Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Legionarios de Cristo, now accepting complaints

It's about sixty years to late, but nonetheless a step forward: Legionarios de Cristo, or the Legionaries of Christ, announced they will create an  "outreach committee" whose only task will be to receive complaints of victims of pederasty by its now-deceased founder Marcial Maciel.

I just finished the excellent "Marcial Maciel, historia de un criminal," by journalist Carmen Aristegui.
It is essentially a series of interviews with everyone from victims to defenders of the criminal founder of the Legionaries of Christ. What is shocking is that already in the 1940s(!), the Vatican was warned of this pederast and pedophile son of a bitch, yet continued up until the 2000 to ignore his many, many victims. Letters were sent directly to the pope, including John Paul II, even in his native Polish, which were read, yet fully ignored. Ratzinger brought it directly before John Paul II, but was told to leave it be, which he did until, to his credit, he did as pope finally denounced Marcial Maciel as a criminal, or a man "devoid of scruples and authentic religious sentiment."

As Burro Hall perceptively noted a while back, this is indeed the second "miracle" one is looking for in order to make John Paul II a saint: Preventing, despite the mountains of evidence, that Maciel avoided the docks. As the book by Aristegui details, the Vatican knew, and it knew a very long time ago.

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