Posted on 04/27/2002 10:39:46 AM PDT by Notwithstanding
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 When approached by ABCNEWS' Brian Ross in Rome last week with questions of allegations against Father Marcial, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became visibly upset and actually slapped Ross's hand.
(ABCNEWS.com) |
Priestly Sin, Cover-Up
Powerful Cardinal in Vatican Accused of Sexual Abuse Cover-Up
April 26
— A trusted ally of Pope John Paul II has been accused of sexually abusing boys a half-century ago at an elite seminary for the Catholic Church.
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The alleged victims say the Vatican knew of the allegations against Father Marcial Maciel and chose not to pursue them. In fact, the pope has continued to praise 82-year-old Maciel, a Mexico native, as an effective leader of Catholic youth, despite detailed allegations sent to the Vatican four years ago saying the man was also a long-time pedophile. Maciel denies the charges and said the men made them up only after leaving the Legion of Christ. Maciel is the founder of the little-known but well-connected and well-financed Legion of Christ which has raised millions of dollars for the Church. Operating in the United States and 19 other countries, the Legion of Christ recruits boys as young as 10 years old to leave their families and follow a rigorous course of study to become priests. "I think Father Maciel is one of the most powerful men in the Catholic Church today and also arguably the most mysterious," said Jason Berry, author of Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children.
Maciel is alleged to have molested some of the young men under his control, some 50 years ago, at the well-manicured seminary and headquarters of the Legion of Christ, a few miles from the Vatican. It is hidden behind high walls and a steel gate that warns of a watch dog inside. "He pushed my hand onto his penis. And I didn't know anything about masturbation," Juan Vaca, who was first abused when he was 11 years old, told ABCNEWS. "And he says, 'You don't know how to do it. Let me show you.' And he gets my penis himself and starts to masturbate me. I was in shock." Now 65 years old and a psychology professor at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., Vaca, the former superior of the Legion of Christ in Orange, Conn., says he was one of some 30 boys abused by Macial during his studies at the Legion in Rome. Vaca also told ABCNEWS how he was instructed to bring other boys from their bedrooms to Maciel's room. Vaca said Macial had different boys visit his rooms on different nights. "In some instances, two were together with him — myself and another one," he said. Vaca said Maciel rewarded him with special privileges, such as a private meeting with Pope Pius XII, who served as pope from 1939 to 1958. Maciel always assured Vaca he was doing nothing wrong. When Vaca admitted concerns of committing a sin, Vaca said Macial absolved him from his sin "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." He told him not to worry and to forget about it. But Vaca said he could not forget.
Eight Men's Allegations Went Unanswered
Vaca is not alone. He is one of eight former students, now all in their 60s, who have signed sworn affidavits submitted to the Vatican that they were abused by Maciel. When they were members of the Legion, the accusers were devout followers of Marciel. But for the last eight years, they have been trying to get the Vatican to listen or even acknowledge their detailed allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of Father Maciel. They say they have not heard a response from the Vatican. In 1997, they went public, telling their story to The Hartford Courant, a newspaper in Connecticut. Courant reporters Jerry Renner and Jason Berry, who wrote the story, repeated the allegations to the Vatican, yet received no response from the Vatican. However, later that year, the pope took a step that surprised them. Maciel was appointed to represent the pope at a meeting of Latin American bishops, which Renner and Berry took as a clear signal the Vatican had ignored the allegations.
"I would say he has the pope eating out of his hand. Who is going to touch him no matter what he does?" said J. Paul Lennon, a member of the Legion of Christ for 23 years, who has since left and has been helping those claiming to be victims. "He's untouchable." Lennon said Macial is a master of Vatican politics: "He's worked with several popes, knows the inner workings, knows monsignors, knows cardinals, knows maybe the men who are really in power, knows that so well, so well." Then, four years ago, some of the men tried a last ditch effort, taking the unusual step of filing a lawsuit in the Vatican's secretive court, seeking Macial's excommunication. Once again they laid out their evidence, but it was another futile effort — an effort the men say was blocked by one of the most powerful cardinals in the Vatican.
