Sexual abuse cases of Marcial Maciel

Maciel, a Mexican priest who was the general director of the Legion of Christ, which he founded in 1941, was investigated several times for his behavior. In 1956, the Vatican had him removed as superior and investigated allegations of drug (morphine) abuse. After interviewing members of the then-small congregation, the Vatican cleared him. Maciel was reinstated in February 1959.[5] There are no records of any members reporting sexual abuse at that time. However, since then two seminarians reported that they had lied to investigators in 1956; they did not report having been abused because Maciel had earlier had them take a vow never to speak ill of him.[6]

Since the 1970s, Maciel has been twice accused of having repeatedly sexually abused other congregation members, including young children. His accusers include a priest, a guidance counselor, a professor, an engineer, a lawyer, and a former priest who became a university professor.[7] These two Spaniards and seven Mexicans described themselves as former members of a favored group, known as the "apostolic schoolboys". They said that the abuse allegedly occurred over three decades, beginning in the 1940s in Spain and Italy. As promising boys and young men, the Mexicans had been taken there to be educated.[8] They said the abuse involved some 30 boys and young men, and extended over at least three decades.

In 1998, the nine men above filed formal charges against Maciel at the Vatican. One man subsequently retracted his story, claiming it had been a fabrication intended to damage the Legion; the other eight continue to maintain their allegations. The accusers described how Maciel would feign having an illness in his groin and falsely claim to have been given papal permission to receive help massaging away the pain. Maciel and the Legion originally denied the accusations. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), led by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict XVI), examined the allegations. The CDF told the plaintiffs the following year that Maciel would not be prosecuted because of his age.[1]

In 2004, the plaintiffs were informed by letter that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had decided to reopen the investigation against Maciel. Shortly after, Maciel stepped down as General Director of the Legion at the Ordinary General Chapter held in January 2005.[7] Fr Alvaro Corcuera was elected by the same General Chapter as the new General Director.

On 19 May 2006, the Vatican published a communique for the press, instructing Maciel to retire from active ministry to a life of "prayer and penitence",[9] The Legion's vows of obedience which required members to maintain secrecy, impermeability, and refrain from giving any in the Legion possible humility was also lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in December 2007.[10] Despite all this, Maciel was never laicized.[11] He moved to a house for priests in Jacksonville, Florida, where he died in 2008. Maciel and the Legion continued to deny all accusations until his death.

On 3 September 2009, Fr. Julio Marti and Fr. Scott Reilly (the territorial directors of the Legion in the US and Canada) made a formal apology on behalf of the Legion. They said:

We are deeply saddened and sorry, and we sincerely ask for forgiveness from God and from those who have been hurt through this. We also regret that our inability to detect, and thus accept and remedy, Father Maciel's failings has caused even more suffering.[12]

In 2014 the General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ made a more formal and extensive apology.

On 3 February 2009 The New York Times reported:

The Legionaries of Christ, an influential Roman Catholic religious order, have been shaken by new revelations that their founder, who died a year ago, had an affair with a woman and fathered a daughter just as he and his thriving conservative order were winning the acclaim of Pope John Paul II.[13]

This has been confirmed by the Legion of Christ. The BBC reported that Maciel had six children by three women, two of whom lived in Mexico and one in Switzerland.[14]

The Rev. Thomas V. Berg LC, Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, formally apologized to the victims of Maciel, "In shock, sorrow, and with a humbled spirit, I want to express my deepest sorrow for anyone who, in any way, has been hurt by the moral failings of Fr. Maciel."[15] A few weeks after the scandal broke, Berg left the Legion of Christ to become a diocesan priest, transferring the Westchester Institute to the Archdiocese of New York.[16]

In July 2009, attorney José Bonilla was appointed to represent three of a possible total of six of Maciel's children in a civil suit to recover Maciel's estate. The lawyer claimed that Maciel owned several properties in Mexico and around the world in his own name.[17][18]

Media in Spain had reported an interview with a woman who had a child with Maciel more than 20 years ago; she lived in a luxury apartment in Madrid which Maciel had purchased for her. Norma Hilda Baños said that she was abused as a minor by Maciel and later became pregnant by him. She bore and raised his daughter.[19]

In the wake of these revelations, Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore told his archdiocesan newspaper that the order must offer "full disclosure of [Maciel's] activities and those who are complicit in them, or knew of them, and of those who are still refusing to offer disclosure." He said that the order's finances should also be subject to "objective scrutiny". He described Maciel "a man with an entrepreneurial genius who, by systematic deception and duplicity, used our faith to manipulate others for his own selfish ends." He criticized the "good deal of secrecy in [Maciel's] own life ... [and] in the structures he created." The archbishop welcomed the Vatican's decision in the following March to conduct an apostolic visitation of the Legionaries, and said that the order's abolition "should be on the table".[20][21]