The new edition by Vicent Comes Iglesia in the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (BAC) of Luis Lucia Lucia’s Salterio de mis horas, “Psalter of my hours” (Madrid 2014), allows us to consider, virtually for the first time, a poignant 20th century life and a noteworthy work of Catholic spirituality. It allows us also to do something less edifying: we can now compare the original work closely with its appropriation by Father Marcial Maciel as Salterio de mis días, ‘Psalter of my days”, esteemed for decades as a foundational work of spirituality among the congregation he founded in Mexico in 1941, the Legionaries of Christ.
New edition of Luis Lucia’s Psalter of My Hours casts light on Father Marcial Maciel’s appropriated version
Editor’s note on the Photo above:
taken at the Legion’s first house in Ireland, Bundrowes House, Bundoran, Co. Donegal, 1960-61; it features some founders and visitors: Theology student James/Santiago Coindreau LC, recruiter; recently ordained Fr. Neftali Sanchez LC confessor, Fr. Marcial Maciel founder, Bro Pearse Allen original Irish candidate dressed as novice, Bro. James Whiston original Irish candidate dressed as novice, and Fr. Alfonso Samaniego LC, prominent Legionary at that time -who was later demoted and ostracized by Maciel after questioning him in public.
Editor’s note on Article:
J. Paul Lennon published a sensible literary critique of Fr. Maciel’s Psalter decades ago, before the plagiarism was known publicly. The author decried LC/RC members’ fawning adulation of Fr. Maciel’s very mediocre poetic attempt. The Legion, . thought its expensive lawyers, sued, forcing the article to be removed from public view. But that was before Vatican Visitation telling Legion leadership to allow and encourage freedom of expression…(?)
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New edition of Luis Lucia’s Psalter of my Hours casts light on Father Marcial Maciel’s appropriated version
by Jean Boudet, investigative journalist
The new edition by Vicent Comes Iglesia in the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos (BAC) of Luis Lucia Lucia’s Salterio de mis horas, “Psalter of my hours” (Madrid 2014), allows us to consider, virtually for the first time, a poignant 20th century life and a noteworthy work of Catholic spirituality. It allows us also to do something less edifying: we can now compare the original work closely with its appropriation (ReGAIN, plagiarized) by Father Marcial Maciel as Salterio de mis días, ‘Psalter of my days”, esteemed for decades as a foundational work of spirituality among the congregation he founded in Mexico in 1941, the Legionaries of Christ.
Lucia wrote his Salterio while a political prisoner in Barcelona, 1937-40, condemned first by the Spanish Republic and then by Franco. It was politically indelicate and unpublished, emerging only in a small, private edition in Valencia in 1956. Coincidentally this was the year Maciel moved to Spain, having been restricted by Vatican authorities from Rome, where he had brought his congregation, and suspended pending investigation of allegations of drug abuse, sexual abuse, and other irregularities of religious life. Early on in what he called his exile, he encountered Lucia’s Salterio and made it his own. Maciel fashioned a new work that combined plagiarism, both verbatim and slightly adapted, with some original passages that imitated Lucia’s poetic style. And he found in it a poetic language and a theological structure with which to interpret the period of his suspension, 1956-59, as the years of the “Great Blessing.” Continue reading “Fr. Maciel, Plagiarist and Catholic Houdini”
Father Maciel and Walter White: Breaking Bad in Meth and Sex
Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show originally aired on the AMC network for five seasons, from January 20, 2008, to September 29, 2013. It tells the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, who, together with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), turns to a life of crime, producing and selling crystallized methamphetamine to secure his family’s financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal world. The title is from a Southern colloquialism meaning to “raise hell”. Breaking Bad is set and was filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Continue reading “Marcial Maciel and Walter White: Breaking Bad in Meth and Sex”
In city block (Supermanzana) number 30 the Legionaries appropriated part of the park. They invaded it little by little. Seven thousand square meters of space had been allotted to the local community. They divided it in four: one for the pre-school, another for the elementary school, a third for the bandstand (kiosco) and the last was a green area. In the green area the Legionaries started building a small church (capilla). Whenever the padre –a Legionary of Christ- came to say Mass, one of the neighbors would open the gate for him.
