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  Marcial Maciel's Love Children Sue

By Rod Dreher
Beliefnet
August 12, 2009

http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/08/marcial-maciels-love-children.html

The scandal around the disgraced Legionaries of Christ founder gets even worse. Now it's reported that he fathered several children, four of whom are claiming rights as heirs to (massive!) Legionary assets. See here and here. Excerpt:

The Mexican attorney, Jose Bonilla Sada, has announced that three children of Marcial Maciel, born in Mexico, will try to force the Legionaries of Christ to acknowledge their existence as well as their rights as heirs to the assets of the founder of the religious order.

The litigants' attorney, who in this case has as his assistant Joaquin Aguilar, a victim of sexual abuse perpetrated by former priest Nicolas Aguilar, says he has enough evidence to show that the late Pope John Paul II as well as the legion knew of the existence of three other children of Maciel, now adults and legally recognized by their father, but whose names are currently being withheld.

Months earlier the order founded by the late priest, who was accused of sexual abuse of minors, admitted the existence of a daughter. Her name, as Bonilla states in his blog http://conlajustici a.wordpress. com, is Norma Hilda. She lives in Madrid, Spain along with her mother of the same name, and has a non-employment residency permit.

Originally from the Mexican state of Guerrero, she is approximately 23 years old and enjoys a level of affluence such that she does not work, lives in a luxury apartment, and has another which she rents in the same building where she resides. They were acquired by Marcial Maciel with money from the congregation's benefactors.

Who in the order knew that the hero-worshiped Padre had impregnated several women? Who signed off on this "hush money"? Who in the Vatican knew what Maciel had done? Did Pope John Paul II know -- and did he approve of the cover-up? (You will note that despite ample evidence that something was very wrong with Maciel and his scheme, the Vatican made no moves against him until Cardinal Ratzinger became pope).

May the entire truth be told. I am reminded of the redemptive power of truth-telling in the example of Metropolitan Jonah of the OCA, who, as a mere bishop of only two weeks, stood in front of an Orthodox assembly traumatized by the corruption at the top of the church -- and spoke the unvarnished truth about what those in authority had done to the church and her people. Hours later, Jonah was elected the new metropolitan. Recently someone who studies at the troubled St. Tikhon's seminary told me that after Jonah took over as head of the church, and began moving forward to clean out the Augean stables, "the difference here is like night and day."

Truth is painful. But sometimes a doctor has to cut and to cauterize to heal the body. Besides, for the people of God, there is no alternative.

 
 

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