Woden
Banned
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50570
RELIGION-MEXICO: Legion of Christ Scandal Escalates
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Mar 6, 2010 (IPS) - A new scandal has increased the pressure on the conservative religious order Legion of Christ, one of the most influential in the Catholic Church, to compensate the victims of alleged sexual abuse by its founder, Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, and carry out internal reforms.
Maciel (1920-2008) led a double life, maintaining relationships with at least two women and fathering up to six children. And according to new allegations, he sexually abused one of his biological sons and an adopted son.
But despite allegations that he abused numerous young seminarians in the order's schools in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and several investigations conducted over the years, he was never held accountable for any case of sex abuse.
[...]
After founding the Legion of Christ in 1941, Maciel, who was born into a wealthy ranching family in Mexico, carefully built up the order through ties with the political and economic elites of this country, making the Legion a powerful symbol of the most conservative wing of the Roman Catholic Church.
And although the Vatican suspended him as head of the congregation from 1956 to 1958 because of early allegations of paedophilia, he was found innocent and reinstated.
However, the myth finally began to unravel in 1997, when the Hartford Courant daily newspaper in the eastern U.S. state of Connecticut and the Mexican magazine Contenido reported that eight former seminarians had accused Maciel of sexually abusing them years earlier.
"Despite testimony by 30 ex-Legionaries abused by Maciel, the Vatican failed to specify his moral crimes. To mollify his followers, the Vatican praised the order…and the Legion then cast Maciel as falsely accused," wrote U.S. journalist Jason Berry in a September 2009 article for the Hartford Courant.
[...]
Despite investigations of the allegations against Maciel in the mid- to late-1950s and again between 1998 and 2005, and indications that the Vatican was aware of what the order itself acknowledged as the "inappropriate" actions of its founder, he enjoyed the protection of Pope John Paul II.
Marcial Maciel receives the blessing of Pope John Paul II
RELIGION-MEXICO: Legion of Christ Scandal Escalates
By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Mar 6, 2010 (IPS) - A new scandal has increased the pressure on the conservative religious order Legion of Christ, one of the most influential in the Catholic Church, to compensate the victims of alleged sexual abuse by its founder, Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, and carry out internal reforms.
Maciel (1920-2008) led a double life, maintaining relationships with at least two women and fathering up to six children. And according to new allegations, he sexually abused one of his biological sons and an adopted son.
But despite allegations that he abused numerous young seminarians in the order's schools in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s and several investigations conducted over the years, he was never held accountable for any case of sex abuse.
[...]
After founding the Legion of Christ in 1941, Maciel, who was born into a wealthy ranching family in Mexico, carefully built up the order through ties with the political and economic elites of this country, making the Legion a powerful symbol of the most conservative wing of the Roman Catholic Church.
And although the Vatican suspended him as head of the congregation from 1956 to 1958 because of early allegations of paedophilia, he was found innocent and reinstated.
However, the myth finally began to unravel in 1997, when the Hartford Courant daily newspaper in the eastern U.S. state of Connecticut and the Mexican magazine Contenido reported that eight former seminarians had accused Maciel of sexually abusing them years earlier.
"Despite testimony by 30 ex-Legionaries abused by Maciel, the Vatican failed to specify his moral crimes. To mollify his followers, the Vatican praised the order…and the Legion then cast Maciel as falsely accused," wrote U.S. journalist Jason Berry in a September 2009 article for the Hartford Courant.
[...]
Despite investigations of the allegations against Maciel in the mid- to late-1950s and again between 1998 and 2005, and indications that the Vatican was aware of what the order itself acknowledged as the "inappropriate" actions of its founder, he enjoyed the protection of Pope John Paul II.
Marcial Maciel receives the blessing of Pope John Paul II