Vatican knew for decades about Legion problem

Source: Washington Post

By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, April 21, 3:27 AM

The late Pope John Paul II and his top advisers failed to grasp the severity of the sexual abuse problem until late in his 26-year papacy, especially concerns about the troubled Legion of Christ order and its leader, the Rev. Marcial Maciel. But the Legion’s troubles were not news to the Vatican, according to a trove of 212 Vatican documents exposed in the 2012 book “The Will to Not Know” and placed online at www.lavoluntuddenosaber.com . Here’s a look at some of the more pointed criticism about Maciel from the archive, which also included plenty of letters from bishops and Vatican officials praising him and his order.

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June 8, 1948:

—The Vatican’s envoy to Spain sends the Vatican’s Congregation for Religious an investigator’s report to determine if Maciel’s new association should be approved as a religious order. The investigator, the Jesuit Rev. Lucio Rodrigo, reports violations of the confessional seal, that Maciel falsified documents, demonstrates “a certain moral lassitude,” and lives a life that “wasn’t very pious and at the same time quite comfortable.”

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May 28, 1962:

—The Congregation for Religious summarizes the mounting accusations against Maciel: Suspended as superior by the Vatican from 1956-1958, he was ordered to get medical help to cure his morphine “abuse.” Maciel also exhibits “dubious moral conduct,” makes personal use of “copious amounts of money” without identifying its origins, gives “dangerous” spiritual direction to others with regards to priests’ vow of chastity and demands priests in his order vow not to criticize their superiors.

That vow, which the Legion only officially removed in 2007, was key to Maciel’s success in preventing his priests from coming forward with allegations against him.

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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/vatican-knew-for-decades-about-legion-problem/2014/04/21/5a64d802-c926-11e3-b81a-6fff56bc591e_story.html

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Pope John Paul II fast-tracked for sainthood as documents reveal he knew about sex crisis

By Scott Kaufman
Monday, April 21, 2014 10:24 EDT

As the Catholic Church prepares for the canonization of the late popes John Paul II and John XXIII in what is being called a “Popapalooza” on April 27, concern that it may be too soon to elevate John Paul II — given his role in the ongoing child sex abuse scandal — is growing.

On Monday, the Associated Press published excerpts from 212 Vatican documents exposed in the book The Will to Not Know. They mostly concern the Reverend Marcial Maciel, leader of the troubled Order of the Legion of Christ, who possessed “a certain moral lassitude” and lived a life that “wasn’t very pious and at the same time quite comfortable.”

According to the documents, the Vatican knew about Rev. Maciel’s weaknesses beginning in 1948, and was complicit in hiding his crimes from the general public. An October 20, 1976 letter from Rev. Juan Vaca described the “disgrace and moral torment” that began when Rev. Maciel abused him one night in 1949 and listed 20 other Legion of Christ seminarians that Rev. Maciel also sexually abused.

A December 24, 1978 affidavit from another priest, Felix Alarcon, backed Rev. Vaca’s story, and added that “the fact that the drug-related and homosexual activity of the founder could occur for such a long period of time without correction is only a signal of the deeper problem of the congregation itself. The congregation is a ‘cult’ of regimented and indoctrinated followers dependent slavishly on a central dependent-figure.”

more
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/21/pope-john-paul-ii-fast-tracked-for-sainthood-as-documents-reveal-he-knew-about-sex-crisis/