Maciel’s Shadow Hangs over the Pope's Trip to Mexico

By Andres Beltramo Alvarez
Vatican Insider
March 22, 2012

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/world-news/detail/articolo/messico-mexico-mexico-13624/

“He is not scheduled to meet with Maciel’s victims - the bishops have not asked him to.” With these words, Vatican Press Office director Fr. Federico Lombardi ruled out the possibility that the Pope will receive the sexual molestation victims of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ during his visit to Mexico - a controversial decision, even within the Roman Curia. Meanwhile, the victims are preparing another demonstration, possibly tarnishing Benedict XVI’s Latin American visit.

“He was not asked. In other countries where these kinds of meetings with abuse victims have taken place, the bishops urged the Pope to do so because the issue was strongly felt in society and in the Church. In this case, it is not part of the schedule and should not take place. It’s not happening, “said the Jesuit clergyman, while describing the itinerary of the papal trip to Latin America to the international press.

The Bishop of Rome will be in Mexico for three days, but his agenda includes only five public events. Most of the time he will be resting, to recover from the 14-hour journey which begins Friday 23 March, when the Pope’s plane takes off from the Italian capital, heading toward the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.

Given this sparse schedule, it would not be difficult for him to find a free moment for a brief meeting with the victims of the founder of the Legion, a religious work which enjoyed many years of great prestige. But there are many obstacles to the Pope’s making this gesture.

Maciel’s victims hold differing positions on the non-visit, but all are critical. Some former Legionaries believed that the Pope might receive the victims, but their illusions quickly collapsed. Others, however, rejected the possibility from the outset.

“The truth is that it was never a possibility. During a recent trip to Mexico by the pontifical delegate for the reform of the Legion, Velasio De Paolis, he did not meet with victims. I interpreted this as an official statement that there would be no meeting with the Pope,” Patricio Cerda told Vatican Insider. A member of the Congregation for 17 years, Cerda currently works with the Association of Aid for Victims of the Legion of Christ.

“In my opinion it is sad, on the one hand, because Benedict XVI is expected to be more than ‘politically correct’ - he is expected to be a true pastor. On the other hand, the cardinals have their own interests at stake, including the Primate of Mexico (Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera), who defended Maciel to the end. Those directly victimized by the founder do not want to become pawns in what amounts to nothing more than a media game,” he added.

He also criticized press officer Lombardi’s statement that the problem is not “felt by society.” “Recognized cases of clerical paedophilia, like the case of the founder of the Legionaries, have a global reach, and they continue to haunt the Church and the institution itself,” he explained.

In fact, the case of Marcial Maciel Degollado is emblematic. It caused a huge scandal, not only because of the priestly abuse of eight former students, who, in 1998, had the courage to speak out publicly, only to suffer a vicious media campaign to discredit them; but also because, through the years, many people within the Mexican Church and the Vatican knew about the allegations, but simply ignored them.

It is not a limited incident of paedophilia. The priest had led a double and even triple life. On the one hand, he created a model religious congregation, earning the support of senior leaders, while on the other he committed many sexual abuses, systematically making use of drugs during their commission. And that’s not all - the clergyman also had mistresses, with whom he had several children.

It was a real shock when, in May 2010, the Vatican declared that the “serious and objectively immoral behaviour of Father Maciel, confirmed by incontrovertible witnesses, represents, in some cases, true crimes and reveals a life bereft of scruples or authentic religious sensibility.”

Formal recognition of the Mexican priest’s abuses became the symbolic end of the process that began in 1998, when a newspaper in the southern United States first published the testimony of the victims.

From that moment - and in the years to come - the Maciel case has been an instigator of division, a real source of trouble for the Mexican Church, and a shadow that grew to reach the Holy See and finally John Paul II. Today, that shadow has touched Benedict XVI himself, who in May 2006 forced Maciel to retreat to “a life of prayer and penance, away from any public ministry.”

Even after this sanction – or after the death of “our father” (as his followers called him) - Mexican bishops have never delivered a clear “mea culpa” - not even those who had defended him. Indeed, his figure has become an embarrassment. The victims, however, have slowly become the principal – and very harsh - accusers of the Church.

Led by Jose Barba Martin , they are currently preparing to strike again, in the midst of the papal visit to Mexico. On Saturday 24 March, in Leon when Benedict XVI will be resting at the residence of the College Miraflores in that same city, a group of victims will be introducing the book “The Will Not to Know.” It is a collection of 212 documents, presumably from the Congregation for the Clergy of the Holy See, which documents the institutional cover-up of the crimes of the founder of the Legionaries.

By excluding a possible meeting with the victims of Marcial Maciel from the Pope’s agenda during his visit to Mexico, the local church is allowing the victims to have a “monopoly” on a story that is still capable of creating many problems. And it will lose the opportunity to permanently remove the burden of that unworthy founder from the church’s shoulders, because in the future, everyone will be able to blame them for the fact that the Pope has ignored the victims - and they will be correct.