Father Marcial Maciel in his 'CIA' persona. More abuse allegations against Maciel surface
Mar. 04, 2010 By David Agren, Catholic News Service
Mar. 04, 2010 By David Agren, Catholic News Service
MEXICO CITY -- Many in Mexico -- and beyond -- know Father Marcial Maciel as the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, an influential Catholic order famed for its elite schools and well-heeled followers.
Blanca Estela Lara Gutierrez came to know him in Tijuana by the alias "Raul Rivas," who, she said, "wanted to have a family" and, at various times, masqueraded as either a private detective or a CIA agent.
Her three sons, Jose Raul, Omar and Cristian, came to know Father Maciel as "Dad."
On March 3, the family went public with unflattering details of their life with Father Maciel. Lara told Mexico City radio host Carmen Aristegui of MVS Radio that she and Father Maciel were a couple for some 25 years and raised three sons -- one of whom, Cristian, was not his biological child. Jose Raul and Omar, meanwhile, tearfully said they had been sexually abused by their dad, Father Maciel.
On March 3, the family went public with unflattering details of their life with Father Maciel. Lara told Mexico City radio host Carmen Aristegui of MVS Radio that she and Father Maciel were a couple for some 25 years and raised three sons -- one of whom, Cristian, was not his biological child. Jose Raul and Omar, meanwhile, tearfully said they had been sexually abused by their dad, Father Maciel.
The allegations threaten to further cloud the legacy of Father Maciel, who founded one of the most successful Catholic orders of the 20th century and gained enormous respect among Catholics worldwide, but lived a double life in violation of church teaching. (And a whole bunch of international criminal statutes.)
After an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against Father Maciel, the Vatican in May 2006 ordered him to stop practicing his ministry in public and live a life of prayer and penitence. Father Maciel died in January 2008 at age 87. Barely a year later, the Legionaries acknowledged its founder had fathered a daughter. (The Vatican investigations of Maciel started in the fifties. It only took Vatican authorities sixty years to accept the truth.)
The latest revelations of impropriety come as a five-member apostolic visitation team investigates the Legionaries of Christ. (White wash,)
Jose Raul Gonzalez Lara -- he and his brothers were not given Father Maciel's family name -- dismissed a recent public apology by Father Evaristo Sada, general secretary of the Legionaries, as "very embarrassing."
On Feb. 22, Father Sada asked for forgiveness "from the persons that our founder has affected because of immoral acts in his personal life." He also called on Legionaries to become more "humble" in their behavior and attitudes.
The Legionaries in Mexico responded March 4 by releasing a Jan. 12 letter from Father Carlos Skertchly, the order's general procurator, to Jose Raul. The order said releasing the letter was done "with absolute respect for the person of Raul Gonzalez Lara, bearing in mind that he himself published it on March 3."
The letter recapped a meeting and a phone call in January between Jose Raul and Father Skertchly in which he asked the order for $26 million.
The two met for an hour Jan. 6, according to the letter, and discussed the request, which included $6 million "in fulfillment of what you say was your father's will, expressed orally to you in a conversation." The letter also said Jose Raul asked for "another $20 million as compensation for your sufferings."
Father Skertchly said in the letter that Jose Raul called him Jan. 8, repeating his financial requests and "affirming that 'if you give me the money, I will keep quiet about the truth.'" The letter said that Jose Raul wanted a response from the order by Jan. 13.
"However in no way can we accede to your request for money in exchange for silence," Father Skertchly wrote. "While we value all of the pain and suffering that you have shared with us, and we deplore the evil of scandal that may follow, we will never accept petitions of this sort, which are also illicit. We prefer to seek and face the truth, no matter how painful it may be." (Hey, money in exchange for silence was how the official game was played. Facing painful truth is now much cheaper than paying for silence.)
Father Skertchly also told Jose Raul in the letter that the order was willing to "accompany" him and offer "the pastoral support you are willing to receive, since you told me, the deepest solution to your difficulties is not economic." (This is a diabolically clever move to deflect any monetary compensation---using Jose Raul's truth against him.)
Father Skertchly also wrote that the order remained committed to "uncover the truth" about Father Maciel's life. (I'm far more interested in uncovering the truth about the Legion and it's complicity in Maciel's multiple lives, it's penchant for abusive techniques, and it's other cult practices. There are lots of Maciel and Legion abuse victims, not all of them were sexually raped. Most of them were spiritually raped.)
Lara said her relationship with Father Maciel began in Tijuana toward the end of the 1970s, when she was 19 and he was 56. Father Maciel, she said, told her he wanted a family, but didn't want to get married. He also told her he worked as a private detective, but at other times said he worked for the CIA. (I wonder why in his fifties Maciel seems to have suddenly begun to desire to father his own children. The objective and gender may have changed, but the age bracket remains the same.)
