Luis Petersen Farah informs us that members of Legionaries of Christ recently received a decree banning them from using internet, email, social media, etc, unless supervised by, well, their superiors.
Petersen's argument is that despite the Marcial Maciel scandals, nothing has changed in this paranoid and authoritarian. It makes perfect sense though - how can organizational unity be achieved if the members would find out, through reading online, that their founder was a pedophile psychopath who raped and abused small children and was defended the entire time while doing so by the high clergy of the Mexican Catholic Church, and even protected by Pope John Paul II himself?
No, better to pull the plug.
Showing posts with label Legionarios de Cristo/Legionaries of Christ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Legionarios de Cristo/Legionaries of Christ. Show all posts
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Legionaries of Christ, that of child rapist Marcial Maciel, turn 70; Mexican Church ends truce
After a brief Christmas "truce" (the church´s own word), the Mexican Catholic Church is again on the attack, in the process sounding like a prepubescent, immature 11-year old. From its organ Desde La Fe, the Mexican Catholic Church, among the world´s most reactionary and historically anti-democratic, comes the following: The Mexico City government and/or the Mexico City Legislature (the Church never seems to be able to distinguish fully between the two) are "true secular Talibans," and
But today is also another important day for the Church: The Legionaries of Christ/Legion of Christ is turning 70 years today. Los Legionarios de Cristo, to recall, was founded by whom?
a) A fascist
b) A child raper
c) An incestuous pedophile raping his own childen
d) A morphine junkie
e) All of the above.
You got it: All of the above. Marcial Maciel founded the Legionaries in 1940, yet his name has brought shame to his native Michoacán ever since the scandals involving his habitual raping of children and teenage boys, which even included his own children - yes, he fathered several, though never accepted paternity - really became known to the wider public in 2000.
Yet back to the Mexican Church. I am currently reading the absolutely marvelous and fresh-off-the press book "Marcial Maciel: The Story of a Criminal" by Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui. I am not done with it yet, but it appears absolutely stunning, and well worth your time and money. Among the key testimonies in this book, a key conclusion is drawn that while Marciel Maciel was a sick and evil man - he never asked for forgiveness, manipulating his victims into believing they were doing god´s will - an even bigger story is that ever since the 1950s, stories abounded, including letters to the Vatican, detailing the abuses of Maciel, yet they were constantly ignored, for a half century, by both the Vatican and the Mexican Church. Indeed, two of the individuals who come out the worst are exactly Norberto Rivera, head of the Mexican Church, who defended Maciel to the extreme, covering up his abused of hundreds or thousands of children, as well as Ratzinger himself, who accepted that Maciel was doing bad things, yet argued, as cardinal, that he was nonetheless beloved by Pope John Paul II, and that the case was better left alone. Only toward the end of the 2000s did the Church admit to Maciel crimes, though this is hardly the end of it: As Aristegui exposes, the Legion and the Vatican may have erased the image of Macial from its annals, yet the organization remains intact, as does the vertical, authoritarian structures that allowed for the abuse in the first place.
It will be up to others to outline the legal responsibility of Ratzinger and Norberto Rivera for having essentially protected a child raper, knowing full well that Marcial Maciel was one. Yet it certainly puts into perspective the church´s recent declarations against the Mexico City Government
"individuals intolerant to criticism, fundamentalists in their immoral principles, incapable of accepting the challenge of dialogue with rationality and law."A better description of the Mexican Church, rather than the Mexico City government, is hard to come by. The Freudian reference here is just too tempting to resist.
But today is also another important day for the Church: The Legionaries of Christ/Legion of Christ is turning 70 years today. Los Legionarios de Cristo, to recall, was founded by whom?
a) A fascist
b) A child raper
c) An incestuous pedophile raping his own childen
d) A morphine junkie
e) All of the above.
You got it: All of the above. Marcial Maciel founded the Legionaries in 1940, yet his name has brought shame to his native Michoacán ever since the scandals involving his habitual raping of children and teenage boys, which even included his own children - yes, he fathered several, though never accepted paternity - really became known to the wider public in 2000.
Yet back to the Mexican Church. I am currently reading the absolutely marvelous and fresh-off-the press book "Marcial Maciel: The Story of a Criminal" by Mexican journalist Carmen Aristegui. I am not done with it yet, but it appears absolutely stunning, and well worth your time and money. Among the key testimonies in this book, a key conclusion is drawn that while Marciel Maciel was a sick and evil man - he never asked for forgiveness, manipulating his victims into believing they were doing god´s will - an even bigger story is that ever since the 1950s, stories abounded, including letters to the Vatican, detailing the abuses of Maciel, yet they were constantly ignored, for a half century, by both the Vatican and the Mexican Church. Indeed, two of the individuals who come out the worst are exactly Norberto Rivera, head of the Mexican Church, who defended Maciel to the extreme, covering up his abused of hundreds or thousands of children, as well as Ratzinger himself, who accepted that Maciel was doing bad things, yet argued, as cardinal, that he was nonetheless beloved by Pope John Paul II, and that the case was better left alone. Only toward the end of the 2000s did the Church admit to Maciel crimes, though this is hardly the end of it: As Aristegui exposes, the Legion and the Vatican may have erased the image of Macial from its annals, yet the organization remains intact, as does the vertical, authoritarian structures that allowed for the abuse in the first place.
It will be up to others to outline the legal responsibility of Ratzinger and Norberto Rivera for having essentially protected a child raper, knowing full well that Marcial Maciel was one. Yet it certainly puts into perspective the church´s recent declarations against the Mexico City Government
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