UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
John XXIII knew.
Paul VI knew.
John Paul II knew.
Benedict XVI knew.
The story told in the recent RTÉ documentary about Marcial Maciel and the Legion of Christ won’t be new to many of us who watch it. Even so, it’s exceedingly painful to watch–even when one already knows the story of who Maciel was, what he did.
And of how one pope after another from John XXIII forward covered for him, blessed him, assisted him in expanding the power and privilege of the money-generating machine of a religious community he founded, until Benedict XVI found it impossible to continue with this travesty as people everywhere became critically aware of the facts of Maciel’s story. I watch the documentary, and hear its drumbeat of insistence–“John XXIII and John Paul II knew, they ignored pleas to stop Maciel’s abuse of seminarians, and they’ll be canonized in a few weeks”–and feel absolutely crushed.
By the end of the video, I’m where Marita La Palm tells us she has ended up after spending her entire childhood and young womanhood in the Legion of Christ’s lay branch Regnum Christi: How is it possible to continue any connection to a church whose top leaders all knew and did nothing? Aren’t they responsible, too?
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