The accusers say Vatican-based Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who heads the Vatican office to safeguard the faith and the morals of the church, quietly made the lawsuit go away and shelved it. There was no investigation and the accusers weren't asked a single question or asked for a statement.
He was appointed by the pope to investigate the entire sex abuse scandal in the church in recent days. But when approached by ABCNEWS in Rome last week with questions of allegations against Maciel, Ratzinger became visibly upset and actually slapped this reporter's hand. "Come to me when the moment is given," Ratzinger told ABCNEWS, "not yet." "Cardinal Ratzinger is sheltering Maciel, protecting him," said Berry, who expressed concerns that no response was being given to the allegations against the man charged with sex abuse. "These men knelt and kissed the ring of Cardinal Ratzinger when they filed the case in Rome. And a year-and-a-half later, he takes those accusations and aborts them, just stuffs them."
As for Father Maciel, he would not agree to speak with ABCNEWS this week in Rome, although he issued an emphatic, written denial of the allegations, in which he strongly denied the allegations of what he called "repulsive behavior." He said the men made up these allegations only after leaving the Legion of Christ. Click here for his statement. "He has many other things to do rather than appear on a news program," said Father Tom Williams, who said he would serve as Macial's spokesman. He called the allegations "patently false." "I know Father Maciel very well," Williams told ABCNEWS. "I've lived with him for 10 years." Williams has never asked him about the allegations, but when the Courant ran the story in 1997, Legion spokesman released a statement denying the allegations.
Williams said the men making the accusations against Macial can't be believed because they didn't raise the sexual abuse charges in the 1950s when Vatican investigators were looking into other matters relating to Maciel. According to Williams, the Vatican investigated Marciel on counts of mismanagement of funds, drug and substance abuse and drug trafficking. The Vatican pronounced Maciel innocent of those charges and reinstated him as superior general to the Legion.
In addition, Williams noted, a ninth accuser retracted similar allegations, claiming he was pressured to lie by the other eight accusers. Those men stand by their story, now an open challenge to both the pope and Ratzinger, who just this week proclaimed there is no place for pedophiles in the church during the Vatican meetings with American cardinals. "It does not inspire much faith," said Berry. |
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This is such an old story and is news only to ABC's soin doctor reporter. .
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CRISIS IN THE CHURCH (60:00) Monday April 29- 8:00 pm ET LIVE
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LegionaryFacts.org
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FEATHERS OF SCANDAL The words of the Bard that you learned in grade school are entirely to the point: This reflection is occasioned by an attack on Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, the eighty-two-year-old and much revered founder of the Legionaries of Christ, one of the more vibrant and successful renewal movements in contemporary Catholicism. The attack, alleging sexual offenses with seminarians some forty years earlier, first appeared in a 1997 story in the Hartford Courant, a Connecticut paper, and the story has recently been repeated in the National Catholic Reporter, a left-wing tabloid. The story was coauthored by Jason Berry, a freelance writer in New Orleans, who briefly gained national attention with a 1992 book, Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Childrne, and by Gerald Renner, who was until recently religion writer for the Connecticut paper. I hesitate to write about this, lest I be responsible for further disseminating what I heartily deplore. But the purpose is to collect and properly dispose of these feathers of scandal. I admit to being surprised that some of them have found their way into quarters usually averse to vicious gossip. Also, this reflection might be helpful in evaluating other stories of clerical sexual scandal, stories that reached a crescendo with what everybody came to recognize as the slanderous charges against the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago and that have since then been on the wane. We should have no illusion that such scandal is a thing of the past, however, as witness the recent court proceedings against a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston. Such incidents are grist for the mills of liberals pressing for married priests and of others demanding that bishops exercise a stricter discipline. And, of course, they feed the media mill that, as Philip Jenkins has explained, is not deterred by the fact that the incidence of sexual abuse is probably higher among Protestant clergy and other professionals working with children (see "The Uses of Clerical Scandal," FT February 1996). Stories about Catholic priests have a certain cachet--and, for trial lawyers, a promise of cash--that is usually lacking in other cases. It is, I think, unseemly for Catholics