The Double Life of Marcial Maciel
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The Double Life of Marcial Maciel
In support of the Pope's proactive attitude (see the previous New Oxford Note) toward clerical sex abuse and its accompanying culture of secrecy, it is instructive to note that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, while prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was not inclined to cover-ups. For example, the future pontiff wanted Austria's Hans Hermann Cardinal Groër fully investigated after a number of accusations against the prominent prelate surfaced. According to Leon Podles, author of Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (reviewed in the Jul.-Aug. 2008 NOR), the former Archbishop of Vienna “had molested almost every student he had come into contact with for decades.” After Groër was accused of this abuse, Pope John Paul II continued to receive him socially in the Vatican, while tens of thousands of Austrians were “resigning” from the Church in protest. In an interview with Austrian TV in late March, Groër's successor, Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, revealed that it was then-Cardinal Ratzinger who tried to persuade John Paul to mount a full investigation of the accused Groër. His efforts, however, were met with stiff resistance at the Vatican. Cardinal Groër was eventually told to remove himself to a quiet monastery to live a penitent life away from the rest of Christendom. Pope Benedict is also directly responsible for initiating the investigation of Legion of Christ founder Fr. Marcial Maciel, followed by a full-scale investigation of the religious order itself. Already disgraced by the time of his death at the age of 87 in 2008, Maciel was accused of sexually abusing young seminarians for decades. Maciel, a conservative Catholic icon, backed by priests under his tutelage, swore up and down that there was no truth to any of the accusations. Legion spokesmen vilified the victims and implied that the investigative journalists covering the scandal were brazen liars, adding that these “attacks” on Fr. Maciel and the Legion of Christ were due to the order's militant orthodoxy and loyalty to the Pope. The Legion mouthpieces all maintained this with a united front even after Pope Benedict ordered Fr. Maciel “to retire to a life of prayer and penance” in 2006.
Since Maciel's death, insurmountable evidence has not only revealed that there was truth to the many allegations of serial homosexual abuse of young seminarians under his care, but it was discovered that the Legion founder sired at least six children with three different women, and that he lived (off and on) in Mexico for twenty-three years under an assumed name with at least one woman, maintaining a “family” with her for decades.
But wait, there's more: In March one of Maciel's mistresses, Blanca Lara, revealed to a Mexican radio station that Maciel began sexually abusing their sons when the boys were as young as seven. Blanca met Maciel in 1970 when she was just 19. Maciel was 56 at the time. He told her that his name was Raúl Rivas and that he was a widower. She explained that he passed himself off as an employee of an international oil company, a private investigator, and a CIA agent. Lara said she didn't find out his real identify until 1997 when she saw a magazine article about previous allegations made against him.
According to investigative journalist Jason Berry, co-author of Vows of Silence (reviewed in the May 2005 NOR), Maciel abused his other children, both boys and girls, as well.
These posthumous revelations about a well-known priest are unspeakably bad enough as it is. What compounds the problem is that Fr. Maciel was not only the founder of a conservative religious order that appealed to families orthodox in the faith, he was the lifeblood, the face, and the “inspiration” for every last aspect of the Legion of Christ: Members routinely called him Nuestro Padre (“Our Father”), and he insisted that a large icon-like portrait of himself — in the manner of a Chairman Mao or a Joseph Stalin — be present at all Legion institutions. The man and his face were ubiquitous. The reverence Maciel received from his followers bordered on idolatry.
In March 2009 Pope Benedict took the extraordinary step of ordering a full-scale Vatican investigation of the Legion of Christ. Taking the form of an “apostolic visitation” run by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the investigation was headed by five carefully chosen bishops, including Denver's Archbishop Charles Chaput (see our New Oxford Note “Can the Pope Save the Legion of Christ?” June 2009). The purpose of the investigation was basically twofold: first, to determine if other Legionaries have committed sexual abuse and whether the Legion's current leadership was aware of Fr. Maciel's abuse and helped cover it up; and second, to take a look at the secretive structures Maciel created in order to determine if the Legion is a cult. After all, this is the order that added a fourth vow to the traditional vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience — swearing to never speak ill of the Legion, its founder, or the order's superiors.
On the eve of the meeting between Pope Benedict and the five bishops who conducted the Legion investigation, the No. 2 man in the order finally broke the Legion's silence about their knowledge of Maciel's misdeeds. Fr. Luis Garza Medina told Rome's La Repubblica newspaper (Apr. 29) that he and other Legion leaders did not know before 2006 that the Legion's founder and icon had numerous mistresses, fathered children, molested seminarians, or lived a double life as Mexican family man while raping his own children. Fr. Garza failed to address the fact, however, that Legion leadership completely dismissed all charges and vilified Maciel's victims and the investigative journalists who brought all these charges, accompanied by evidence, to the public eye. The Legion's attitude was always the same: We know Fr. Maciel, and Fr. Maciel is no child molester. Period. And if you've taken a solemn vow never to speak ill of your founder, well, that puts you in a pretty tight spot, doesn't it?
Fr. Garza obviously saw the writing on the wall. After Pope Benedict met with the visitators to discuss the findings and conclusions of the Legion investigation, the Vatican announced that the Pope will appoint a special envoy and set up a commission to restructure the Legion. The commission, the Vatican said, will rewrite the order's statutes and redefine the culture that led its members to maintain a code of secrecy in the face of sexual abuse committed by Maciel. “The conduct of Father Marcial Maciel Degollado had consequences in the life and the structure of the Legion that are so serious as to require a journey of profound revision,” the Vatican said.
Make no mistake: The Legion investigation was important to Pope Benedict's reputation because it is a prime opportunity for the Vatican to show that it is serious about rooting out clerical sex abuse and being more transparent. The Maciel case has long been seen as emblematic of Vatican inaction on abuse complaints, since sex-abuse victims had tried in the 1990s to bring a canonical trial against Fr. Maciel but were shut down by his supporters at the Vatican, during the John Paul II pontificate.
Pope Benedict XVI has shown that he means business. It remains to be seen what form this “new structure” for the order will take, but it promises to be drastic enough to be meaningful.