By Sandro Magister
The Chiesa
July 27, 2011
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1348864?eng=y
Exiled to the United States, the former first in command of the Legionaries of Christ, Luis Garza, says that he never knew anything about the private life of the founder. The surprise moves of the pontifical commissioner, Cardinal De Paolis. The names of the "dissidents"
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ROME, July 27, 2011 – The removal of Fr. Luis Garza Medina from the leadership of the Legionaries of Christ is the turning point that could change the future of this embattled congregation.
The news came unexpectedly in the middle of July, with a letter from the director general of the Legion, Alvaro Corcuera. Effective August 1, Garza will no longer be vicar general. He will move to New York as territorial director of the United States and Canada: a territory that is anything but friendly to him, one of those in which the Legion is most disabled, already abandoned by its best men, Frs. Richard Gill, Thomas Berg, Jonathan Morris and others, who have gone into service with the dioceses, and where even those who have stayed view the arrival of the new director more as an undeserved punishment than as support. Garza retains the role of supervising the consecrated virgins associated with the affiliated movement Regnum Christi, but only on a temporary basis, until the apostolic visit to investigate this movement – just recently concluded – has been translated by the Vatican authorities into practical decisions.
But not even Corcuera can cry victory. With Garza gone, none of the old group in charge of the Legion is safe anymore. Their allegiance to the end to the disgraced founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado – although in different forms and with different ambitions – and the fact that they were put in command by him make them irreparably unfit to guide the rebuilding of the Legion on radically new foundations.
Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, delegated by the pope to oversee the transition, gave proof of extreme caution before making the decision of July 15.
For one year, he proceeded at the snail's pace typical of the Roman curia, of which he is a perfect example, of the old school. His progress was so slow that at a certain point he began to disappoint even the most patient.
While on the contrary the heads of the ruling class, Garza, Corcuera, and their associates, attempted to demonstrate a growing sense of security.
Corcuera was reassured by his carefully cultivated friendship with the penultimate personal secretary of Joseph Ratzinger, German archbishop Josef Clemens, second in command of the pontifical council for the laity. From this connection, Corcuera got the false impression that the pope was on his side.
To Garza there seemed to be a great success in the red carpet that the Vatican authorities rolled out for him when they entrusted to him the promotion and concluding speech of a grandiose "Executive Summit for the Business World," held at the Vatican from June 16 to 18 in the presence of secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone and other cardinals.
Shortly afterward, in fact, in a June 27 interview with Catholic News Agency, Garza said that he was sure he would remain in office as vicar of the Legion at least until the future general chapter, which will decide on the new statutes, projected to take place between 2013 and 2015.
But even more disappointing for those who expected clearer and more rapid decisions from Cardinal De Paolis was the closed door speech he gave on July 2 at the general headquarters of the Legionaries.
In sketching a summary of his first year as commissioner of the Legion, De Paolis aimed his most severe criticisms at a few internal opponents, referred to as "dissidents," accused of sowing disobedience to the superiors and mistrust and discord among the confreres.
In reality, these "dissidents" are few in number and have a modest following, held together through e-mail. Some of them teach in the faculties of bioethics and philosophy of the pontifical university "Regina Apostolorum." The most prominent are the professors Victor Pajares, Spanish, dean of the school of bioethics, Cristian Borgono Barros, Chilean, and Alfonso Aguilar, Spanish.
Another circle of opponents implicitly put under accusation by Cardinal De Paolis is the one connected to the extremely wealthy Oriol Munoz family in Spain. They are four brothers: Santiago, Ignacio, Alfonso, and Juan Pedro, all priests who have left the Legion, one after another, in recent months. One of their sisters, Malen, is still the assistant of director general Corcuera for consecrated virgins. About sixty Legionaries and former Legionaries have coagulated around the Oriol brothers, centered in Cordoba. But according to what they say and write, they seem to be creating not a renewed Legion, but yet another group of devotees to the Madonna of Medjugorje.
In attacking the "dissidents" shortly before removing Garza from the cockpit, Cardinal De Paolis made an astute move. The message that emerged from this is that Garza's ouster was an autonomous decision of himself and the Vatican authorities, not a concession to confused grassroots pressure.
Another point on which De Paolis made it clear that he intends to decide autonomously is in ascertaining the truth about Maciel's accomplices, meaning who knew about his misdeeds when he was alive, and covered them up.
Last March, in an interview with Valentina Alazraki for the Mexican televsion channel Televisa, the cardinal said that he did not want a witch hunt, but to be ready to open an investigation as soon as he thought it opportune, because "some certainly knew, and not only among the superiors."
Garza, who is one of the leading suspects, took the hint and prepared his defense in an interview last July 20 with the "National Catholic Register."
In the interview, he admitted – for the first time – that he had known that Maciel had a lover and a daughter, through investigations he conducted himself, already in September of 2006, a year and a half before the matter became public knowledge.
But he specified that his relationship with the founder had always been strictly official. He said that he met with him once every two weeks for purposes of work. "I didn’t even have his cell phone number. He didn’t allow me to go into his personal life. He would tell those working more closely with him: 'Don’t tell anyone what you do with me'."
Garza acknowledges that Cardinal De Paolis is a capable jurist and canonist. But precisely for this reason, he adds, "he needs a credible accusation to begin an investigation."
Because who could ever have doubted the founder? "After years and years of revering the founder, and the Holy See praising him," Garza responds, "we accepted it."
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