The recently announced plans by the Vatican to designate a papal envoy to head the Legionaries of Christ renders this powerful, conservative Catholic order directly under Vatican control.

The Vatican made this move after an eight-month inquiry by five Vatican investigators who reported directly back to Pope Benedict XVI about the double life of its late founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the Associated Press reported.

The Vatican report said Maciel had been sexually assaulting minor seminarians and fathered at least three children from two different women—a daughter from what was described as a “stable relationship”, and two sons who are now grown, who admitted to being his children with another woman, according to CNN.

However, the Vatican hoped that by appointing a personal delegate to lead the order, they could help them “purify” what good still remains, and at the same time help them to undergo a “profound revision”, the AP said.

Maciel was born in Mexico in March 1920.  In January 1941 he founded the Legion of Christ, a powerful and wealthy order that spans 24 countries including Spain, Rome, Ireland, the United States, and several countries in South America and Central Europe.  Recently it had begun projects in Eastern Europe and the Philippines, according to CNN.

With a membership of over 800 priests and 2,500 seminarians, the Legion also has some 70,000 members in the Regnum Christi movement, which was also founded by Maciel. The Legion runs Catholic news outlets, charities, seminaries for boys, schools, and universities in Italy, Mexico and Spain, among others, The Seattle Times said.

In response to the Vatican announcement the Legionaries issued a statement on its website where they said that they “embrace his provisions with faith and obedience”, the AP said.

Critics and advocates of the victims are dissatisfied with the Vatican’s latest move.  They wanted the order to be dissolved.   Others felt the larger part of the Legion’s leadership should be taken out, noting that Macial could not have lived his double life without the knowledge of some of the order’s top leadership, the Seattle Times said.

The Vatican’s statement said, “Of this side of life, a great part of the Legionaries were in the dark — especially given the system of relationship built by P. Maciel, who very skillfully knew how to create alibis, obtain loyalty, trust and silence from those around him and strengthened his own role as charismatic founder,” the CNN reported.

The Vatican said that Macial “…created around him a defense mechanism that made him unassailable for a long period, making it difficult to know his true life.”

According to the AP, Maciel’s victims had tried in the 1990s to bring a canonical trial against him but were shut down.  The late Pope John Paul II had long championed the Legionaries for their orthodoxy and ability to bring in vocations and money.

In 2006, one year after Benedict became pope, the Vatican ordered Maciel to lead a “reserved life of penance and prayer,” and rendered him a priest in name only. He died in 2008 at age 87, the AP reported.

The Catholic church is also investigating complaints of abuse allegedly committed in Britain, Germany, Ireland and other countries, the CNN reported.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

A poll conducted recently in Ireland showed that 70 percent of Irish people would like their constitution to protect the unborn and ban abortion.

The survey, funded by Ireland’s Pro-Life Campaign and carried out by Millward Brown Lansdowne, recorded the opinions of nearly 1000 people aged 18 and older from Jan. 27 to Feb. 6.

The poll revealed that only 13 percent opposed protection for the unborn, while some 16 percent were undecided.

The survey also revealed that respondents were okay with Ireland’s current medical ethics and laws which allow intervention in case a mother’s life is endangered by her pregnancy.

The Pro-Life Campaign’s Dr. Berry Kiely highlighted the fact that the poll distinguished necessary medical interventions in pregnancy from induced abortion which directly targets the unborn child.

“This is a critical ethical distinction which abortion advocates constantly seek to blur,” Kiely said.

“Abortion advocates ignore the humanity of the unborn child throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy and the latest research highlighting the negative consequences of abortion for women.We cannot arbitrarily airbrush the unborn child out of the debate, or the many testimonies of women who regret their abortions.”

“To deny the right to life simply because the unborn child is at an early stage of development completely undermines an authentic vision of human rights,” Kiely commented.

Ireland is currently listed as the safest country in the world for pregnant women by the latest U.N. survey on maternal health.

Other countries where abortion is banned are Chile, El Salvador, Malta, Nicaragua and Bangladesh.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Rock band Emmaus’ music has been simultaneously described as optimistic pop and and arresting and thoughtful.