to complain about that. Catholics should expect more of their leaders. Even one instance of abuse constitutes an intolerable offense against the victim and a breaking of most solemn vows freely undertaken. Having said that, I expect that most readers, and especially those who, with good reason, admire the Legionaries, instinctively recoil from the story about Fr. Maciel, finding it both repugnant and implausible. There is something to be said for consigning it to the trash bin and forgetting about it. Nobody should feel obliged to read on, for the subject is decidedly distasteful. At the same time, the story is out there, and--as Berry and Renner and the complicit publications surely intended--it has no doubt done some damage. Forty and fifty years after the alleged misdeeds, there is no question of criminal action. Even were there any merit to the charges, which I am convinced there is not, the statute of limitations has long since run out. And what can you do to an eighty-two-year-old priest who has been so successful in building a movement of renewal and is strongly supported and repeatedly praised by, among many others, Pope John Paul II? What you can try to do is to filch from him his good name. And by destroying the reputation of the order's founder you can try to discredit what Catholics call the founding "charism" of the movement, thus undermining support for the Legionaries of Christ. The Power of Envy Berry and Renner do not even try to hide their hostility to the Legion. Their story introduces the movement as "a wealthy religious order known for its theological conservatism and loyalty to the Pope." In the world of Berry, Renner, the National Catholic Reporter, and the Courant (at least when Renner was writing for it), that is another way of saying that the Legion is the enemy. Nobody would dispute that Legionaries are theologically orthodox and loyal to the Pope. Some of us take the perhaps eccentric view that that is a virtue. As for the order being wealthy, that hardly seems the right word. The Legion has been very successful in eliciting the support of admirers for its many enterprises. Its most notable success has been in vocations to the priesthood. There are now about five hundred priests and twenty-five hundred seminarians, and the order is active in twenty countries on four continents, with schools in Latin America, Europe, and the U.S. In Latin America, the order is doing pioneering work in running schools and microeconomic development projects among the poor. Regnum Christi, a lay movement associated with the Legion, is also vibrant and growing. There is no doubt that the many works of the movement require major resources, and that it is effective in raising money. But wealthy? One might as well say that the financially strapped Archdiocese of New York is wealthy because it could, after all, get untold millions by demolishing St. Patrick's Cathedral and selling the property to developers. Or the Society of Jesus is wealthy because it could sell off Georgetown, Fordham, Boston College, and twenty-plus other Jesuit schools in this country alone. The fact is that the Legionaries of Christ are strikingly successful at a time when many other orders are languishing or even dying out. Also in the Church, alas, it is unwise to underestimate the power of envy. Slanderous attacks on new and vibrant religious orders are nothing new in the history of the Church. See St. Francis and the Franciscans, Dominic and the Dominicans, or Ignatius and the early Jesuits. Love, says St. Paul, "is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right." The unedifying but unsurprising truth is that, also in the Church, love is sometimes in short supply, and there is rejoicing at wrongs, and at alleged wrongs. Recruited to a Cause I am not neutral about the Legionaries. I have spent time with Fr. Maciel, and he impresses me as a man who combines uncomplicated faith, gentle kindness, military self-discipline, and a relentless determination to do what he believes God has called him to do. They are the qualities one would expect of someone who at age twenty-one in Mexico vowed to do something great for Christ and his Church, and has been allowed to do it. In the language of the tradition, they are qualities associated with holiness; in his case a virile holiness of tenacious resolve that has been refined in the fires of frequent opposition and misunderstanding. And I am impressed by the words of Jesus that "by their fruits you shall know them." I have known the Legion for some years now, speaking at their institutions in this country and, most recently, teaching a crash course on Catholic social doctrine at their new university in Rome, Regina Apostolorum. There were about sixty students in the course, almost all priests or seminarians, and I have never encountered anywhere a group of students more eager, articulate, or intellectually astute. And yes, they are orthodox and excited by the truth of the Church's teaching. Critics who depict Legionaries as pious brainwashed zombies walking in lockstep under an authoritarian regime are, in my experience, preposterously wrong. As you might expect, given the name of the order, they do have a soldierly bearing, as though recruited to a great cause, which they have been. The single most striking characteristic of Legionaries, as