What the Vatican Has Known about Marcial Maciel for Years: Revelations as Benedict Heads to Mexico

And speaking of a dearth of bona fide pastoral leadership at the top levels of the Catholic church (I'm building on what I just posted about the twin bullies Dolan-Donohue), what to make of this breaking news: as Pope Benedict prepares for his trip to Mexico, a new book indicates that the Vatican has known for over 50 years that the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel, was a drug addict and pedophile.  For a summary of the story, see the AP article by Nicole Winfield and Eduardo Castillo that appeared yesterday in both Huffington Post and the Washington Post, and Michael Sean Winters's brief commentary at National Catholic Reporter.  

The new book making the shocking claim that the Vatican knew what Maciel was about for almost half a century before it chose to take action against him is entitled La voluntad de no saber, and is co-authored by José  Barba, a former Legionary priest.  Bernardo Barranco of the Religious Studies Center of Mexico, who wrote the prologue of the study, states, 

The importance of this book is that it documents the irrefutable evidence and proof that the Vatican has been lying about Maciel.

Barba wrote the book after having obtained, he says, over 200 internal Vatican documents from  unnamed church officials, which show that the Vatican was apprised of Maciel's activities as early as 1944.  As Rev. Richard Gill, another former Legionary priest who left the order in 2010, states,

The revelation of these documents, previously unknown to the great majority of Legionaries who acted in good faith, shows that there were solid grounds for the removal of Fr. Maciel more than 50 years ago.

More than fifty years: for more than fifty years, the top leaders of the Catholic church knew that the founder of the influential Legionaries of Christ was a drug addict, a serial rapist of seminarians, and the father of several children by several women, whom the Legionaries were supporting secretly.  The Vatican knew this for over fifty years, and did nothing at all about it.

Because the Legionaries were rolling in money, and because, as Jason Berry has demonstrated, Maciel used that money freely to grease the palms of key leaders of the Vatican curia.  In his article to which I link above, Michael Sean Winters wants us to read the story of Maciel and the Vatican as if the current pope, Benedict, is a hero who finally took decisive action against Maciel and cleaned up the filth at the heart of the Vatican.

But though Benedict did eventually discipline Maciel at the very end of his life, Benedict was also the orthodoxy watchdog and right-hand man of the previous pope, John Paul II, who did everything in his power to bless, protect, and promote Maciel.  Knowing full well who Maciel was and what Maciel was doing.  

Benedict succeeded John Paul II precisely because of the role he played in John Paul's papal reign.  And so I cannot agree with the spin-doctoring analysis that now wants to see Benedict as a hero battling corruption inside the Vatican.  Not when the action against Maciel took place only at the end of Maciel's life, after he had been permitted to harm many people with impunity for many years.

Not when the Legionaries have not been dismantled, but are continued to allow to function after a cursory inspection by a powerful Vatican yes-man, Archbishop Chaput.  And, above all, not while Cardinals Law and Burke continue to live in luxury in Rome, when anyone intent on cleaning up the filth inside the Vatican  would choose to remove all of their perks and privileges as a sign that he really intends to clean house--and when he might block their continued exercise of tremendous power at the very top of the church.

Benedict as a determined opponent of abuse, one determined to clean house?  I'm afraid I don't see the evidence.  To the contrary . . . . The continuing revelations about what the Vatican has known about Maciel for a very long time now point to deep levels of corruption in the very heart of the Catholic church that the current leader of the church has not only done nothing to address, but has continued, in the vein of his predecessor, to cover up.  As Alan McCornick brilliantly observes at Hepzibah, in conclusion to his recent valuable summary of the latest news about Archbishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg, in the Catholic church under Benedict the reformer, things remain business as usual:

In Rome, however, it is apparently business as usual.  Women in the church?  Yes, in their proper place, not in any decision-making capacity of note.  Gays in the church?  Of course, if you admit you are fundamentally disordered and make a vow of celibacy (and thus be gay no more).  

Bishops with a drinking problem, a history of bullying and playing loose with finances?  What, you also said abortion was like the Holocaust? 

Step this way, sir.  We have a job on a papal commission for you.  No experience necessary, although involvement with miracles will be considered helpful. 

Business as usual.

And when corruption is as deep as it has been with Maciel--and inside the Vatican, clearly--you don't carry on with business as usual, if you're really all about reforming.  (And you don't move a Dolan, a Chaput, and a Lori up the church ladder, if it's spirituality and authentic pastoral leadership you want to promote in the name of reform.)