Marcial Maciel

Marcial Maciel Degollado
Founder and Former General Director of the Legion of Christ
In office January 3, 1941 – January 20, 2005
Succeeded by	Fr. Álvaro Corcuera
Personal details
Born	(1920-03-10)10 March 1920 Cotija, Michoacán, Mexico
Died	Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Marcial Maciel Degollado (March 10, 1920 – January 30, 2008) was a Mexican-born Catholic priest who founded the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement. He was respected throughout his career as "the greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church" and as a prolific recruiter of new seminarians. Late in his life he was revealed to have sexually abused boys and young men and maintained relationships with at least two women, fathering as many as six children, two of whom he allegedly abused sexually as well.

In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI removed Maciel from active ministry based on the results of an investigation started under John Paul II concerning sexual impropriety. Maciel was ordered "to conduct a reserved life of prayer and penance, renouncing every public ministry." On March 25, 2010, a communiqué on the Legion's website acknowledged as factual the "reprehensible actions" by Maciel, including sexual abuse of minor seminarians.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Velasio De Paolis as his delegate to examine the Legionaries' constitution and to conduct a visitation of its lay affiliate Regnum Christi.

Biography

Early life and training

Maciel was born in Cotija, Michoacán, Mexico, and had numerous relatives who were priests in the Catholic Church. He had a troubled youth. Maciel is the grand-nephew of Bishop Rafael Guízar Valencia, a Mexican saint canonized in 2007. There has been speculation that conduct by Maciel at age 18 contributed to the death of this great uncle, who had a heart attack. According to an investigative report:

The day before Bishop Guizar died, he had been heard shouting angrily at Marcial Maciel. He was giving his eighteen-year-old nephew a dressing down after two women had come to the bishop's house to complain about Maciel, who was their neighbor. Father Orozco, who was among the original group of boys to found the Legion of Christ in 1941, said he heard the women had complained about the "noise" Maciel was making with children he had brought into his home to teach religion. He said that the seminary officials blamed Maciel for his uncle's heart attack.

Maciel was expelled from two seminaries for reasons that have never been explained. He became a priest only after one of his uncles ordained him on November 26, 1944 in Mexico City after he completed private studies.

Maciel founded the Legion of Christ in 1941, with the support of Francisco González Arias, Bishop of Cuernavaca. In 1959 he founded its lay arm Regnum Christi.

Through the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi, Maciel started many schools, a network of universities and numerous charitable institutes.

Sexual abuse scandal and retirement

Main article: Sexual scandal of Father Marcial Maciel

In 1997, a group of nine men went public with accusations that they had been abused by Maciel while studying under him in Spain and Rome in the 1940s and 1950s. The group, which included respectable academics and former priests, lodged formal charges at the Vatican in 1998. They were told the following year that the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict, had shelved the case on orders from Pope John Paul II.

In 2005 Maciel stepped down as head of the order and, a few days before John Paul II died, Cardinal Ratzinger announced his intention of removing "filth" from the Church; many believed he was referring specifically to Maciel. After an investigation had been re-opened by Cardinal Ratzinger, the Vatican requested that Maciel withdraw from his ministry. In May 2006, Ratzinger, then Pope Benedict XVI, disciplined him: the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith asked Maciel to live "a reserved life of penitence and prayer, relinquishing any form of public ministry”; a canonical trial was ruled out, officially because of his advanced age and poor health. In January 2006 he stepped down as head of the Legion of Christ and tendered its leadership to long-time follower Fr. Álvaro Corcuera Martínez del Río. In 2007 the order was told to remove the obedience vows requiring religious never to criticise superiors and to inform on any dissent within the order. Maciel moved from Rome to a house he shared with other priests in Jacksonville, Florida, United States where he died in 2008. He never made any apologies, but Fr Alvaro Corcuera, his successor, did apologize to the victims both for Maciel's actions and the inaction of others.

Death

Marcial Maciel died in Jacksonville, Florida, USA, on January 30, 2008, at age 87. He had a private funeral and was buried in his birthplace, Cotija, Michoacán, in early February 2008.