I have encountered them in this country and elsewhere, is their palpable sense of joy and high adventure in their calling to be faithful priests. It is said that the Legion is elitist. And I suppose there is something to that, keeping in mind that elitism is too often employed as a term of opprobrium by those offended by the violation of the mediocre. There is no doubt that Legionaries think they are part of something very special--as do all young people who surrender themselves to a great vision that is attended by demanding discipline. It was once true of those who entered the Society of Jesus, and still is true of some who, in the radically reduced number entering that order, are determined to revive the Ignatian charism. The leaders of the Legion strongly discourage comparisons with the earlier Society of Jesus, precisely because they know that such comparisons are so frequently made and have excited Jesuit hostility from the early days in Mexico to the present. But yes, there is a tone of elitism among Legionaries. At least as I read it, it is not a sense of sinful pride but of being privileged to be part of something so great in its challenge and promise. For them, to be a Legionary priest has a distinct panache, but it is panache in the service of achieving the pinnacle, which is to be--radically and without remainder--a priest of Christ and his Church. In any course so demanding, it is inevitable that many do not make it. Others, having become priests, fall by the wayside or are found wanting. The result--and this is true of any community that does not fudge the distinction between success and failure--is that there are some who are disappointed, disgruntled, aggrieved, and bitter. And that brings us to the Berry/Renner story about Fr. Maciel. You don't want to know the specifics of the charges, although Berry/Renner go into salacious detail about rude things allegedly done with young men, things that have become all too familiar from sex abuse stories of recent decades. Nine now elderly men who were once part of the Legion--two Spaniards and seven Mexicans--claim that in the 1950s Fr. Maciel more or less regularly abused them, and that this was a pattern pervasive throughout the order. Berry/Renner acknowledge that one of the accusers has recanted his story under oath, testifying that he was put up to telling tales by ringleaders who had for many years been trying to get other disaffected Legionaries to join in "showing up" Fr. Maciel. The fact that he has recanted his original charges does not prevent Berry/Renner from repeating them with what appears to be prurient relish. It is not the kind of stuff you would find in any mainstream media, but then Berry and Renner are not practitioners of what is ordinarily meant by responsible journalism. Berry's business is Catholic scandal and sensationalism. That is what he does. Renner's tour at the Courant was marked by an animus against things Catholic, an animus by no means limited to the Legion. A Sinister Institution Nonetheless, because I care about the Legion and because I was outraged by what I suspected was a gross injustice, I decided to go through endless pages of testimony, counter-testimony, legal documents, and other materials related to the Berry/Renner attack on Fr. Maciel. It was not an edifying experience. For Berry/Renner, it is worth noting, the case of Fr. Maciel is not all that important in itself, but it serves another purpose. "To many," they write in the recent NCR article, "the case against Maciel is important because it tests the Vatican's resolve to pursue charges related to sexual misconduct at the highest levels of the Church." The "many" includes, first of all, Berry and Renner. That is clearly the reason for the latest re-raking of the muck of their 1997 article. They report nothing substantively new in the allegations themselves; the only new thing is that the Vatican has again considered the charges and found them without merit. A cardinal in whom I have unbounded confidence and who has been involved in the case tells me that the charges are "pure invention, without the slightest foundation." For Berry/Renner, however, the Vatican is a sinister and oppressive institution. Its stated concerns for confidentiality and fairness are, in their view, code language for secretiveness and evasion. Statements of church officials are never to be taken at face value, and certainly never to be given the benefit of the doubt. Let it be said that there have been instances in which church authorities have been less than straightforward, to put it gently. But for Berry/Renner, systematic mendacity is assumed. That the Pope consistently and strongly supports Fr. Maciel and the Legion is only evidence that he has been duped--or, the reader is invited to infer, that he is party to a cover-up. Nothing will satisfy them but that the Church comply with their prescribed procedures of investigation and, not incidentally, vindicate their sensationalist reporting. So much for the prejudices and purposes of Berry and Renner. In sum, they are in the scandal business. With Moral Certainty So what is a person who does not share their prejudices and purposes to believe? I can only say why, after a scrupulous examination of the claims and counterclaims, I have arrived at moral certainty that the charges are