Category: Fr. Marcial Maciel

Legionaries’ Paradise -Introduction

 

Legionaries’ Paradise 

Article, authored by reporter Emiliano Ruiz Parra, originally appeared in Spanish on the Gatopardo web page

Gatopardo

http://gatopardo.com/ReportajesGP.php?R=315

The Legion of Christ wields almost limitless power in Cancun and all over the state of Quintana Roo, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. The Cancun-Chetumal Prelature (quasi diocese), under the Legion’s direction since 1970, has enabled the religious order to harbor pedophile priests and to exile their priest and brother members who are critical of or unhappy with the organization.

The present article also highlights how the Legionaries have taken possession of public lands on several occasions and now plan to build a mega basilica which could have major negative ecological impact on this pristine area. And all this is happening with the complicity of state officials and under the sinister influence of their deceased founder, Marcial Maciel.

Text by EMILIANO RUIZ PARRA / FOTOS DE WACHO ESPINOSA

Fr. Maciel, Legion of Christ Founder, Instrument of God or Satan?

 POPE FRANCIS AND CHURCH LEADERS, PLEASE WAKE UP!

Pope Francis with a group of Legionaries

August 3, 2015

I have just attended the Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests annual conference in Alexandria, VA and have been discussing Maciel, the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi with a good and knowledgeable friend. This brought to the surface the following convictions:

 

MANIFESTO

  • After thirty years ministering to Legion of Christ/Regnum Christi survivors, I clearly see once again the path of destruction left by Marcial Maciel/Legion/Regnum in the lives they have sailed through. Because it is not just sexual abuse; it is abuse of all kinds: physical neglect, psychological illnesses, confused consciences, depression and suicide, loss of faith in the Church, Christ and God, financial abuse of members, families and vulnerable adults; as well as exile, calumny, ostracism, lawsuits and threats for those who will not submit.
  • The Popes and the Vatican, after their investigation of Maciel and the Legion, chose to save the Legion of Christ religious order. Pope Francis rubber-stamped his predecessors’ conclusions.
  • Telling us: Maciel bad; Legion good, and asking us to believe that God used the flawed Maciel to create His Work, the Legion of Christ Catholic Religious Order and the Regnum Christi lay movement.
  • The Vatican did this by ignoring and/or twisting centuries of Christian Faith and Tradition which link a religious order’s validity and authenticity to the charism, holiness and inspiration of the founder.
  • We are asked to believe that God performed a new miracle, that the rotten tree has produced healthy fruit.
  • Or is it just that the business created by entrepreneur Maciel, the Legion of Christ Inc., continues to mass-produce priests, astutely recruit well-meaning Catholics, and bring in millions of dollars into the Church, an institution reeling from accusations of corruption and abuse which is losing the allegiance of thinking and discriminating members?
  • What if Marcial Maciel, the verbally, emotionally, physically and sexually abused little Mexican boy, who never sought or received help for his own damaged and warped psyche, became a sexual predator and manipulative exploiter with airs of grandeur, creating the myth that he was chosen by God to save the Catholic Church, Christianity and the world by founding a new and better religious order?
  • Maciel totally lacked self-awareness and restraint, simply acting out his sexual, controlling and ambitious appetite:. Maciel, the psychopath, the Traumatizing Narcissist, who deluded himself into thinking he was creating a religious order and not a sect to satisfy his own desires, using and abusing others in the process?
  • What if the Father of Deceit, and not the Holy Spirit, took possession of that damaged psyche, to create a cleverly crafted diabolical sect within the Catholic Church, endowed with the same spirit that possessed Maciel: lies, deceit, smoke-screens, spiritual pyrotechnics, control, and self-aggrandizement that would continue to wound, damage and deceive generous, idealistic and naïve people in their sexuality, self-respect, maturity, discernment, human dignity, and in their very souls?
  • What if Maciel was able to fool Church authorities and con them into approving his fraudulent order?
  • What if Church authorities have never wanted to acknowledge they were conned by Maciel and refuse to correct their mistake?
  • I throw down the gauntlet and challenge blind Catholic Church leaders, dazzled by glittering images, to see the deceptive “cult in their midst”!

J. Paul Lennon, LC 1961-84, Licensed Professional Counselor.

“And the band played on”: More Legionary Ordinations

And the Band Played On…

Twenty more Legionaries ordained as deacons

CORRECTION:  in the body of the article it is stated that Zenith and the Claretian order are somehow connected. The editor has researched this info and has not found confirmation. However, the info regarding the first Vatican investigation of the Legion and the role of Claretians [the Congregation of the “Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” was founded by Antonio María Claret y Clará (Anthony Claret) on July 16, 1849 at the seminary in Vic, in the province of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain] is correct; they had competent priests who spoke Spanish and Italian.

While ReGAIN, life.after.rc, several Catholic blogs and bloggers, respectable Catholic voices such as Peter Vere, Sandro De Magistris in Rome, First Things and others have been raising the alarm about spreading the Legion of Christ yeast in the Church…

LC Bishop Brian Farrell continues to aid and abet the Legion by ordaining 20 young men to the diaconate at the Legion college in Rome.

