MEXICO
Fusion
by Rafa Fernandez De Castro | February 9, 2016
MEXICO CITY—When Pope Francis visits Mexico from Feb. 12-17, many people will be watching to see if he finally addresses the Vatican’s failures to prevent and punish cases of child sexual abuse by some members of the Mexican clergy.
There’s plenty of such scandals to address—from a priest in Oaxaca accused of abusing indigenous minors to the fugitive priests of San Luis Potosí on the run from sexual abuse charges. There are other cases of the Church hierarchy allegedly protecting accused pedophile priests such as Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, who was transferred from Puebla to Los Angeles, California, after facing several accusations in Mexico.
But perhaps the most notorious case is that of Marcial Maciel, a priest accused of sexually abusing dozens of minors during his tenure as the leader of the powerful Catholic order known as “The Legionaries of Christ.” Maciel founded The Legion in Mexico City in 1941 as a movement to prepare young men for the priesthood and Catholic leaders from across Latin America. Today, the Legion is best known for creating dozens of private schools and universities that primarily serve Mexico’s middle- and upper-classes.
In a recent interview with a Mexican reporter, Pope Francis said Maciel, who died in 2008, was “sick, greatly sick.” But he downplayed the Vatican’s involvement in any cover-up. The pope told Televisa that Maciel most likely had an enabler within The Vatican—someone who “suspected and didn’t know” about the priest’s pederasty.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.