Controversies

Drug addiction

During his life, Maciel was the focus of several investigations regarding allegations of drug abuse (he was hospitalised for morphine addiction), and he was also investigated for sexually abusing children. First in 1956, he was investigated for drug (morphine) abuse, after which he was cleared and returned as head of the Congregation.

Mistresses and children

Revelations continued, in July 2009, when a Spanish daily published an interview with a woman who had a child with Maciel in 1986 and now lives in a luxury apartment in Madrid which Maciel purchased for her. A day later, Mexican media reported that an attorney, José Bonilla, will represent three of a possible total of six of Maciel's children in a civil lawsuit to recover Maciel's estate. The lawyer claimed that Maciel owned several properties in Mexico and around the world in his own name.

In February 2009, news broke that Maciel had indeed led a double life and Fr. Álvaro Corcuera Martínez del Río, LC, the General Director, took it upon himself to visit each of the Legionary Territories and publicly apologize for Maciel's behaviour. Additionally, the Legion has publicly acknowledged that Maciel had indeed fathered a daughter. As a result of all these acknowledgements Pope Benedict XVI personally intervened and initiated a formal Vatican visitation of all Legionary houses.

Plagiarism

In 1959 Maciel published a book, El salterio de mis días (The Psalter of My Days), which was widely read among members of the Legion and partially translated into English. It was a memoir of experiences of persecution. On December 11, 2009, the Agencia Católica de Informaciones of Lima, Peru, sister agency of the Catholic News Agency, reported that a Legion of Christ internal memorandum acknowledged, without using the word "plagiarism," that the book copied the memoir of a Spanish Christian Democrat politician and journalist, Luis Lucia. Although the Legion's memorandum described Maciel's book as "a slight rewriting," a Spanish Legionary familiar with it stated that it copied Lucia's memoir "80 percent in style and content." Lucia's memoir was titled El salterio de mis horas (The Psalter of My Hours). He completed it in 1941 while a political prisoner of the Franco regime; an edition published posthumously in Spain in 1956 is believed to have been Maciel's source.

Relations with the Vatican

Called to accompany Pope John Paul II on his visits to Mexico in 1979, 1990, and 1993, Maciel was also appointed by the Pope to the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Formation of Priests in Circumstances of the Present Day (1990). He was a member of the Interdicasterial Commission for a Just Distribution of Clergy (1991), the IV General Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) (1992), the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World (1994), the Synod of Bishops' Special Assembly for America (1997) and (since 1994) a permanent consultant to the Congregation for the Clergy. The golden anniversary of his priestly ordination was celebrated on 26 November 1994, with 57 Legionary priests ordained on the anniversary's eve. Maciel served as Chancellor of the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, which is based in Rome. Maciel collaborated extensively with the pope, either in person or through members of his organization, the Legion of Christ. Pope John Paul II admired Maciel for strictly adhering to the magisterium and the vocations to the Legion of Christ. He received many donations from Mexico's richest. Maciel and the Legion gave the Vatican money, and some journalists have speculated for years that this kept the Church from acting over allegations of sex abuse by Maciel.

Investigative journalist Jason Berry wrote in an April 2010 article in the National Catholic Reporter, "the charismatic" founder of the Legion of Christ "sent streams of money to Roman curia officials with a calculated end ... Maciel was buying support for his group and defence for himself, should his astounding secret life become known." Berry and his late colleague Gerald Renner wrote the 2004 book Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II, and the related TV documentary Vows of Silence on Father Maciel and the Legion of Christ. According to Berry, Maciel's key supporters, who provided him with a protective shield, included Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state from 1991 to 2006, under both popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI; Cardinal Eduardo Martínez Somalo, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life; and Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Polish secretary of John Paul II (1978-2005).

The New York Times reported claims that even under Cardinal Ratzinger, who took an immediate interest in the case, the investigation into Maciel remained stalled. "Other factors delayed a reckoning. Some questioned the accounts of abuse; one of the original nine complainants recanted."

