Sexual abuse cases of Marcial Maciel

The sexual abuse scandal of Father Marcial Maciel involves accusations against him, the leader of the Legion of Christ for many decades. It has been linked with the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in some Western jurisdictions and led to his denunciation by the Vatican.

In March, 2010, the Legion of Christ in a communique acknowledged as factual "reprehensible actions" by Maciel, including sexual abuse. The communique stated that "given the gravity of his faults, we cannot take his person as a model of Christian or priestly life." This occurred after the Legion spent more than a decade denying allegations and criticizing the victims who claimed abuse.

History of investigations

1956 investigation

Father Marcial Maciel, the leader of the Legion of Christ, was investigated several times. In 1956 the Vatican had him removed as superior and investigated allegations of drug abuse. After interviewing members of the then-small congregation, the Vatican found him innocent, and he was reinstated in February 1959. There are no records of any members reporting sexual abuse at that time. However, since then two seminarians have reported that they lied to investigators and did not report abuse to them because of the vow that Father Maciel had them take, never to speak ill of him.

Accusations since the 1970s

Since the 1970s, Marcial Maciel has been accused twice of having repeatedly sexually abused other congregation members, including young children. Maciel's accusers include a priest, a guidance counselor, a professor, an engineer, a lawyer, and a former priest who became a university professor. The men, all of which were behind the accusations both times, seven Mexicans and two Spaniards, described themselves as former members of a favored group, known as the "apostolic schoolboys." The abuse allegedly occurred over three decades beginning in the 1940s in Spain and Italy, where boys and young men were taken for schooling. The abuse, they said, involved some 30 boys and young men and extended over at least three decades.

Nine different accusers

Of the nine men making the accusations, one subsequently retracted his story, claiming it had been a fabrication intended to damage the Legion. The other eight continue to maintain these allegations. In 1998, formal charges were lodged at the Vatican. The accusations described how Maciel would feign to have an illness in his groin and had been given papal permission to receive help massaging out the pain. Fr. Maciel and the organization originally denied the accusations. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who is now Pope Benedict XVI), examined the allegations; but the victims were told the following year that the investigation had been shelved.

Reopening the case

Later, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, examined the allegations, reopening the investigation against Maciel shortly before Maciel resigned the General Directorship of the Legion. According to the ReGain organization, as many as 24 men came forward with accusations of sexual abuse against him. Maciel and the Legion continued to deny the accusations until his death in 2008.

Retirement and penitence

On 19 May 2006, the Vatican published a communique for press, instructing Maciel to retire to a life of "prayer and penitence".

The reaction of the Legion was summarized by Jim Fair, the US spokesman of the Legion of Christ as a persecution, while the Legion proclaimed Maciel's innocence. "Fair has absolutely no doubt that Father Maciel is innocent of accusations that he sexually abused seminarians decades ago. Any statements to the contrary, he said, amount to persecution of a holy man – the kind of persecution Jesus referred to in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, 'Blessed are those who hate and persecute you for holiness' sake; you shall see God.'"

Stepping down as leader

After the reopening of the investigation in late 2004, Fr. Maciel stepped down as General Director of the Legion at the Ordinary General Chapter held in January 2005. Fr Alvaro Corcuera was then elected by the same General Chapter as the new General Director.

Children

Fathering a child

On 3 February 2009 the New York Times reported: "The Legionaries of Christ, an influential Roman Catholic religious order, have been shaken by new revelations that their founder, who died a year ago, had an affair with a woman and fathered a daughter just as he and his thriving conservative order were winning the acclaim of Pope John Paul II." This has been confirmed by the Legion of Christ.

According to Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto, the Legion also admitted to gross misuse of funds by Maciel. Alvaro Corcuera and Thomas Williams have also stated that, given the revelations about the immoral life led by the founder, it is probable that past accusations of sexual abuse be true.

The Rev. Fr. Thomas V. Berg LC, Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, formally apologized to the victims of Fr. Maciel, "In shock, sorrow, and with a humbled spirit, I want to express my deepest sorrow for anyone who, in any way, has been hurt by the moral failings of Fr. Maciel." A few weeks after the scandal broke, Fr. Berg left the Legion of Christ to become a diocesan priest, transferring the Westchester Institute to the Archdiocese of New York.

On 3 September 2009, an apology on behalf of the Legion was made by Fr. Julio Marti and Fr. Scott Reilly (both territorial directors of the Legion in the US northeast), "We are deeply saddened and sorry, and we sincerely ask for forgiveness from God and from those who have been hurt through this. We also regret that our inability to detect, and thus accept and remedy, Father Maciel’s failings has caused even more suffering."

Civil suit on behalf of six children

In July 2009, Mexican media reported that an attorney, José Bonilla, will represent three of a possible total of six of Maciel's children in a civil suit to recover Maciel's estate. The lawyer claims that there are several properties in Mexico and around the world which Maciel owned in his own name.

Media in Spain had similarly reported an interview with a woman who had a child with Maciel over 20 years ago and now lives in a luxury apartment in Madrid which Maciel purchased for her. The woman, Norma Hilda Baños, insinuates that she was abused by Maciel as a minor and later was impregnated by him and she bore him a daughter, Norma Hilda Rivas. At least one source claims that Rivas is an alias that Maciel used during his life.