Jose Raul was born two years later. He said beginning at age 7 he was sexually abused when his father "tried to rape me" while they were visiting Colombia. Omar said he suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Father Maciel, beginning at age 8. Cristian said he was not sexually abused. (He was not Maciel's 'child'.)
The three young men spoke glowingly at times of their father, however. They described him as "very loving" and "the patriarch" of the family. Neighbors would say, "He should be a saint," a reflection, they said, of his easy manner with people.
Lara also spoke glowingly of Father Maciel.
"I idolized him," she said. "One time I told him, 'You're my god.'"
He traveled frequently, but would call daily and send letters, Lara said.
Lara said she had no idea of his double life. She raised few questions about Father Maciel's line of work or questioned suspicious happenings, such as Father Maciel registering Jose Raul with the surname "Gonzalez" even though the priest had used the alias "Rivas." Even people -- described as the "elites" of Mexico -- greeting him as "Father," failed to raise red flags.
"When we were eating breakfast, there were some that would say, 'Good morning, Padre,' and we had orders to withdraw ourselves," Omar said.
"We never asked ourselves why they called him 'Padre.' We supposed it was because he had many children."
The charade was exposed in 1997, when the family saw Father Maciel's image on the cover of the Mexican magazine Contenido, which ran a story on allegations of sexual abuse against him. He denied the contents of the story and Jose Raul said the family was sent money to buy all the copies in Cuernavaca, the city near Mexico City where they resided.
Lara believed him.
"I was totally blind," she said. Previous to the story, she said, "I never suspected a thing. I didn't know who I was living with."
She said she stopped believing him in 1999, when Jose Raul told her that he was sexually abused. "I didn't ever not believe my sons," she said.
Jose Raul and Omar were sent to Spain by their father to receive psychological treatment.
Before he died, the Gonzalez Lara family said Father Maciel promised them an inheritance that had been deposited in a trust fund, but that money has not been located. Legionaries' officials have not been of assistance, Jose Raul said. (How utterly shocking that the Legion can't find it. Their existence depends on Sgt. Schultz's favorite defense. "I know nothing.")
Before he died, the Gonzalez Lara family said Father Maciel promised them an inheritance that had been deposited in a trust fund, but that money has not been located. Legionaries' officials have not been of assistance, Jose Raul said. (How utterly shocking that the Legion can't find it. Their existence depends on Sgt. Schultz's favorite defense. "I know nothing.")
"We're totally forsaken," Jose Raul said. (Believe me the Legion feels bad about this, but they Know Nothing and Can't Find Anything.)
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It's pretty obvious the Legion strategy in defending themselves is to maintain they are the primary victim. They sound pretty much like any mother or elder sibling who becomes aware of the fact that daddy has been taking favors from younger siblings and children. Really accomplished narcissistic pedophiles rely on the willful ignorance of other primary care givers. Operative word is 'willful' because there are usually all kinds of signals the enablers only let themselves see in hind sight---when the game is up and the only thing left to protect is themselves.
That Maciel was able to go for sixty some years is a testament to tons and tons of willful ignorance supported by tons and tons of willful and purposeful enabling behavior. The exact same strategies are being played out in the so called investigation of the Legion. Archbishop Chaput and his fellow investigators are willful Legion enablers. I wrote it before, I'll write it again: If the Vatican was serious about getting to the bottom of the Legion they would have used independent professional investigators and stocked the group with forensic accountants. Apparently the Vatican didn't feel neither they nor the Legion could 'afford' to this.
I actually agree with Fr. Amorth about Satan getting into the Vatican and his minions including Cardinals, and undoubtedly some popes. I don't necessarily use the same mythical structure to explain this network of very dark energy. Like many networks of dark energy it is generational and gets darker and darker.
Maciel was allowed to function through six different popes. He got most out of control and brazen under John Paul the not so great. Under this Vatican pontificate Maciel actually began begetting his own victims on victims. This escalation in his behavior coincided with Maciel's ascendancy in the Vatican. Yes, there is definite linkage, because the more notoriety he got as the 'sainted' founder of the Legion, the more this served to both cover and fuel expression for his narcissistic ideation. Using the cover of a CIA agent or private detective was hugely symbolic, except in his case it was the priesthood which was the cover. He was Satan's perfect mole.
The Legion, founded on the energy of a psychopathic narcissist, wreaks with the very dark energy of a narcissism fueled by predation on the innocent. Is this not the definition of Satanic evil? Does this not describe the typical Catholic the Legion runs on? Well meaning, innocent Catholics from sheltered family structures?
The real problem with Vatican II is it used the language of lay empowerment. That did truly represent a discontinuity with the past because Catholicism ran, and is now desperately attempting to recover, the power of abuse dynamics. The uncovering of global clerical sexual abuse, but most especially that of Maciel and the Legion, are direct signs pointing at the generational dysfunction and outright evil in the Catholic structure. How much more of a direct sign do we need before we Catholics take up the sword of our empowerment and deal with the evil? Jesus wonders.
