VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
Jun. 21, 2012
By Jason Berry
A string of Vatican investigations and the arrest of the papal butler for allegedly leaking secret documents to the Italian press grabbed the big headlines out of Rome in May and June. The tales of palace intrigue, backbiting cardinals and new mysteries of the Vatican Bank overshadowed the latest jolts in the deepening saga of the Legionaries of Christ, the once high-flying order founded by Marcial Maciel Degollado.
A new disclosure in a just-published book based on leaked Vatican documents, Sua Santità: Le Carte Segrete di Benedetto XVI (“His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI”) by Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, reports that the Legion priest who was closest to Maciel for many years met with Pope John Paul II in 2003, attempting to brief him on Maciel, but was shown the door.
Moreover, a priest who in 2009 met with Cardinal Franc Rodé, then the Vatican official in charge of religious orders, told NCR that Rodé discussed a videotape he had seen of Maciel with one of his children in 2004, yet made no move to punish the Legion founder. Rodé, who has since retired, championed the Legion and its lay wing, Regnum Christi, with glowing speeches to the groups for several years after Maciel was banished from active ministry.
The most startling revelation of recent weeks was the admission to NCR senior correspondent John L. Allen Jr. by Fr. Thomas Williams, a Legion commentator for NBC and CBS, that he had fathered a child “a number of years ago.” That news followed a report by Nicole Winfield of The Associated Press on sex abuse accusations involving seven Legion priests. Finally, Legion general director Fr. Álvaro Corcuera issued an apology, saying he had known about Williams’ child since 2005.
Cardinal Velasio de Paolis, the canon lawyer delegated by Benedict as the Legion overseer, told Reuters that he had known about Williams since January. “There is a need to be careful in cases like this,” he said. “It concerns a private life. These things happen these days, unfortunately.”
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