Author: Da Man from Cabra West

Dubliner, Legionary of Christ [1961-84], mental health therapist living in the Washington DC are since 1985, bilingual Spanish, 13 years in Mexico, married to a pretty Guatemalan; I am "amateur writer", translator, co founder of REGAIN, INC, www.regainnetwork.org, Legionary of Christ "expert", member of International Cultic Studies Association.

Part One: The Legion of Christ  Continues to Avoid Compensating Victims of Sexual Abuse by its Founder, Father Marcial Maciel, LC.

The Legion of Christ  Continues to Avoid Compensating Victims of Sexual Abuse by its Founder, Father Marcial Maciel, LC.

One year ago, the Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi Federation proudly published  its chapter documents “Conversion and Repair”, “Protect and Heal” and the “Report of Abuse…” [i] in which it formally promised to compensate  the  victims for the damages  of sexual abuse suffered  at the hands of founder, Father Marcial Maciel, LC.

Today we want to inform the public what has become of such   words, documents and  promises: that in fact  the Legion of Christ, as represented by Father  Robles Gil and Regnum Christi Federation, Fr.  John Connor, have once again de facto  answered:   “NO”, “NO, WE WILL NOT” to the historical victims.  Another year has gone by WITHOUT EFFECTIVE  REPARATION.

WHAT DID THE HISTORICAL VICTIMS DEMAND OF DIRECTOR GENERAL (Father John Connor) AT THE MEETING THEY HAD A YEAR AGO?

  1. That the LC/RC publish an apology in the same media in which victims were falsely accused and unjustly libeled in 1997, so as to repair their good name, reputation and that of the relatives inheriting their name. That it be declared unambiguously  that they were not conspirators, that they were telling the truth; that the Legion’s false accusation had caused them to lose their jobs, and/or effected their careers, income, relationships, friendships and even families for decades after.

HOW DID THE LEGION OF CHRIST RESPOND? IN THE NEGATIVE:

“We will not publish anything in major newspapers or with international reach, and less in the Hartford Courant.” (newspaper in which the Legion published the false accusations and documents against Maciel’s accusers  in 1997.)

  1. That a team of six be chosen -three by the LC and three by the victims- to determine together the extent of damage the LC had caused them, and reach an agreement on just

 HOW DID THE LEGION OF CHRIST RESPOND? IN THE NEGATIVE

At  said meeting, a Legion priest representative  pulled out his pocket calculator in front of them, maid calculation re Mexican minimum wages, and offered 450,000 pesos approx. ($22,500  UScy)  to each victim to repair decades of international abuse, harm, and  defamation.  The Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi Federation demanded they sign a Confidentiality Agreement  (mug order) as a requirement to continue deliberations.

  1. José Barba, PhD, who had legal representation, requested in writing from the Director General that any communication or communication relevant to deliberations go through him, Barba, their representative.

HOW DID THE LEGION OF CHRIST RESPOND?

Saying “OF COURSE,”,  BUT PROCEDING TO DO THE OPPOSITE!

The present Director (Superior) General of the institution, Father John Connor,  personally and directly, approached several victims, going over the head of legal representative, José Barba, and secretly offering them  $5,000  UScy individually  – “not as compensation but as an Easter Egg Gift” (sic). With this treacherous strategy, Fr. Connor effectively split the group of plaintiffs and weakened their position.

Where in the Name of God is the honest good will of this apparently bone fide Catholic religious order? One cannot help wondering now:

IS THE LEGION/REGNUM WAITING FOR VICTIMS TO DIE OFF AND THE PROBLEM TO GO AWAY?

The Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi waiting game continues. The eighty-year-old victims are dying: Fernando Pérez Olvera Esq in 2020 and Father Félix Alarcón  Hoyos in 2021. To protect its public image, the institution helped to defray costs of their  terminal illness and funeral expenses. BUT IT HAS NOT COMPENSATED THEM in the proper and agreed manner. The group’s de facto consistent priority is, as in other questionable groups, recruitment of the young and vulnerable together with fund-raising to train recruits, expand its projects, and promote its image.

If things go on like this, will the LC/RC ever honor its obligations to the remaining victims and to the deceased’s dependents?

Hopefully,  they will not answer the same as always: “What can be done after such a long time. But don’t worry. We will pray for you.”

Support Network of  Victims of Sexual Abuse by Founder of the Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi Federation, Fr. Marcial Maciel, LC

February 26, 2021

 

 

[i] https://legionariosdecristo.org/

[i] https://legionariosdecristo.org/tag/conversion-y-reparacion/

Free Seminar on Shaming. Does your (former) Group Do It?

