Maciel's 60 plus years of abuse

[Stella]

"Vatican's Pius XII archives shed light on another contentious chapter: The Legion of Christ scandal"

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wi ... -112136597

The recently opened archives of Pope Pius XII have shed new light on claims the World War II-era pope didn’t speak out about the Holocaust. But they’re also providing details about another contentious chapter in Vatican history: the scandal over the founder of the Legionaries of Christ.

Entire books have already been written about the copious documentation that arrived in the Holy See in the 1940s and 1950s proving its officials had evidence of the Rev. Marcial Maciel’s dubious morals, drug use, financial recklessness and sexual abuse of his young seminarians.

Yet it took the Holy See more than a half-century to sanction Maciel, and even more for it to acknowledge he was a religious fraud and con artist who molested his seminarians, fathered three children and built a secretive, cult-like religious order to hide his double life.

The newly opened archives of the Pius papacy, which spanned 1939-1958, are adding some new details to what has been in the public domain, since they include previously unavailable documentation from the Vatican secretariat of state.

They confirm that Pius' Vatican was cracking down on Maciel in 1956 and was poised to take even tougher measures against him — including removing him from priestly ministry altogether — but that Pius' 1958 death enabled Maciel's supporters to take advantage of the leadership vacuum to save his name and order....

It's mindblowing to realise how brazen the abuse was and how it was protected for so long. I can only think that satan used his powers to protect Maciel.

I believe that Canon Law regarding the Pontifical Secret (which Cdl Pell cited in the Australian Royal Commission investigation),needs to be challenged and scrubbed from the books completely.

[peregrinator]

We should be grateful for the gift of Benedict XVI's papacy - if not for him, Maciel might have been "Servant of God" by now

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I believe that Canon Law regarding the Pontifical Secret (which Cdl Pell cited in the Australian Royal Commission investigation),needs to be challenged and scrubbed from the books completely.

To what portion of law are you referring?

[Stella]

I believe that Canon Law regarding the Pontifical Secret (which Cdl Pell cited in the Australian Royal Commission investigation),needs to be challenged and scrubbed from the books completely.

To what portion of law are you referring?

Whatever parts Cdl Pell was referring to in his defense of the Church not revealing or reporting crimes involving children to police. He specifically cited the Pontifical Secret at the Commission.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I'm at a loss to know what this is. It is certain that crimes revealed in confession can't be revealed. I'm not aware of anything else similar in canon law.

[Stella]

I can't find the specific items in the a the law but it has been referenced so it must be there. I found this development from 2019...

According to the new instruction, which was signed by the Vatican secretary of state but authorised by the Pope, the Vatican still doesn't mandate reporting the crimes to police, saying religious superiors are obliged to do so where civil reporting laws require it.

But it goes further than the Vatican has gone before, saying: "Office confidentiality shall not prevent the fulfillment of the obligations laid down in all places by civil laws, including any reporting obligations, and the execution of enforceable requests of civil judicial authorities."

The Vatican has been under increasing pressure to cooperate more with law enforcement, and its failure to do so has resulted in unprecedented raids in recent years on diocesan chanceries by police from Belgium to Texas and Chile.

But even under the penalty of subpoenas and raids, bishops have sometimes felt compelled to withhold canonical proceedings given the "pontifical secret," unless given Vatican permission to hand documents over.

The new law makes that explicit permission no longer required.

"The freedom of information to statutory authorities and to victims is something that is being facilitated by this new law," Archbishop Scicluna told Vatican media.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-18/ ... s/11808328

As the report notes here, although the changes eliminate the need to get Vatican permission to report, it's still not mandated.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Ah. That's not canon law. That's something different that I don't have a name for. Procedural law? Official operating instructions? Something like that.

[anawim]

I found this:
In addition to canon law, there are
1) the Fundamental Law of Vatican City State, which are the organs of state it's governed by
2) The Code of Penal Procedure governing tribunals and
3) the Lateran Treaty governs relations with the Italian Republic

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

This isn't any of those either. It may just be The Way Things Are Done.

[Doom]

I found this:
In addition to canon law, there are
1) the Fundamental Law of Vatican City State, which are the organs of state it's governed by
2) The Code of Penal Procedure governing tribunals and
3) the Lateran Treaty governs relations with the Italian Republic

The Fundamental Law of the Vatican City State says that all the offices in the Curia (basically the Papal Cabinet) have to be held by a member of the College of Cardinals.

[Irenaeus]

Priests from the Legion of Christ sometimes served at St. Mary's Church in Greenwich, CT, where I often attended Mass when I lived in Greenwich. The LC priests had a great formation, some of which was in Rome and some of which might have been in Ireland. I recall one of them telling me that the accusations against Fr. Maciel were absolutely false. Well, that didn't age well. I once spoke with Fr. Stephen Fichter about joining the order shortly before he was ordained as an LC priest. He had left Stanford University to join if I remember correctly. He was ordained but eventually left the order and is now, I believe, a priest in New Jersey. His mother was very active in a right-to-life group in New Jersey and she arranged for me to speak with him.

A NJ pastor's coming-of-age tale about young priests makes its big-screen debut Thursday