Now let me tell you about the LEGION OF CHRIST and what the
big hubbub is all about.
You may not have heard much about the whole affair because
the Vatican has gone to great lengths to keep it under wraps and I think that
will be the most damaging aspect of this sordid situation but we can never
forget the many innocent children and adults that have been damaged by the
people involved, people that were people of God and therefore trusted and
admired by the laity around them.
The Catholic group of priests and seminarians was founded in
1941 in Mexico
by Marcial Maciel who presided over the group till 2006; he died in 2008. The
group was committed to education, youth and family ministry and runs schools
and other institutions in many countries around the world.
Popes supported the group through the decades and especially
Pope John Paul II who held up the founder as a model to be emulated even though
reports were surfacing about Marciel raping and molesting young seminarians and
fathering children with a number of women as well as the fact that he was a
drug addict and pedophile.
An interesting side note is that an original vow taken by
people joining the group was to never criticize their superiors…interesting
don’t you think?
Anyway, it has fallen to Benedict XVI to do something about
the Legion and he has decided to reform the Legion instead of banning it into
oblivion as many have recommended. Recently more reports of priests molesting
children have surfaced throwing doubt into his reform efforts.
The reason reports of abuse are coming out into the public
domain is due to groups of victims who are banding together to demand justice;
the Vatican can no longer silence these groups or even buy their silence.
And speaking about money, the group was rich and Marciel was
known to dispense money very freely to hierarchs in Rome
which some say allowed Marciel to continuing to do what he did without any
interference from the Vatican .
The fact that the Legion has vigorously denied any wrong
doing for decades and their denials were supported by the Vatican make their
current condemnation of all the evil that transpired at the Legion basically
vacuous.
The Vatican
now claims that there was a “mechanism of defense” around Maciel that made him
basically “untouchable” and all I can say is BULLSHIT! The Vatican even had the gall to acknowledge the
“hardships” faced by Maciel’s accusers throughout the years, who were
ostracized and ridiculed by the Legion and the Vatican .
I don’t know if many Catholics recognize the enormity of
this situation. The Vatican is spinning this situation to get itself absolved
of any guilt and it will succeed if allowed to just like it has done for
centuries…do you watch the BORGIAS on HBO or is it STARZ?
I will admit that many U.S.
bishops have banned the Legion from operating in their areas since the Vatican
was not officially dissolving the Legion or banning it outright.
Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, times of
extreme corruption and abuse among the clergy especially the leadership, were
met with some sort of reformation movement that cleaned things up until things
got too dirty again; I don’t see that movement on the horizon, I only see
cover-ups and media spinning campaigns.
Reformation has usually come from within the Church and it
usually is started by people with power and that means clergy and not the
sheepish laity…let us see if anyone has the balls to step up to the plate with
a bat in hand…
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