Legion of Christ: Invaders of Cancun’s Green areas
Legionaries’ Paradise
By Emiliano Ruiz Parra
Part 4
In city block (Supermanzana) number 30 the Legionaries appropriated part of the park. They invaded it little by little. Seven thousand square meters of space had been allotted to the local community. They divided it in four: one for the pre-school, another for the elementary school, a third for the bandstand (kiosco) and the last was a green area. In the green area the Legionaries started building a small church (capilla). Whenever the padre –a Legionary of Christ- came to say Mass, one of the neighbors would open the gate for him.
One day, that neighbor, Mario Cortés, had to leave town and he loaned the keys to the padre; loaned them until his return. Mario never saw those keys again. The chapel passed into Legion hands and a year later so did the 1,000 square meters of green area it stood on.
The central location of the chapel attracted hundreds of people from the surrounding blocks. Surrounded by parkland it became one of the favorite places for weddings and baptisms. When Juan Ignacio, El Chacho, García Zalvidea became mayor of Cancun he attempted to legalize the Legionaries’ invasion, intending to grant the Prelature an “order to take possession” of the park.
This provoked a long drawn out battle between the Prelature and some of the locals. Two of them spoke with the reporter: Herminia Peña and Luz María Elguero, who live right on the edge of the park. With the go ahead from El Chacho, the Prelature began to fence “their” lot off. The neighbors, in turn, smashed down the concrete pillars. The Prelature sent in heavy machinery to excavate foundations; the neighbors blocked their access. The Prelature had local authorities on their side.
The Prelature sent in its workers during the night when people were asleep. They intensified their work during Holy Week and other holidays when people were away on vacation. One Wednesday in Holy Week the neighbors were on guard to prevent the pillars from being built. The police came along and arrested them. They were set free a few hours later. One person was always sniffing around block 30: Fernando García Zalvidea. The neighbors got used to seeing his Porsche SUV prowling around the building site.
When El Chacho became governor, the Prelature tried to gobble up another 4,000 sq. meters. They had plans and a model for a church, child care center, dorms and basements. The neighborhood president at that time signed the plans and with this approval the Prelature was able to finish enclosing the property and began the foundations. But then El Chacho fell from grace when he tried to join López-Obrador’s PRD leftist party and the mayors that followed were not as supportive of the Legionaries. One of them, Gregorio Sánchez of the PRD party, sought a quick solution: he cancelled the Prelature’s occupation grant but he left them the 1,000 sq. park meters.
The above is a summary of the events. But for Block 30 neighbors, most of them women, it meant hundreds of hours knocking on doors, getting signatures, standing in line in government offices, gathering complaints, reviewing stacks of obscure documents, studying laws and guidelines, phone outreach, meetings, etc. while having to put up with the priests’ ugly looks or their threats from the pulpit every Sunday accusing them of being possessed by the devil and planning to burn down the church.
City Hall gave in again on May 17th, 2013 when the director of public works, Humberto Aguilera, signed off on a permit to build with work number 66,231 as the Parish of the Holy Family, ordering the Prelature to finish it before November 16th, on 1,200 square meters.
In despair, the dissident neighbors lodged a criminal complaint: They accused Bishop Elizondo, impresario Fernando García Zalvidea and the cleric, Luis Alberto Chavarría, LC (the Prelature’s legal representative) of land invasion and crimes against urban development. The attorney general’s office received the accusation, opening case number 4819/13 on September 17th, 2013. The complaint sleeps peacefully in the attorney general’s office since then. No steps were taken to act on it.
The Prelature prevailed. They have a luxury high-vaulted church: mosaic altarpiece, two large flat screen TVs and twelve fans. The paths were widened –chopping down trees- to make way for a parking lot. One of the parking spaces is marked: “exclusively for clergy”. Supermanzana 30 was not the only land to suffer under the Prelature. On September 22, 2014 the reporter visited the neighborhood called Hacienda Real del Caribe de la Region 2000. The neighbors showed him a lot which was planned as one of their green areas; car tires hung from the trees acting as swings for the kids.
