Exposes I’m Looking Forward To
There are three exposes I’m waiting for…
– The death of Pope John Paul I
– Pope John Paul II and the global sex abuse scandals
– The Legionaries of Christ
The Legionaries of Christ are suing a former priest, John Paul Lennon, in Alexandria, VA Circuit Court to recover some documents it alleges have been stolen. These include private letters from the group’s founder, Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado. The suit accuses Lennon of distributing stolen property and “malicious disinformation” by posting the materials on the web.
Some internal documents chronicle the conservative group’s strict rules of conduct, including directives on how a legionary, as the order’s members are known, must butter his bread, part his hair or sit in a chair. The documents also include the group’s “private vows,” which say that members must never criticize the order and must report anyone who does.
In the lawsuit, the Legion is also asking for the identities of individuals writing on the Regain site and on a Web discussion board exlegionaries.com that was once affiliated with it. Regain severed ties with the discussion board this year after pressure from the Legion, Lennon said.
In its January 23, 2005 edition the Wall Street Journal did a front page article on the Legion. It detailed the organization’s rise and clout-particularly in Mexico-and what an adroit and successful fund-raiser Father Maciel has been for the Legion and the church.
In 1997 eight men went public with complaints, made previously through informal church channels, that Fr. Maciel had sexually abused them when they were seminarians in the 1940s and 1950s. The Vatican department that investigates such charges-then headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger-quickly tabled a formal complaint, filed with church authorities in 1998.
The investigation into Father Maciel seemed dead until 2004, when it emerged that Cardinal Ratzinger had revived the probe in the waning days of Pope John Paul II’s reign. In January 2005, soon after the probe began, Father Marcial resigned as head of the Legion, citing his advanced age. In April 2005 a top Vatican investigator went to New York and Mexico to interview Fr. Marcial’s accusers. The same month Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI.
Exposes #2 and #3 seems to have a number of links.
