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As they marked the quarter-century anniversary of revelations that tarnished the legacy of St. John Paul II, 3 of Maciel’s sufferers are nonetheless in search of reparations from the Legion to atone for the abuse they suffered and the “ethical” hurt completed to their reputations by means of the order.
They’d refused previous reimbursement provides that their fellow survivors accredited, and a mediation procedure begun in 2019 has stalled, consistent with emails and paperwork supplied to The Related Press.
The Vatican in 2010 took over the Mexico-based Legion and imposed a strategy of reform after an investigation confirmed that Maciel had sexually abused seminarians and fathered no less than 3 kids with two ladies. The Vatican discovered he had created a machine of energy constructed on silence, deceit and obedience that enabled him lead a double lifestyles.
The findings have been not at all information to the Holy See: Paperwork from Vatican archives display how a succession of popes, cardinals and bishops beginning within the Nineteen Fifties merely became a blind eye to credible stories that Maciel used to be a con artist, drug addict, pedophile and spiritual fraud. The Vatican and particularly John Paul, then again, preferred his skill to usher in vocations and donations.
The truth of Maciel’s depravity burst into the general public area Feb. 23, 1997, when The Hartford Courant printed a long disclose by means of investigative newshounds Jason Berry and the past due Gerald Renner about Maciel and the order, whose U.S. headquarters have been founded in Connecticut.
The tale, which shaped the foundation of a 2004 e book “Vows of Silence,” quoted a number of sufferers by means of identify who independently reported that Maciel would convey them into his bed room at evening, and underneath the pretense of belly ache, induce them to masterbate him.
“When The Courant ran the lengthy investigative piece Renner and I did on Maciel, we idea Pope John Paul II would see the sunshine and punish Maciel,” Berry advised the AP in an electronic mail. He famous that different mainstream media handiest started reporting on clergy sexual abuse after the Boston Globe’s “Highlight” revelations in 2002. “Via then, John Paul’s blind religion in Maciel used to be a cover-up by means of every other time period, and lasted until his demise.”
A yr after the unique Courant tale, in 1998, the sufferers filed a proper canonical criticism in opposition to Maciel with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Religion, the place the case languished till after John Paul died. Maciel used to be sentenced in 2006 to an entire life of “penance and prayer,” and he died in 2008, nonetheless regarded as a saint by means of the Legion.
In 2020, the Legion publicly retracted the “unfavourable institutional and private judgments in regards to the personality and motivations of the individuals who made reliable and vital accusations” within the authentic Courant disclose. Naming the unique sufferers, it mentioned “As of late we acknowledge as prophetic their accusations in choose of reality and justice.”
However Jose Barba, some of the vocal of the unique 8 survivors, needs the Legion to officially retract what he calls the “lies” the order supplied to the Courant to discredit him and the opposite sufferers. They come with what he says have been a falsified letter from a Chilean bishop who had investigated Maciel within the Nineteen Fifties, and false statements from 4 Mexicans who claimed the sufferers had attempted to enlist them in a conspiracy in opposition to Maciel.
Barba, who says he represents fellow survivors Arturo Jurado and Jose Antonio Perez Olvera, drafted a proposed letter to the Courant and the Vatican newspaper that he sought after the Legion to put up to retract the claims. However then Legion awesome, the Rev. Eduardo Robles-Gil, refused throughout a December 2019 mediation assembly in Mexico Town, Barba mentioned.
In a Jan. 4, 2020 abstract of that assembly, Barba mentioned the Legion’s preliminary calculus of a low five-figure agreement be offering for every of the 3 closing sufferers used to be a “humiliation,” and he proposed a staff of 5 arbitration mavens to resolve a extra “simply” reparation.
Robles-Gil signed the abstract however wrote: “I obtain this with out accepting the method this is requested for and it stays at our attention to simply accept it or now not.”
The Legion’s new awesome, the Rev. John Connor, attempted unsuccessfully to interact with Barba after his February 2020 election, sending two letters that went unanswered till Barba emailed him on Jan. 5, 2021, in search of to restart negotiations.
Connor confident him he sought after to “to find techniques to give a contribution to heal and shut the painful occasions of the historical past of our congregation.” However in an electronic mail, Connor mentioned Barba’s proposal for 5 arbitration mavens wouldn’t lend a hand “to find a shared solution.”
Barba by no means answered. “I don’t agree with them as it’s now not in excellent religion,” he advised the AP.
In a remark to the AP, Legion spokesman the Rev. Aaron Smith famous that the order had reached settlements with lots of the ancient sufferers and was hoping for a solution with the rest ones.
“We’re unhappy that assembly nonetheless has now not took place, particularly taking into consideration the certain enjoy of the encounters with different sufferers of Fr. Maciel,” Smith mentioned in a remark. “We proceed to stay hopeful it’ll happen within the close to long term allowing open discussion with him.”
Barba, in the meantime, says he’s getting previous and his two confreres are ill. Whilst they’re hailed by means of ex-Legionaries as “los 8 Magnificos” (the Magnificent 8) for having stood as much as Maciel and the order, Barba recollects a Nov. 8, 1997 letter he and the others wrote to John Paul, translated into Polish, soliciting for the pope to listen to their ache and do one thing.
“It sounds as if not possible to us, Holy Father, that our grave revelations and lawsuits mattered completely not anything to you,” they wrote, consistent with a replica of the letter supplied to the AP. “We would like the church and society to needless to say all we wish is justice: now not just for reliable private vindication, however for the nice of the church and society.”
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