First a cross appeared; then a fence and a sign announcing the “Chapel of Our Lord of Divine Mercy”. “If the kids break in to play, the church people kick them out” a woman from Mexico City who had moved to the neighborhood, told the reporter.
Not far away in Supermanzana (Block) 117, the Prelature carried out another land invasion. The same method: first a cross, then four wooden stakes in the ground supporting a nylon cover, and finally bricks: St. James Apostle chapel encroaching on the park facing the Raza de Bronce elementary school.
Once more this invasion provoked reactions in the community: Lourdes Ibarra and Alicia Vázquez headed the group opposing the takeover. Other neighbors supported the padres. The first leaders were Evangelicals. The second pair were Catholic. Both were in agreement about one thing: this was an invasion of a public space. They partially agreed with the Legion’s move because now the vacant lot was cut and clean.
We have just described three examples of public land invasions by the Legionaries of Christ. By the time PRD member Julián Ricalde became mayor of Cancun the number of invasions had risen to thirteen. According to Tulio Arroyo, it is hard to find a Catholic church in Cancun which is not the result of an invasion. The Legionaries have created their own modus operandi: identify a vacant lot and make it theirs using priests, Masses and fences.
Tulio Arroyo is a man on a mission: to defend Cancun’s green areas. His stance has put him on a collision course with the Legionaries of Christ who are accustomed to getting their way in Quintana Roo state. Mr. Arroyo is an engineer specializing in alternative energy. A native of Mexico City with studies in New York, he became the defender of the environment when city hall planned to cut down the last green area in the center of Cancun. The park was called The Green Belly Button (El Ombligo Verde). The mayor of Cancun, PRI member Magali Achach, planned to donate a lot to the Prelature for a cathedral.
Mr. Arroyo-Marroquín and his wife, Bettina Cetto, spearheaded the Defend the Green Belly Button movement. They became experts in administrative law and supported the first protests sprouting up here and there against the church invasions. Arroyo helped them organize press conferences, write communiques and navigate the complicated legal system. He was able to save the Green Belly Button from total deforestation. But he could not prevent the Legionaries from building their cathedral. Ironically, Tulio and Bettina lived opposite the park. The cathedral began to take shape literally under their very noses. Notre Dame of South East Mexico
Legionaries love the grandiose.
Their network of schools is called Semper Altius (Latin for “higher and higher”), with names such as The Heights”, Himalaya, Everest, Alps, Highlands, etc. The Cancun-Chetumal Prelature (the translator notes that the prelature began as the “Chetumal Prelature” but this was eclipsed by its later title which underlines Cancun as the bishop’s place of residence) is no exception to the Legion’s grandiose dreams. It plans to build the most impressive religious monument in South East Mexico, the Basilica of Blessed Mary of Guadalupe of the Sea (La Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe del Mar); its cross will rise to an impressive 110 meters; the church will seat 1,500 worshippers and the total cost is estimated at 12 million dollars.
Once more the Legion’s good intentions are met with “misunderstandings”. This time it’s the ecologists. The cathedral would face onto Laguna Nichupté, a mangrove area hosting many endangered species. One of the opponents is Pedro Canché, a native Maya who spent nine months in prison accused of sabotage. The false accusation was just a way to shut him up. The Quintana Roo authorities had to release him because he became a freedom of speech symbol.
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According to Canché –in a document addressed to city hall- the Tajamar Project (of which the proposed basilica is part) would represent an “imminent ocoside devastating flora, fauna and wetlands (…). Going ahead with the building would devastate one of Cancun’s natural and invaluable fresh air lungs.”
As usual, there are two sides to the story. The official LC story is that the Mexican government tourist development agency, Fonatur, already donated 10, 000 sq. meters to the Prelature. This brings up a very sticky question: Why and how would the Mexican (lay) government donate public lands to the Catholic Church? Why not donate another piece of land to Evangelical Christians, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and even Cancun’s atheist community?
