series that
exposed Maciel's misconduct. The Legionaries denied everything and hired
top-drawer law and public relations firms to discredit the Courant and its
reporters. An investigation was opened by the Vatican's Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, but went
nowhere, reportedly because John Paul didn't believe the charges.
By the time Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, further revelations had
occurred, including the exposure of Maciel's mistress and daughter in Spain.
The investigation was reopened, and Maciel was ordered to retire from public
life and spend the rest of his days in prayer and penance. He died in 2008 at
87, still a priest.
The new pontiff also ordered five bishops to look further into the Legionaries.
Earlier this month, they reported back to the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, now headed by Los Angeles-born Cardinal William Levada. Levada is
expected to recommend that Benedict either dissolve the order or, more likely,
completely reorganize it under new leadership.
What's interesting about all of this is that a list of Maciel's most vociferous
defenders reads like a who's who of the conservative Catholic intellectuals who,
in recent years, have insisted that Catholicism and membership in the
Democratic Party are all but incompatible. Among Maciel's defenders have been
the late Father Richard John Neuhaus, whose journal, First Things, is a bible
for conservative Catholics; William Donohue of the Catholic League for
Religious and Civil Rights; Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon, who refused
to accept an award from Notre Dame because it invited President Obama to speak
at its commencement; former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, now a
talk-show host and commentator; and Deal Hudson, President George W. Bush's
Catholic liaison.
In fact, when the Vatican ordered Maciel into retirement, Neuhaus -- who
earlier had written that he knew the man's innocence as "a moral certainty"
-- told the New York Times: "It wouldn't be the first time that an
innocent and indeed holy person was unfairly treated by church authority."
Do Bennett, Glendon, Donohue and Hudson still agree with Neuhaus? The
resolution of the Legionaries of Christ case will be a test not only for
Benedict but also for those conservative American intellectuals who have yet to
explain how they came to give such unstinting support to a malevolent sexual
predator.
