The Vatican and the Legion of Christ have decided to maintain a discrete silence about Maciel. Perhaps a further statement will be forthcoming, as promised, or perhaps the Vatican and the Legion count on the short attention span of the public.
The Legion has admitted that Maciel fathered a child in his old age and was leading a double life. Maciel went to his grave without admitting any guilt. He let the Legion portray him as a wrongly-persecuted saint.
When the Vatican told Maciel to retire to a life of prayer and penance, it showed it believed at least some of the allegations that he had molested seminarians.
There are further allegations and rumors, which I list in roughly descending order of probability:
– That Maciel absolved his sexual partners during confession
– That Maciel misused Legion money
– That Maciel led a luxurious life
– That Maciel used narcotics
– That Maciel became the lover of several rich women to extract money from them
– That Maciel was involved in narcotraffic
– That the mother of the daughter was only 15 when Maciel impregnated her.
The admitted double life and the certain molestations of seminarians are bad enough; the others simply compound the crimes.
From the admissions and allegations about Maciel I have come up with four possibilities, in descending order of seriousness:
1. He was a false prophet who was sent to deceive if possible even the elect. Germain Grisez leans in this direction.
2. He was a charismatic psychopath, totally lacking in empathy for the pain he was causing, and he constructed the Legion to indulge his vices.
3. He was a pathological narcissist, not completely lacking in empathy, but determined to keep everyone centered upon his personality and thereby control everyone. His altruism was in the service of his narcissism: he did good things so that he would be the center of attention.
4. He was himself seriously damaged by abuse and compartmentalized his personality, as men all too easily do. All his good work was in one part of his life; then there was another, sealed-off compartment that contained his sexuality.
I don’t know, and perhaps no human being alive knows, which of these possibilities is closest to the truth. Maciel did a lot of harm, whatever the cause, but clearly one’s attitude to him would change if he himself had somehow been a victim.
There were enough clues over the years to alert authorities in the Vatican that something was wrong, there was at the very minimum too much of a cult of personality and too rigid a control of members. But no one acted until Benedict became pope; he knew something was seriously wrong, and at least took some action. Was it enough? Those who said that Maciel abused them are still being called liars by some members of the Legion.
Members of the Legion want to think that Maciel was simply a sinner, that his one fling showed he had human weaknesses. But clearly Maciel’s personality was severely damaged and distorted to the point that the Legion, which was set up to reflect his personality, itself must suffer from serious distortions.
Can a religious congregation be founded by an unrepentant sinner? Who would want to join a congregation founded by a child molester? But what is the Church to do with the Legion? I would suggest a spiritual Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The assets of the Legion, its members, properties, and endowments, should be distributed to other congregations in the Church.
As a former member of Regnum Christi, this is terrific analysis. I believe in Maciel possibility number 2.
The dream of any pedophile (in addition to Maciel, Paul Shanley and Dale Fushek come to mind), would be to have unfettered access to a continuing supply of fresh, young meat. So, they simply set their lives to get what they wanted.
Everything thing else was secondary.
Now the facts are out, there is no way of getting around them.
Denying them, downplaying them or minimizing them in any way is impossible.
It matters not whether Marcial Maciel Degollado was a favorite of Pope John Paul II or was defended to the hilt by the outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon or the recently deceased Father Richard John Neuhaus because those who
were defamed by the Legion of Christ have now been vindicated and thank God they have.
Pope John Paul II bears the responsibility for not addressing the problems of Maciel more forcefully, as does Pope Benedict XVI.
They both knew. They had to have known. There can be no denying that.
The buck stops somewhere and in this case it stops at the top.
What’s next?
Pope Benedict XVI should realize that his 2006 decision to let Maciel retire to live a life of prayer and penance and let it go at that with the hope that Maciel would fade in memory after his death is no longer sufficient.
Out of sight, out of mind and out of trouble as was hoped for by the Holy See was not to be.
Maciel should be denounced for the totality of the harm and the evil he has perpetrated on others.
There should be no doubt that this group, the Legion of Christ, has
operated for all of its existence as a religious cult and as such should be
suppressed.
There should be a thorough investigation of those in leadership and administrative positions in the Legion.
In all likelihood some priests should be dismissed outright and lacized because of their knowledge and facilitation of Macial’s behavior but the good men who are Legion priests should be given the option to go elsewhere, either to religious
orders or to diocesan clergy.
Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland is rightly concerned about the deleterious influence of this group. It is just too bad he did not follow through with his earlier decision regarding the Legion before he was persuaded to allow their continued presence in the Archdiocese of Baltimore by his associates in the Vatican.
________________________
Okay. I need to sound off. I am a victim of childhood physical and sexual abuse at the hands of nuns. When I was a young seminarian, a nun over twenty years my senior was constantly sexually harassing me. Later, in college at Mt St Mary’s in Emmitsburg, MD a local parish priest got me drunk and tried to rape me. Nothing happened. I was drunk but not THAT drunk.
I come from a highly dysfunctional family where alcoholism and mental illness are present throughout the generations. This is the most Catholic Irish/Italian family in Philadelphia. Mental illness, wrong paradigms, mixed up views of the world and physical abuse are common elements in my upbringing.
I am divorced with two grown children. I married a woman with extreme emotional problems. My daughers have had a very difficult life. I was not a good husband and I was weak father. I do not in any way have a life that ANY Catholic ANY where would consider to be sacred, blessed or even graced. I practice no religion formally. I believe in Christ Consciousness as a reality.
Now , onto Maciel. Was he sick? Sure. Criminal? Without doubt. An alcoholic and or drug abuser? Almost certainly, his behavior is classic addictive behavior. Did he routinely sexually abuse seminarians? It seems so from the preponderance of evidence. Was he a sociopathic, narcissistic and charismatic human being who used others to further his own ends? I believe he was. Anecdotal evidence is huge on this score.
Now, the real deal. So what? Try and understand. The Holy Spirit does not use plaster of Paris saints to get what He wants. He uses people and often times he uses broken, damaged, and even marginally Satanically involved people to get what He wants. Would a saintly, mild, gentle, kindly, introverted personality have gotten for the Church what a driven narcissistic sociopath was able to do? Maybe. Maybe not.
Maciel was driven beyond normal human comprehension to achieve. He raised millions for the church. He fed the poor and fed the hungry and educated many boys from poor areas who would not have been able to read. They are priests now and many are scholars. Doesn’t this count for something?
Try and get this. God does exactly what He wants. He does not in any way operate by our rules. He has His own rules. Our view of His rules is unimportant. Maciel was a very sick and twisted man. I personally think that the L of C is filled with nutjobs who worship a sort of Spanish ultra conservative form of 19th Century Catholicism which has no link to reality.
Catholics like this never existed and never could exist. The world is too dangerous, too dark, too violent for this kind of goofy Opus Dei, Regnum Christi, L of C sort of medievalist Spanish Catholicism to take root anywhere in a meaningful way. We need to recognize this. These people are all living in a medievalist dream.
Would Christ support this nuttiness? He drank with whores, had a tax collector for the occupying power in Jerusalem as an Apostle. Another Apostle, Judas Iscariot ,was a terrorist. Iscarii means “of the dagger”. Judas was literally a hit man. He killed people for a living. Are we all missing something here?
Maciel was sick, twisted, sexually perverted and maybe even a psycopath. So what? God uses these people. It is not up to us to try and figure this out. The L of C needs to be absorbed into the Jesuits. They are both Ignations. How difficult is this? The L of C is a failed experiment in Ignation spirituality. Let them go back to original Ignations.
Lets end this goofiness. I am tired to death of reading about it. How hard can this be? God does exactly what He wants. Our opinions of it do not matter.
I’ve been reading Barnes comments for years (since the Poynter days) and he is finally beginning to make some sense.
Mr. Barnes,
“So what” comments like yours always leave me a little steamed. This is of huge consequence. Sure, hagiographers have in the past placed saints TOO high on pedestals, making them seem like they had NO faults, that does not mean that we should not be demanding of spiritual leaders.
We should all be clamoring to form our lives to surpass such men. We should feel cheated that they were ever held up as examples.
Mr. Barnes didn’t necessarily go as far as this, but I’ve read in some places words that suggest there’s a temptation to feel more self-justified in our lives after hearing about Maciel’s faults. We should instead “work out our salvation in fear in trembling” more actively.
Guys. You don’t get this. Christianity is for the sick, twisted, crazy, sociopathic even psychopathic human beings that exist on this planet to some degree or other on the continuum of aberrant psychology. Christ hung out with these people if the Gospels can be believed. Nice, kind, gentle, Godfearing, loving, wonderful, warm and cuddly people do not need Christianity. They are already attuned with a Creator Being.