false and malicious. I cannot know with cognitive certainty what did or did not happen forty, fifty, or sixty years ago. No means are available to reach legal certainty (beyond a reasonable doubt). Moral certainty, on the other hand, is achieved by considering the evidence in light of the Eighth Commandment, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." On that basis, I believe the charges against Fr. Maciel and the Legion are false and malicious and should be given no credence whatsoever. Recall the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in explanation of the Eighth Commandment: Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury. He becomes guilty: It counts as evidence that Fr. Maciel unqualifiedly and totally denies the charges. It counts as evidence that priests in the Legion whom I know very well and who, over many years, have a detailed knowledge of Fr. Maciel and the Legion say that the charges are diametrically opposed to everything they know for certain. It counts as evidence that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and others who have looked into the matter say that the charges are completely without merit. It counts as evidence that Pope John Paul II, who almost certainly is aware of the charges, has strongly, consistently, and publicly praised Fr. Maciel and the Legion. Much of what we know we take on trust. I trust these people. The suggestion that they are either deliberately deceiving or are duped is totally implausible. It counts as evidence that opponents of Fr. Maciel and his work succeeded in having him removed from the governance of the Legion for more than two years in the 1950s. At that time he was charged with drug addiction and misrule of the order. The Vatican appointed four impartial "visitators" who lived with the Legionaries and interviewed every one of them privately and under oath. They were asked to state anything they knew to the detriment of Fr. Maciel's leadership. Not once, not even once, was there any mention of sex abuse or anything related to it. Fr. Maciel was completely exonerated and, with high praise, restored to the leadership of the order by the Holy See. The accusers say they did not mention sex abuse at the time because it was a "taboo" subject and they were afraid of Fr. Maciel. The ringleaders who organized the 1990s campaign against Fr. Maciel, however, were not afraid to make other grave charges. Some had longstanding grievances arising from being removed from positions of trust in the order; all left the order under unhappy circumstances. The question of sex only came up later, when sexual abuse by priests was a topic of frenzied interest in the media and such a charge was viewed as lethal to a priestly reputation. The motives of the accusers are the subject of speculation, but the purpose of the accusations is, beyond doubt, to do grave damage to Fr. Maciel and the Legion. Although solicited by the ringleaders to join in the charges, others who were members of the order at the time in question have refused and have emphatically denied the claims of the accusers. They were there at the time. They would have known. Picking Up Feathers Common sense is also entered into evidence. Is it believable that, as alleged, a pathological, drug addicted child molester could have founded a religious order in the 1940s that was approved by the Church and flourished for decades, while all the time casual sodomy and other heinous sexual abuses reigned in its houses? And this without a word of concern from thousands of parents or any claim of such wrongdoing in civil, criminal, or ecclesiastical courts? It is not believable. Is it believable that men who are now accusers, who were then adult members of the order, would have testified under oath to Fr. Maciel's uprightness, thus lying to their highest superiors in the Holy See and refusing to mention years of abuse by a drug-addicted molester who had been removed as head of the order? It is not believable. The accusations are odious, as are the actions of those who continue to peddle them. The accusers may say that they are seeking justice or, in the psychobabble of our time, looking for "closure." I cannot plumb their motives. I do not know what grievances, grudges, or vendettas are in play here, or what memories or "recovered memories" are reflected in the accusations. The accusers are not going to court to seek damages of any sort. That is not a possibility. The sole end served by the charges is the attempt to gravely damage the Legionaries of Christ by discrediting their founder. I am confident they will not succeed in that attempt. Because the accusations are false, and will be recognized as such by any fair-minded person who bothers to look into them. And because the Legionaries are so manifestly, capably, and joyfully determined to pursue their apostolate, undistracted by the opposition that is predictably encountered by any young and vigorous movement of renewal. To be sure, there are still those feathers of scandal scattered about. St. Philip Neri was right, it is probably impossible to collect all of them. But if you come across one, just pick it up and put it in the trash where it belongs. |
This is ABC's and the liberal left's desperate attempt to destroy Cardinal Ratzinger and the Holy Father. It is despicable. And it is evil.