Maciel wrote extensively on the formation of priests and other matters pertaining to Church governance. His main stated purpose for the Legion of Christ was to form and motivate enterprising lay members of the Catholic Church to take an active part in the Church's mission. In particular, this initiative focused on the members of the movement Regnum Christi, for example, through spiritual direction. Regnum Christi was founded by Maciel as well.

Formal denunciation

On May 1, 2010, two years after Maciel's death, the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI would name a delegate to the Legion to review the Legionaries of Christ following revelations that the order's founder sexually abused numerous underage seminarians and fathered at least three children with two women. In a statement, the Vatican denounced Maciel for creating a "system of power" that enabled him to lead an "immoral" double life "devoid of scruples and authentic religious sentiment." The Vatican issued the statement after Benedict met with five bishops who investigated the Legion to determine its future. The Vatican statement was unusually explicit in its denunciation of Maciel's crimes and deception.

The "very serious and objectively immoral acts" of Maciel, which were "confirmed by incontrovertible testimonies," represented "true crimes and manifest a life without scruples or authentic religious sentiment," the Vatican said. The Vatican also stated that the Legion created a "mechanism of defense" around Maciel to shield him from accusations and suppress damaging witnesses from reporting abuse. "It made him untouchable," the Vatican said. The statement decried the "lamentable disgracing and expulsion of those who doubted" Maciel's virtue. The Vatican statement did not address whether the Legion's current leadership would face any sanctions. Actions taken by the current Legion leadership will be scrutinized; but no specific sanctions were mentioned, amid suspicion that at least some of the current leaders must have been aware of Maciel's sins and crimes. The Vatican acknowledged the "hardships" faced by Maciel's accusers through the years when they were ostracized or ridiculed, and commended their "courage and perseverance to demand the truth."

As a follow-up to this communique, on July 9, 2010, Archbishop (now Cardinal) Velasio De Paolis was named as the papal delegate to the Legion.

References

• (Spanish) ACI Prensa. 2009 December 11. Legión de Cristo da a conocer a sus miembros plagio de P. Maciel en libro espiritual (Legion of Christ announces to its members plagiarism of Father Maciel in a spiritual work).
• Associated Press. 2006 October 16. Pope Benedict bestows sainthood in ceremony.
• Berry, Jason. Money paved way for Maciel's influence in the Vatican (First of Two Parts). National Catholic Reporter, Apr. 06, 2010
• Berry, Jason. How Fr. Maciel built his empire (Second of Two Parts). National Catholic Reporter, Apr. 12, 2010
• Berry, Jason, and Renner, Gerald. 2004. Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II. Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-4441-9
• Vows of Silence, a one-hour documentary on Father Maciel and the Legion of Christ
• Catholic News Agency. 2009 February 3. Legionaries of Christ acknowledge founder’s ‘inappropriate’ behavior.
• Catholic News Agency. 2009 March 31. Pope initiates Apostolic Visitation of the Legion of Christ.
• Conde, Angeles, and Murray, David. 2005. The Legion of Christ: A History. Circle Press. ISBN 0-9743661-2-9
• (Spanish) La Jornada (Mexico). 2009 August 11. Reclaman derechos hereditarios tres hijos más de Marcial Maciel (Three more children of Marcial Maciel demand there inheritance).
• Los Angeles Times. 2008 February 1. Catholic order’s founder was rebuked for sex abuse.
• Maciel, Marcial. 2003. Christ is My Life. Circle Press. ISBN 1-928832-97-0
• (Spanish) Milenio 2009 August 11 Tres hijos de Maciel pelearán sus bienes.
• (Spanish) El Mundo (Madrid). 2009-12-12. Maciel plagió el libro de cabecera de los Legionarios.
• (Spanish) Periodista Digital (Madrid). 2009 August 9. La hija del pecador Legionario de Cristo.
• Telegraph (UK). 2008 February 2. Obituary of the Reverend Marcial Maciel
• Thompson, Damian. 2009 February 4. Legionaries of Christ face disaster after founder's double life is exposed

External links

• Works by or about Marcial Maciel in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Legionaries of Christ
• National Catholic Reporter article on his faculties being restricted
• Regnum Christi