Reaction of archbishop O'Brien

In the wake of these affairs, Baltimore Archbishop Edwin O'Brien told his archdiocesan newspaper that the order must offer "full disclosure of [Maciel's] activities and those who are complicit in them, or knew of them, and of those who are still refusing to offer disclosure," adding that the order's finances should also be subject to "objective scrutiny." He called Maciel "a man with an entrepreneurial genius who, by systematic deception and duplicity, used our faith to manipulate others for his own selfish ends," and further criticized the "good deal of secrecy in [Maciel's] own life...[and] in the structures he created." The Archbishop welcomed the Vatican's decision in the following March to conduct an apostolic visitation of the Legionaries, and said that the order's abolition "should be on the table."

Apostolic visitation

The Vatican has ordered an apostolic visitation of the institutions of the Legionaries of Christ following disclosures of sexual impropriety by the order's late founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado. The announcement of the unusual investigation was posted on the Web site of the Legionaries of Christ on 31 March 2009 along with the text of a letter informing the Legionaries of the pope's decision.

Vatican authorities named five bishops from five different countries, each one in charge of investigating the Legionaries in a particular part of the world. Ricardo Watti Urquidi [1], Bishop of Tepic, Mexico, in charge of Mexico and Central America, where the Legion has 44 houses, 250 priests and 115-120 religious seminarians; Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, in charge of the United States and Canada, where the Legion has 24 houses, 130 priests and 260 religious seminarians; Giuseppe Versaldi, Bishop of Alessandria, in charge of Italy, Israel, the Philippines, and South Korea, where the Legion has 16 houses, 200 priests and 420 religious seminarians (in Italy 13, 168 and 418 respectively); Ricardo Ezzati Andrello [2], Archbishop of Concepción, Chile, in charge of Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela, where the Legion has 20 houses, 122 priests and 122 religious seminarians; Ricardo Blázquez Pérez, Bishop of Bilbao, Spain, in charge of Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Holland, Poland, Austria and Hungary, where the Legion has 20 houses, 105 priest, and 160 religious seminarians.

They met with the Pope to wrap up the visitation in April 2010 and the Vatican issued a statement on 1 May 2010.

Formal denunciation by the Vatican

On 1 May 2010, the Vatican said that the Pope will name a delegate and appoint a commission to review the Legionaries of Christ following revelations that the order's founder sexually abused numerous underage seminarians and fathered at least three children with two women. In a statement, the Vatican denounced the Rev. Marciel Maciel for creating a "system of power" that enabled him to lead an "immoral" double life "devoid of scruples and authentic religious sentiment" and allowed him to abuse young boys for decades unchecked. The Vatican issued the statement after Pope Benedict XVI met with five bishops who investigated the Legion to determine its future. The Vatican statement was remarkable in its tough denunciation of Maciel's crimes and deception.

The "very serious and objectively immoral acts" of Fr. Marcial Maciel, which were "confirmed by incontrovertible testimonies" represent "true crimes and manifest a life without scruples or authentic religious sentiment," the Vatican said.[33] The Vatican said the Legion created a "mechanism of defense" around Maciel to shield him from accusations and suppress damaging witnesses from reporting abuse. "It made him untouchable," the Vatican said. The statement decried "the lamentable disgracing and expulsion of those who doubted" Maciel's virtue. The Vatican statement did not address whether the Legion's current leadership will face any sanctions. Actions taken by the current Legion leadership will be scrutinized; but no specific sanctions were mentioned, amid suspicion that at least some of the current leaders must have been aware of Maciel's sins. The Vatican acknowledged the "hardships" faced by Maciel's accusers through the years when they were ostracized or ridiculed, and commended their "courage and perseverance to demand the truth."

Papal delegate

As a result of the visitation, Benedict XVI named Archbishop (now Cardinal) Velasio De Paolis as the Papal Delegate to oversee the Legion and its governance on 9 July 2010.

Archbishop Ricardo Blazquez, Archbishop of Valladolid, Spain, headed the probe into the consecrated women of the Legion's lay movement, Regnum Christi. According to an online Catholic News Service article issued 30 September 2010, Archbishop Blazquez, 68, is Bishop of Bilbao, a former theology professor and former President of the Spanish Episcopal Conference; he had assisted in the earlier investigation of the congregation's centers and institutes in Europe outside of Italy. On 7 June 2011, he concluded the visitation but has as of 16 June he was still working on the final report.

Also, several clergy were named by the Vatican as assistants to Archbishop de Paolis in his work leading the commission. Bishop Brian Farrell, 66, a member of the Legionaries who was ordained a priest for the order in 1969, is a Dublin native and presently is the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (from 1970 to 1976 he served as director of the Legionaries' U.S. novitiate in Orange, Connecticut). In addition, there are three canon lawyers: Jesuit Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, S.J., a former rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome; Sacred Heart Father Agostino Montan (a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus), who is the episcopal vicar of the Rome Diocese's office for consecrated life and a professor of canon law at Rome's Pontifical Lateran University; and Monsignor Mario Marchesi, who is the vicar general of the Diocese of Cremona and who has taught canon law at the Legionaries' Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome. Archbishop de Paolis, Father Ghirlanda, and Father Montan are consultors to the Vatican Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Monsignor Marchesi and Fathers Ghirlanda and Montan serve as consultors to the Vatican Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Archbishop de Paolis and Father Ghirlanda also are members of the Vatican's highest legislative body outside of the Pope, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, and the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts.

See also

• Child sexual abuse
• Religious abuse
• Spiritual abuse