Please clarify. You're not doing anyone a favor, certainly not the Roman Catholic Church of which I take it you're a member, by posting so scurrilous a post if it's without basis in fact and has been discredited.
Since it will be out there anyway, I posted it so as to be able to counter it immediately with Fr. Neuhaus article on the topic.
This is a very old story that ABC is treating as some revelation. But since they are doing so, it needs to be countered prominently. Which is what I have d=attempted to do.
Thank you, Notwithstanding. I hadn't scanned down far enough to see your post from Fr. Neuhaus. First Things is a first-rate publication.
Attacking the messenger, wondering why young men didn't take on a powerful priest back in the '50s when no one would have believed them are tactics of obfuscation, and I'm surprised at Neuhaus for employing them.
One man making an accusation is one thing; seven men who still stand by them is quite something else.
The dirty little secret as to why JP II didn't demand the head of any cardinal last week in Rome is that the Vatican knows more about these abuse cases than they will ever admit and there's every likelihood John Paul II himself was aware of the covering-up going on.
I have also read most of what Cardinal Ratzinger has written, and it is highly intelligent and totally sound. He, too, is strongly resented by liberals who hoped to kidnap the Church after Vatican II. Many of them think of him as more responsible than anyone else for preventing them from getting their way. They are living in a dream world if they think the Church was about to condone homosexuality, women priests, and the rest of the liberal agenda--with or without the opposition of Cardinal Ratzinger. But Cardinal Ratzinger has stood up strongly against them, so they hate him more than they hate the Pope. No, this story is total, mischief-making nonsense.
As for Macial, I think the allegations against him are credible. I watched Ross' piece on 20/20 last night, and Marcial's spokesman came off as a pompous, dissembling ass.
In the 50s and 60s, when Marcial is alleged to have committed his crimes, Church teaching on these offenses did not carry the gravity it does today. It was not felt that longterm harm came to the minor involved. We were living in a much different world. And even later in the 70s, youth ministers like Fr. Bruce Ritter, founder of Covenant House in NYC, and priests like the now infamous Richard Shanley of the Boston archdiocese, were able to commit sexual offenses against minors and slip rather anonymously away. The Church felt within its rights to protect itself from scandal by handling the matter quietly. Some District Attorneys, like Harry Connick Jr.'s Dad in New Orleans, actively helped the Church to keep these cases quiet. A priest who wrote an infamous essay on the joys of boy love escaped prosecution by Connick some 25 years ago.
The high percentage of gay priests in the Catholic Church has been a matter of common, tacit knowledge among many Catholics, certainly in my family and among many people we knew, even before the mass exodus of clergy from the Church in the 70s. I would argue that the phenomena is centuries old, and in fact has always been an integral part of religious life for all religions, not just Roman Catholicism. What is happening now, IMHO, is that a new post-birth control, post-abortion rights definition of sexual morality has gained widespread support in the West and around the world, and the traditional shame-based definition of sexual expression so central to Church teaching (they would deny that the teaching is shame-based, but I disagree) has lost its ability to silence those who accuse the clergy of sexual misconduct.
The major impact of the current scandals is the loss of moral authority for the Church. It remains to be seen just how damaging that loss will be, but it could be catastrophic.
We watched it, too. This shouldn't be pushed under the table right now. The accusations came from some pretty believeable people. Now that they've said something, maybe more will dare come forward. IF the priest is guilty, something should be done.
Good points. I agree.
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