Fr. Pablo Pérez’ unofficial explanation is more sinister. These 10,000 sq. meters would be former president Vicente Fox’s payback to the Legion for getting him a Vatican divorce from his first wife so he could marry his second, Marta Sahugún, [Tr., a supporter of the Legion’s Regnum Christi lay movement!] As a very prominent public figure, Fox’s request would have to go through the Roman Rota, a pontifical tribunal. Once divorced from his first wife, Lilian de la Concha, Vicente Fox married Marta Sahugún and the religious ceremony was presided over by Legion of Christ priest, Fr. Alejandro Latapí. [Translator’s note: in 2003 Marta Sahugún’s first marriage to Manuel Bibriesca was annulled by the Vatican].
There are always two versions of the Legion of the Christ:
the official story –full of divine interventions-and the other story, told by those who are not happy with it. For sixty years the Legion maintained -demeaning, threatening and suing detractors- that Marcial Maciel, their founder, was a living saint. But at the end they had to acknowledge the truth: he was a conman, drug addict and a pedophile who even abused his own children.
The quasi-diocese of Cancun-Chetumal under the Legion’s care is no different. This territory, placed under the Legion’s pastoral care in 1970, also spawns two stories. The official story describes the Prelature as the Legion’s self-less evangelization of the Maya people and of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who flocked to the area to work as laborers and in the tourism industry.
They began with five priests, Mexicans and Irish, and now, forty-five years later, there are seventy-five priests. They began staffing seven parishes and now, five decades later, have over fifty. And they have been able to cope with the demographic explosion of the state of Quintana Roo which has grown from 90, 000 inhabitants in 1970 to 1,600,000 in 2015[1]. There is no denying the numbers and the Legionaries have gained respect and prestige among the people. Some of the priests have worked hard and long, both with the indigenous communities and in working class neighborhoods.
But there is another story that runs parallel, told by the dissidents, some of whom are former Legionaries who, having gone beyond the appearances of the religious order, have become its harshest critics. According to them, this hot and humid area was used by Fr. Maciel as a kind of “Tropical Siberia” where he could exile some of organization’s undesireable elements: be they priests accused of sexual abuse or those who assumed a critical posture vis-à-vis the Legion’s modus operandi. The dissenters are quick to point out, among other things, how Cancun has become a great source of income for the Legion as handsome fair-skinned priests celebrate weddings for the rich and famous in luxury hotels.
According to the official story the Vatican asked the Legionaries to take over sparsely populated Quintana Roo in 1970 and “even the wisest prophet could never have foretold the demographic explosion.”
According to Legionary priest on a limb, Fr. Pablo Pérez Guajardo, a native of Saltillo, Mexico, Fr. Maciel, the astute founder, secured the Prelature for his Legionaries because he had insider information, thanks to his relationship with the then Minister for the Interior and later president, Luis Echeverría, that the Mexican government would invest millions of dollars in creating this huge Caribbean tourist paradise. “The Legion- according to the official version-“launched a frenetic crusade to provide the Prelature with dignified churches”[2]
The alternative version accepts this fact but accuses the Legionaries of invading green areas and taking over public spaces to build their churches. In their ruthless expansion the Legionaries have been aided and abetted by en enterprising hotelier, Fernando García Zalvidea; said collaborator had been imprisoned on charges of money laundering for the Juarez drug cartel. And (as is not uncommon in certain countries) he was released after serving only thirteen months of his sentence.
On November 21st, 2015, the Cancun-Chetumal Prelature is celebrating its 45th anniversary under the direction of the Legionaries of Christ, the order founded by Marcial Maciel on January 3, 1941 in the basement of a house in Mexico City’s Colonia Juárez. On this festive occasion the Legion is launching two monumental projects: the Basilica of Santa María Guadalupe del Mar, with a 350 feet high cross, which will become the Catholic icon for Cancun, costing approximately 12 million dollars. The second project is a large seminary which will run into 57 million Mexican pesos (about five million US dollars) and will have an Olympic-size swimming pool, soccer fields, basketball courts, housing up to a hundred seminarians.
[1]Normally, the Catholic Church is divided into dioceses: specific territories, staffed by local clergy, headed by a bishop. In certain exceptional cases Rome will create a “prelature” when the “Church structure” is underdeveloped and there are not enough local clergy to meet the pastoral needs of the populace. “The Holy See” may ask a religious order to help out. “Prelatures” are often poor and isolated indigenous communities. In Mexico Franciscan Friars staff the prelatures of El Nayar (Nayarit state) and El Salto (Durango), while the Salesians take care of the Mixes communities in Oaxaca. The Jesuits staffed the Tarahumara communities in Chihuahua state from 1958-1992. The Cancun-Chetumal Prelature covers the relatively young state of Quintana Roo in the Yucatan Peninsula.