International Cultic Studies Association offers a FREE SEMINAR, Sat Dec 19 at 12:00 noon EST

Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi Federation Overtures to 7 of Fr. Maciel’s Sex Abuse Victims (Rome, 1950s) at the Twenty-Fifth Hour[i] (2020)

Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi Federation makes Overtures to Seven of Maciel’s Sexual Abuse Victims

Here

I believe you, Father Connor, New Director General, but Help Thou my Unbelief![ii]:

Your  ongoing efforts to outreach -at this late hour- the seven living “classical victims” of Fr. Maciel’s pedophilia[iii] might be considered right and just. Maciel, the Imposter Founder, whose favorite entertainment was to initiate the pubescent seminarians into their budding sexuality, for his pleasure and control. He got off scot free, thanks to his accomplices, in the Legion of Christ and in the Vatican.

And what are you up to, my good man? – I hesitate to call you “Father”, because God only knows how you, the Director General, became a Reverend, traveling fast along the conveyer belt of the Legion of Christ, bereft of real discernment, and blest only by the adulterated Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola currently usurped by your Federation.

Being an “American” -as the inhabitants of that country call themselves -appropriating the name of the Continent- you will know what is meant by damage control, or image control.

Image control for those outside: The Vatican cardinals, bishops, and Monsignors who you win over with adulation and money; the public, the parents, the benefactors, the unsuspecting generous and naïve youth you groom to join the ranks.

Damage control for those inside: Legionaries and members of Regnum Christi, men and women, new recruits, troops young and old in varying stages of allegiance, and those who should have left but hesitated, and now have one foot in the grave.

The reader can benefit from one recent example of the organization’s damage control, otherwise called Information Control, in the words of cult expert, ex-Moonie, Steven Hassan. This could also be called Indoctrination. The Federation, or Legion of Christ members, are conducting secret classes on the History of the Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi Federation in many of the houses of the “consecrated women” of the Regnum Christi Lay Movement: code name, 3gf.  This history, naturally, will be “The Official Story.” Before being privy to this special  (rewritten) history, the members are made to sign a letter vowing they will not divulge to “outsiders” the content of the instructions.

All this while Fr. Connor is outreaching the seven remaining original victims of Founder, Marcial Maciel, sending them friendship gifts of five to eight thousand dollars. (In order to mollify them and make them more amenable to compensation under the Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi Federation’s terms).

The number of Maciel’s sexual abuse victims are more than these seven or ten. Victim Juan José Vaca had already named twenty victims he knew about in 1979[iv]. So what about the other twelve? and The Legion has recently admitted Maciel abused sixty -anonymous- boys[v]  What about the other forty? 

Why go to all the trouble for these seven? Because these were the ones who spoke out. These are the native Spanish-speakers that Jason Berry and Gerald Renner  gave an English-language voice to on that fateful  23rd February 1997. These are the ones who threw mud at the Rev. Marcial Maciel, the immaculate founder. These are the ones who brought their case to Rome, jumping through all the painful and complex canonical procedures.  And were heard. Finally in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI acted against the untouchable Maciel, stymying thus his cause for sainthood. These are the ones who went public and cast doubt on the Legion of Christ, and kept hanging like a dead albatross around the newly named Regnum Christi Federation’s neck.

I know, John, that you need to get them to shut up, once and for all. Pay them off from your billion dollar budget.

But think again: that dastardly debasement of the innocent Mexican and Spanish boys constitutes a stain that will not go away. Queen-Macbeth-Legion cannot wash it from her hands[vi]. But she will try, beginning with perfumed Easter Soaps of five to eight thousand dollars. Could have been thirty pieces of silver…seventy years later…

[i] https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Fifth-Hour-C-Virgil-Gheorghiu/dp/B0006ASHFO

[ii] Mk 9,24

[iii] https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-marcial-maciel-02-1997-story.html First there were ten: one died in strange circumstances while hospitalized in Mexico City (Juan Manuel Fernández Amenábar), one was bribed by Maciel just before the Hartford Courant Article appeared (Miguel Díaz); then there were eight; one of these already reached a settlement with the then Director General, Fr. Álvaro Corcuera, R.I.P.

[iv] https://todomaciel.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/un-testimonio-definitivo/

[v]The Legion has recently admitted that there were scores:   

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-abuse/legionaires-founder-sexually-abused-60-boys-religious-orders-report-says-idUSKBN1YQ02Y

[vi] She says: Out, damned spot! out, I say! – One: two: why, then, ’tis time to do’t. – Hell is murky! – Fie, my lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it,  when none can call our power to account? – Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?  (Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Act V, Scene 1)

Translate »
%%footer%%