Have you ever met a person like that? TRULY like that? Good to the bone? Me neither.
Try and get this. YOU and ME and everyone you ever knew is Maciel. Don’t kid yourself. You are no better than he is. Remember that secret from your grade school or high school days concerning your behavior that you swore you would never tell anybody? Remember that dark, evil, dirty little sin? Remember that? Okay, that is the Maciel within you. You are sociopath to some degree. All human beings are. It comes with being born. There is no way around it.
The whole point of Christianity is that you can bring God down into the mud with everybody and lessen the pain for yourself and the group by your Faith Walk. This has nothing to do with how evil Maciel was. OF COURSE he was evil! So are you. So am I. Do a really solid weekend of introspection this week. Look at yourself from a distance. View your whole life. Look at all the dark secrets. Catalogue in your mind all the evils you have ever done. Do you really think you are better than Maciel? Take a look at yourself.
We are all lepers. ALL of us. Maciel was truly evil in many ways. There is no doubt. That does not mean we should accept his behavior BUT it DOES mean we must trust in a Loving God that He knows how to manage evil. He apparently took this twisted man and created a very Catholic and meaningful movement for many.
Now I personally think that the L of C are a bunch of loonies. I really don’t get the whole Spanish Catholicism “lets go back to the 19th Century” thing. But maybe I don’t have to. I do not know the mind of God. And neither does any other man.
And that is my entire point.
You missed one of the important accusations, which is that he abused the confessional by granting absolution to accomplices.
However, I think the real significance of this story isn’t getting enough attention, and that’s what it tells us about the reliability of personal testimony.
Many of Maciel’s defenders cited as evidence the fact that JPII, Fr. Neuhaus and other eminent, respectable, conservative, orthodox men believed in him.
The true significance of this story is that such “evidence” doesn’t count for beans.
This guy was a sociopath and he fooled some very devout people. That should tell us something.
The True Significance of the Fr. Maciel story.
Mr. Barnes:
Bravo!
Your account is one of the most human conceptions of Christianity I’ve come accross with.
Thank you.
Mr. Barnes, I seriously suggest that you reconsider some of the comments in these posts.
To wit:
Nice, kind, gentle, Godfearing, loving, wonderful, warm and cuddly people do not need Christianity. They are already attuned with a Creator Being.
Poppycock. As St. Paul himself said, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Everybody needs redemption, even the “nice, kind” folk. Any study of Romans will tell you that the human race cannot live up to any moral standards it sets up for itself, let alone God’s. That’s why Christ’s crucifiction was fundamental; it fulfilled the divinely mandated necessity for atonement through blood. That’s also why Christ’s resurrection was just as fundamental; it was God’s “seal of approval” on Christ’s entire message, life and death.
Do you really think you are better than Maciel? Take a look at yourself.
The fact that people need to be redeemed does not mean that they are as evil as Maciel. I doubt that many of the posters on this blog have molested children or done any of the things that Maciel has done or is accused of having done. Mr. Barnes, there are such things as gradations of evil. There’s also such a thing as false humility, which can be just as corrosive and ego-based as arrogance.
God does exactly what He wants. He does not in any way operate by our rules. He has His own rules.
If you really believe this, then you should convert to Islam, which views Allah as capricious. Read the Torah; it reveals God’s moral mind. Remember also what Christ Himself said: “For anyone who harms one of my little ones, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck.”
If you think that God Who is just and righteous — and Who demands holiness from those who claim to follow Him — ignores the emotional and psychological torture of the innocent for big and fancy institutional and intellectual structures, then you are truly a warped man.
Finally,
Would Christ support this nuttiness? He drank with whores, had a tax collector for the occupying power in Jerusalem as an Apostle. Another Apostle, Judas Iscariot ,was a terrorist. Iscarii means “of the dagger”. Judas was literally a hit man. He killed people for a living. Are we all missing something here?
Christ came to show Who God is. He came to reflect His mercy and compassion to those who needed it most. Those included lepers, people with other physical problems and the demon possessed — none of whom can be said to be criminal.
I must be the only person in the world that believes that every charges against maciel are a mountain of lies. I expect that time will clarify all the matters. In any case, the Church believes now that Maciel was guilty, and I have to respect this judgement. I pray for the legionaries and for all the good people so hurt.
Most of us would accept the advice of a person more intelligent than ourselves—if we could find one…