[2] Citations are from Una Iglesia de corazón misionero, libro de nuestra historia, 2010, published by the Prelature in 2010 to mark its 40 anniversary, pages 34 and 39 respectively.
Are you, Archbishop Charles Joseph Chaput, above the Clergy Scandal?
After He had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot.
(John 13, 26)
You are about to receive the Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis, in Philadelphia
You will ride with him in the pope mobile.
You will be close to the pope.
You will dine with the pope.
But are you, Archbishop Chaput, free from the clergy scandal?
Archbishop Chaput,
You are a chosen one, as can be gathered from random biographical notes
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput was born September 26, 1944, in Concordia, Kansas, the son of Joseph and Marian DeMarais Chaput. He attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help Grade School in Concordia and St. Francis Seminary High School in Victoria, Kansas. He joined the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, St. Augustine Province, in 1965.
Archbishop Chaput was ordained Bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, on July 26, 1988. Pope John Paul II appointed him Archbishop of Denver on February 18, 1997, and he was installed on April 7 the same year. As a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, Archbishop Chaput was the second Native American to be ordained a bishop in the United States, and the first Native American archbishop. He chose as his episcopal motto: “As Christ Loved the Church” (Ephesians 5:25).
Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of Philadelphia on July 19, 2011.
In 1999, building on the efforts of his predecessor in Denver, Archbishop Chaput…..
Archbishop Chaput served the Holy See as an Apostolic Visitor to U.S. seminaries, (2005 – 2006); the Diocese of Toowoomba, Australia, (2007); and
the Legion of Christ for Canada and the United States, (2009}
BUT DID YOU DO YOUR DUTY WHEN INVESTIGATING THE LEGIONARIES OF CHRIST?
Were you in any way behooven to Pedophile Founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel, and the Legion leadership?
Did they have anything “on you” which prevented you from carrying out a thorough investigation?
In 2011, you were a accused of siding with a monsignor who had practiced clergy sex abuse cover up
In October 2011 SNAP Victims blast(ed Archbishop) Chaput for supporting accused criminal [1] (priest diocesan official)
<For the second time, Philly’s new archbishop has expressed clear support for a credibly accused priest who may soon be deemed a criminal for enabling child sex crimes while apparently expressing no concern for vulnerable kids, wounded adults or learning the truth in court about an alleged criminal.
In neither case, as best we can tell, did Chaput express even a scintilla of worry for kids who are at risk today because of Lynn’s actions, adults who are suffering today because of Lynn’s actions. Nor has Chaput ever, as best we can tell, issued a real call for victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward, so that the case involving Lynn be resolved with as much information as possible.
Chaput has shown his true colors. Like his brother bishops, he’s first, foremost and always a company man who quickly sides with accused clerics over vulnerable kids and wounded adults.
A caring shepherd would have led by example and urged his staff and supporters to be open-minded, rather than making insensitive comments that will only further deter victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers from reporting known and suspected child sex crimes and cover ups.
Chaput could have said “It’s important that we not say or do anything that might prejudice the criminal proceedings. It’s important that we stay open-minded and resist the temptation to automatically back our brother priest. It’s important that we reach out to others who may have knowledge of how Lynn dealt with abuse allegations and admissions, and urge those people to call the prosecutor.”
He apparently said none of this. Instead, he sent church employees the same clear and disturbing message bishops have sent church employees for decades: “No matter how seriously you’re accused of committing or concealing child sex crimes, we in the Catholic hierarchy will back you.”
This was the case of Philadelphia Archdiocese Monsignor Lynn who was sentenced to three years in prison for covering up clergy sex abuse and transferring offenders from parish to parish”.[2]
You made your musical director resign in June, 2015[3].
SHOULDN’T YOU RETIRE ALSO, BEFORE THE TRUTH COMES OUT ABOUT YOUR OWN PECCADILLOES?