Though the band has been silent for the most part of the past decade, they reminded us just how much we’ve been missing with last year’s release, “Mountaintop” and this year’s release, “Let us not Go Back to Egypt.”

Ronan Johnston of Emmaus

Recently, James Wait caught up with Ronan Johnston, the band’s front man.
Ronan, tell us a little about your musical background.

Well, “professionally,” I am music writer. I’ve actually worked with many of the record companies out there. I have also worked for PBS with its “Over Ireland” program and some Irish television shows.

With Emmaus, I have traveled to lots of places. In the 1990’s we did a 60 day tour of the United States supporting our albums, “All over the World,” “Weight” and “Live at the Temple Bar Theatre in Dublin.”

In the interim, between Emmaus projects, I released a solo album called “Songs of Consolation.”

Growing up, what were some of your music influences and have those music influences changed any?

Growing up I really liked Black Sabbath and Shawn Carl. As far as pop goes, I really appreciated Abba. I still listen to rock and pop. As a musician and songwriter, I enjoy the music more now than I did when I was younger.

Speaking of music, I have heard a lot of Celtic music come out of Ireland, do you mix any Celtic influences into Emmaus’ music?

Our music is mostly rock and pop, but we do mix some Celtic music into our releases.

Can you tell us a little about your conversion experience? What brought you to the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior?

I grew up as a Catholic. In 1979, I was at a charismatic renewal in Dublin. For me, the event was a powerful, tangible experience of God.  Having such a powerful experience at a young age prevented me from doing a lot of things, including back sliding. Now that I’m older, though there have been some rough patches, I feel that my relationship with the Lord has grown.

Check out Ronan perform here:

More info on Ronan and Emmaus is here.

Related: Check out our review of “Let us not Go Back to Egypt.”

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Irish singer Sinead O’Connor says she’d help Jesus destroy the Vatican if she could.

“If Christ was here, he would be burning down the Vatican. And I for one would be helping him,” she said.

O’Connor made the statement via a letter to the Irish Independent in response to Roman Catholic Bishop, Denis Brennan’s recent plea to his congregation for funds.

Brennan oversees the Ferns Diocese in County Wexford, Ireland.

His  plea for funds came in the midst of a recently exposed decades-old sex abuse scandal that has seen the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland receive a publicized rebuke from Pope Benedict XVI and paying out millions to victims of sexual abuse at the hand of priests.

Sinéad_O’Connor says she would help Jesus "burn down the Vatican."

So far, Brennan’s diocese has paid €8 million ($10 million/£7.5 million) to settle 48 civil lawsuits.

According to the London Times, “Dr Brennan is the first bishop to give details on how much compensation has been paid to victims. He said that his official residence had been remortgaged to cover nearly €2 million in legal fees. A request for financial help from parishioners was not about sharing blame, he said, but about ‘asking for help to fulfill a God-given responsibility.’”

O’Connor said, “[Brennan's] statement attempts to dictate to us — in the same way the Inquisition did — how Christians should behave. It says directly that it would be anti-Christian of us to feel that the church should pay its own bills for its own abuse with its own billions that it throttled from our grandparents, whom it also abused, physically, emotionally, psychologically and sexually.”

“How an organisation which has acted, decade after decade, only to protect its business interests above the interests of children can feel it has the right to dictate to us what Christians should do is beyond belief.”

“From the Pope on down, through the Vatican and therefore through the lower echelons, the whole organisation, in my belief, is utterly anti-Christian and evil, as proven by centuries of torture, bloodshed, burnings, terrorism, and coverings-up of “the worst crime” known to man.”

O’Connor is no stranger to criticizing the Roman Catholic Church about sexual abuse.

On the Oct. 3, 1992 airing of Saturday Night Live, during which she appeared as a musical guest,  O’Connor sang  an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s “War,” during which she protested the sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church by changing Marley’s  lyric “racism” to “child abuse.” At the end of her song, she tore up a picture of former pontiff, John Paul II after the song.

O’Connor was heavily criticized for doing so. NBC, which owns Saturday Night Live, has refused to rebroadcast the musical performance.

Be Sociable, Share!

•