The May 1 pending beatification of the late Pope John Paul II has raised a few eyebrows among some Catholics.

The lay Catholic group, The International Movement We Are Church issued a press release recently decrying the late pontiff’s beatification due to his poor handling of clergy sex abuse, which under his 27-year watch, was suppressed and in this way, they say, enabled, according to their statement.

After the pontiff’s death clergy sexual abuse was shown to be global and more prevalent than was believed. Ministry Values mentioned John Paul’s favor of Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the late founder of the Legionaries of Christ who was a serial abuser and may who fathered at least one child, among many others.

Barbara Dorris, St. Louis outreach director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said the beatification is like “rubbing more salt into these wounds” of victims of clergy sex abuse, Politics Daily said.

Dorris told Politics Daily, “There’s a reason we usually move slowly in honoring public figures. Often, some of their unsavory actions and inactions surface years later. That’s slowly happening with Pope John Paul II. When we honor those who ignor or conceal wrongdoing, we essentially condone wrongdoing.”

Ministry Values also said it is not yet known what John Paul knew regarding how the Vatican Bank handled the 1982 collapse of the Banco Ambrosiano, and the scandal linked to it.

IMWAC also questioned in their press release John Paul’s quelling of the Liberation Theology movement, suppresseing the issue of gender equality, and failure to condone use of condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS (Pope Benedict XVI said in such instance, it’s a moral choice), USA Today reported.

IMWAC said, “beatification and ultimately sainthood should not be measured by whether a ‘miracle’ can be attributed to a particular person, but rather, whether someone’s life truly embodies the values of Christ who sought, not power, but the wellbeing of God’s people,” ABC News Radio reported.

A Roman Catholic qualifies for beatification if a miracle is clearly attributed to intervention by the deceased. A second miracle makes one eligible for canonization or sainthood, Politics Daily said.

Vatican medical experts and theologians affirmed that Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, a French nun, was healed of Parkinson’s disease, the same sickness that John Paul had, after she prayed for his intercession on June 3, 2005, (he died in April 2005), the AP said.

Blood relic

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the longtime aide of John Paul II, told UPI a vial of blood from the late pope will be his relic when he’s beatified. The tradition of keeping relics stems from the Middle Ages.

The vial of blood was given to Dziwisz when the pope underwent several medical tests before a tracheotomy. It will be kept in a crystal and remain on an altar at the John Paul II Institute in Krakow, UPI said.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Pope Benedict XVI announced recently that a new office will be opened to re-evangelize parts of the world, including Europe, where Christianity is being overtaken by secularization, the Associated Press reported.

Benedict announced the opening of the new office on the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, which is a feast day that by tradition is celebrated together with the Orthodox church, the AP said.

Although there is no confirmed head of the new office, media in Italy have said it may be Monsignor Rino Fisichella. Conservatives criticized Fisichella last year when he pleaded mercy in defense of Brazilian doctors who performed an abortion on a 9-year-old. The child was raped by her stepfather and pregnant with twins, the AP said.

The Catholic church, even as it has created the new office, is in the midst of a number of controversies.

One involves Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, former head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (tasked to work in areas where the Catholic church is relatively unknown), regarding corruption in relation to some of his business transactions, the AP said.

Another controversy involves the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who was found to have committed abuse with some seminarians, and was discovered to be the father of at least three children, the AP said.

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

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!

•