Grant Gallicho, over at dotCommonweal, has said (here) that the following editorial "is well worth reading." Having just read it, I concur. Excerpts follow. To read the whole editorial, click here:
National Cathiolic Reporter
May 26, 2006
The sad truth about Maciel
The
decision by the Vatican in the case of Fr. Marciel Maciel Degollado,
founder of the Legionaries of Christ, that he be restricted in his
public ministry after being found guilty of multiple acts of sexual
abuse spanning decades brings some resolution to a particularly
disturbing chapter in recent church history.
. . .
Maciel was an imposing international figure who commanded intense
loyalty, raised enormous sums of money, won the special favor of Pope
John Paul II and other high Vatican officials, and indignantly
protested his innocence until the evidence became overwhelming.
It would be difficult to overstate the significance of the lessons to be drawn from this episode.
One
need only follow the path of the first accusers - the ridicule and
vilification they encountered, the institutional scorn and derision
they had to overcome to even begin to state their case - to understand
the difficulty of bringing charges against a revered church leader. The
church owes them a debt of gratitude.
The case illustrates,
too, the long time it often takes for victims, some shattered in their
childhood, to begin to deal with such deep wounds. Often they do so
taking on the dual burdens of reestablishing their lives while raising
the specter of extreme disorder and sickness at the highest levels of
the community.
What
has become clear in such cases is that the effects of these crimes can
play out with severe damage over such a long period of time that it is
difficult to see how justice can be achieved, for either the victim or
the accused. The prospects of justice are further dimmed by the growing
understanding that the abuse is most likely the result of illness, not
criminal intent.
Those complexities seem to be understood
widely among Catholics who have long turned the focus of their anger
from individual acts of abuse to the deliberate concealment of sexual
predators and protection of those guilty of harming children.
It
is the cover-up, including the payment of huge sums early on to procure
silence, that continues to infuriate Catholics who have no way to
expect or demand accountability on the part of their leaders. The
cover-up is the product of secrecy, privilege and a lack of
accountability that are major elements of the clerical culture in which
the sex abuse scandal flourished. While sexual abuse of children and
cover-up of the crimes occurs widely throughout the general culture,
that fact should provide little comfort to an institution that
professes the Christian Gospel. What has made the scandal infinitely
worse than it need be is not the fact that abuse occurs. That is,
perhaps, an inevitability in any sizeable institution. It was made
worse because officials either ignored or downplayed the claims of
victims and went to great lengths in many cases to protect the abusers.
* * *
For all of the commendable achievements of Pope John
Paul II, his blindness to this cancer within the church and his
unwillingness until the last years of his long reign to understand the
urgency of the problem will be seen as serious flaws of his tenure. His
inaction sent signals that he both tolerated and encouraged the
debilitating culture of deceit.
The case of Maciel, whose
victims ranged from youngsters in his charge to young priests, is the
most dramatic example of the late pope's failure. Vatican officials
today explain that John Paul did not have the information with which to
judge the case. That's the very point, however. One can only conclude
he failed to listen to the victims and believed for far too long that
the scandal was the malicious work of those who opposed the Legion
because of its loyalty to him.
Faced with compelling evidence
and repeated warnings, John Paul exhibited no sense of the need to
investigate credible claims immediately. Instead, he lavished on Maciel
the perks of privilege. He gave him a place of honor during some of his
international travels, bestowed special benefits upon his order and
even hailed him as "an efficacious guide to youth," a horrible and
tragic misreading of reality.
The level of Maciel's deception
and the gullibility of church officials is difficult to comprehend.
Late last year, the Vatican's top official for religious orders,
speaking of Maciel as he stepped down from leadership of the
Legionaries, called him "the instrument chosen by God to carry out one
of the great spiritual designs in the church of the 20th century."
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano came to his friend Maciel's defense, hailing "the great work that you do."
That
Maciel was able to dupe his order, donors and Vatican officials
straight up to the pope so convincingly and for so long is further
evidence that the hierarchical culture sometimes works overtime to
shield itself and those it favors from hard truths.
The Maciel
case reveals much about who in the community is listened to; about how
isolated certain levels of the church can be from what is going on in
local communities; about how blind officials have been to one of the
most debilitating scandals to hit the church in centuries. We risk
repeating a worn warning because we think it is important to the
integrity and very life of the church. The sex abuse scandal is merely
the most sensational and disturbing symptom of what happens when the
model of priestly service offered by Christ, which the church at its
best has realized for two millennia, is distorted into a system of
secrecy, privilege, distance from the people and a lack of
accountability to anything or anyone save the clerical culture itself.
Perhaps
it is sign of a major breakthrough that the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith was able, finally, to deal honestly with this
notorious case and risk the wrath of those who simply do not want to
believe that such things happen.
. . .
[T]hen-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger . . . finally took the time to begin
reviewing briefs of the abuse cases from the United States, gradually
becoming convinced that there was more to the claims of the victims
than they first believed. Ratzinger, who initially shut down the probe
of Maciel, then allowed the investigation to go forward, an
investigation that involved interviewing witnesses on several
continents and extensive questioning of victims. In the end, it was
Pope Benedict XVI who signed off on the recommendation of those in the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who found Maciel guilty and
advised that he be removed from active ministry.
For all of the
missteps earlier on, the church ultimately got it right - and it must
have required no small amount of courage to do so. We would have
preferred a fuller accounting of the documentation and some comment
from those who saw the files on Maciel and who privately say the
evidence was overwhelming.
From the United States to Ireland,
to England to Australia and New Zealand to Mexico and in various parts
of Africa - in short, throughout much of the world - the specter of
clerical sexual abuse of the vulnerable is an issue that cannot be
ignored. More important, though, is the institutional cover-up of such
abuse by the highest levels of church leadership. Pastors, bishops,
archbishops and cardinals, on up to the pope, in one way or another all
those levels have been involved in denying, covering up, revictimizing
victims and disparaging those who have attempted to reveal the breadth
and depth of the problem.
The decision on Maciel provides a
chance to reverse that pattern, to stop blaming everyone else and the
general culture and to look deeply at the culture within the church
that allowed the scandal to persist, eroding the church's authority,
credibility and moral standing in the world.
It is time for the church to provide answers for why and how such widespread deceit and denial occurred.
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