And it must be said the Holy Mother the Church has been treating the Legion of Christ with kid gloves. John the Baptizer continues to cry in the desert…

*****

http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/bishop-brian-farrell-lc-ordains-20-legionaries-of-christ-deacons-in-rome

(Brief excerpts from Zenith report)

Bishop Brian Farrell, LC, ordains 20 Legionaries of Christ deacons in Rome

New deacons come from Canada, India, Germany, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Italy

Rome, May 03, 2015 (ZENIT.org) Redaction | 717 hits

Bishop Brian Farrell, LC, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity, ordained 20 Legionaries of Christ deacons in the chapel of the Legion of Christ’s Center of Higher Studies in Rome.  Fr. Eduardo Robles Gil, LC, the Legion’s General Director, and some 150 other priests, both religious and diocesan, both religious and diocesan, concelebrated.

(…)

“On behalf of the new deacons and the whole Church I would like to thank the families of these young men.  The family plays an important part in the life of every priest.  Without their support during the long years of formation, it would not be possible to follow Christ’s call,” said Fr. Benjamin Clariond, spokesman of the congregation in Rome.

*****

Editorial notes

  1. The celebrant, Bishop Brian is brother to Kevin Farrell, bishop of Dallas, TX, who left the Legion many years ago because of ‘intellectual differences’ (not the real reason!). Monsignor Kevin had been a close associate of Fr. Maciel for years and one of the drivers assigned to accompany church dignitaries being cultivated by the Legion, including Cardinal Eduardo Pironio, Prefect for the congregation for religious. He left because of Maciel’s mistreatment and made a successful transition to the diocese of Washington DC., where he pursued his ecclesiastical career
  2. Zenith, which we learn is the official news agency of the Claretians was once owned by the Legion of Christ. Ironically, some Claretians were assigned by the Vatican to investigate Maciel in 1956. Their reports were very damaging but not enough to dislodge Maciel’s supporters inside the Curia.  See details in
  3. http://religiousgroupsawarenessinternational.network/2014/11/28/1956-59-vatican-investigation-of-fr-marcial-maciel-lc-investigators-identity-polidoro-controversy/

It can be honestly said that as a reesult Fr. Maciel cordially hated Fr. Arcadio Larraona, CMF, for contributing to the damning reports. Fr. Maciel had problems with the Gospels’ “love your enemies.”

Maybe the Legion continues to struggle with this element of their Charity charism.

Legionaries of Christ Denounce Founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado 02/06/2014

Legionaries Of Christ Officially Apologize To Victims: Catholic Order Denounces Founder Father Marcial Maciel

 | By Philip Pullella
Posted: 02/06/2014 10:47 am EST

ROME — A Roman Catholic order whose late founder lived a double life as a pedophile and womanizer officially denounced him on Thursday and apologized to his “many victims.”

The Legionaries of Christ, which former members said was run like a secretive cult, accused the founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, who died in 2008, of “reprehensible and objectively immoral behavior” as head of the order from its founding in 1941 until Pope Benedict XVI removed him in 2006.

Once a favorite of the Vatican because it drew many young Catholics to religious vocations and made sizable financial donations to the church, the order has been in Vatican receivership since 2010 and came close to being disbanded.

The apology, issued by delegates from around the world meeting in Rome to set a new direction for the order, came a day after a United Nations committee singled it out in a scathing report accusing the church of ignoring child abuse by priests.

Continue reading the main story
RELATED COVERAGE

Kirsten Sandberg, the chairwoman of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, in Geneva on Wednesday.U.N. Panel Criticizes the Vatican Over Sexual AbuseFEB. 5, 2014
The statement denounced “the magnitude of the evil and scandal caused” by Father Maciel and said the organization was now ready to turn a page. “We want to express our deep sorrow for the abuse of minor seminarians, the immoral acts with men and women who were adults, the arbitrary use of his authority and of material goods,” the statement said.

For decades, the Vatican dismissed accusations by seminarians that Father Maciel had abused them sexually, some when they were as young as 12. The order’s rules forbade criticizing the founder or questioning his motives. Pope John Paul II strongly backed Father Maciel, even as criticism of him mounted.

The order was long admired by the church for its dynamic growth and fund-raising prowess, and it had many wealthy conservative benefactors who saw it as a bulwark against liberalism in the church.

In 2006, a year after John Paul’s death, a Vatican investigation concluded that the previously denied accusations of molestation were true. Benedict ordered Father Maciel to retire to a life of “prayer and penitence.”

After his death, Vatican investigations found that Father Maciel had also fathered several children with at least two women, visited them regularly and sent them money.

The order’s newly elected general director, the Rev. Eduardo Robles Gil, has a long history with the group himself. According to its website, he helped establish the Legion in Brazil, and in 2011 he was named to a commission created to work with the victims of Father Maciel.

The Rev. John Stegnicki, a former Legion priest now working in the archdiocese of Brasília, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying that the outcome of the election was “disappointing” but predictable, given that the priests voting were by and large Maciel confidants or their protégés.

“Who else could they choose from?” he said. “All of them are entrenched in Legion-think.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 7, 2014, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Catholic Order Denounces Its Founder. Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe

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