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FEATURE: The beatification of Wojtyla
The dark ally Juan
Paul II Maciel, founder of the Legionaries, pederast was already reached when the Polish Pope - Both support each other and shared a vision of the Church
RODRIGUEZ JESUS \u200b\u200b29/04/2011
"And you, father, when he came the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Legion? "asked John Paul II to Marcial Maciel the first time I dined together in the private dining room of the Holy Father. Maciel's response was immediate: "Holiness, at 15 years and I knew that I wanted to create a congregation of priests to establish the kingdom of Christ in society." The Pope reflected and continued: "As you know, Father Maciel, the 15 years I had not been ordered and I was not going through my head to become pope. "As a priest who witnessed the conversation, after the Pope's sentence both laughed. The Holy Father Maciel has always admired the absolute security that was in his mission. I knew it would be an absolute fidelity.
for Pope
could visit
Mexico in 1979
believed in a Church without dissent
to combat secularism and communism
During his pontificate,
; the Legion increased its power
Their lives were parallel
Catholicism marked by resistance
When Wojtyla to the papacy in 1978, Maciel was already pederast. Already had relationships with women, already suffering from an addiction to opiates and had decades of economic management. Controlled with an iron hand to their children imprisoned in their special vow of silence, was master of minds and fortunes in the Legion of Christ. But his power had little to do with what we get from the hand of the new pontiff. In 1978, the Legion of Christ was just a deeply conservative congregation founded by an ambitious Mexican priest, had not yet adopted their constitutions, secretive, powerful presence in Mexico and between reactionary elites of Spain, Italy, Ireland and the USA. With Juan Pablo II, Marcial Maciel get an influence he could never imagine.
And again dragging its dark past that apparently nobody noticed. Maciel was a genius as a collector, his seminars were full and presumed not to go even one step behind or ahead of the Pope. And, last but not least, financial support to Solidarity, the Catholic trade union founded in Poland in 1980 and led by Lech Walesa was undermining the foundations of the communist regime from the new pope.
During the Wojtyla papacy, the Legion would be the fastest growing Catholic congregation. When Wojtyla came to the Vatican, had 100 priests. At his death had 800 and 2,000 seminarians in 124 houses scattered throughout the world. Universities in Mexico, Chile, Italy and Spain, faculties of Theology, Philosophy and Bioethics. More than 130,000 students. And 20,000 employees in its economic group Integer. The figure has been repeated over the value of the assets of the Legion in recent years is 25,000 million euros.
After a doubt as Pope Paul VI came in 1978, Karol Wojtyla, a Pope certainties. The ever-faithful from Poland. As Mexico. A Catholic resistance. This project was offered by the new pope in a time of uncertainty. For his battle, he needed an army unconditionally. No longer worth the Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits. They were too committed to the poor. Bordering on Marxism. Odds with the powerful. Wojtyla found his new recruits in the Opus, the Kikos, Lumen Dei, charismatics, Communion and Liberation, Schoenstatt, San Egidio and the Legion of Christ. Together they got into the time machine and rewind to the fifties. Even a church with a centralized power, no room for dissent. They decided Church that was the end of the century who had to re-evangelize the world. Maciel would be one of the quarterbacks.
Their careers were almost twins. Were born in 1920, two months apart, in the heart of conservative families, rural and middle class. Raised in a devout Catholic, powerful, exclusive, very political resistance and joined the national sentiment in Mexico and Poland. They would live during times of religious oppression that they educate their children in a battle Catholicism. The mothers of both Emilia and Maurita, would love your life, the key to religious indoctrination, his model. The women had to be for them wives and mothers. And transmitting the catechism. Like their mothers.
According Maciel in his book My Life is Christ, John Paul II and he became known in January 1979, two months after Wojtyla was elected the successor of St. Peter. The new pope took it into his head that his first mass rally outside Italy had to be in Mexico, a country with more than 80 million Catholics in the doors of the Central U.S. and the Theology of Liberation. Had to take America into the clutches of communism.
In January 1979, Wojtyla was determined to make the trip. But the Mexican government was not so clear. Mexico and the Holy See did not maintain diplomatic relations. Mexico was a secular state with a constitution profoundly anticlerical. But while Catholicism had a very emotional blood. His legislation meant that in the case of John Paul II visited Mexico, I could not do as head of state, but as a "distinguished visitor" would not be formally invited by President Jose Lopez Portillo. I could not celebrate Mass outdoors. With its commitment to visit Mexico, Wojtyla was the play. Right at the start of his pontificate.
appeared in this Maciel. Within the network of friendships that the founder of the Legionaries had woven in Mexico were Rosario and Alicia Pacheco and Margarita López Portillo. Catholic, rich and mother and sisters of Mexican President José López Portillo. Maciel was the confessor of Dona Rosario. He spoke with them. And they with the president. It worked miracles. López Portillo invited the pope and would receive him at the airport. John Paul would be allowed to say Mass outdoors in front of hundreds of thousands of faithful. And the visit would be televised.
Wojtyla never forget that fine work. No one in Rome cared that speculation ran against the superior of the Legionaries, that somewhere in the curia to hide a thick dossier on his adventures. John Paul II ignored them. And for nearly three decades did not fail to reward the loyalty of Maciel.
In subsequent years, Wojtyla approve the Constitutions of the Legion without changing a comma, would order at the Vatican to 59 Maciel Legionnaires and invited to inspect several synods of bishops in Europe and Latin America. Favored the creation of the Pontifical University of the Legionaries in Rome and implementation of the congregation in Chile. And it came to define Maciel as "an effective guide for the youth."
And when things started getting bad for Maciel after publication in The Hartford Courant of the first allegations of sexual misconduct, in February 1997, Pope was deaf. In one of the last acts of the Legion who presided over the end of his life, Wojtyla homenajearía even members of the Legion of Christ raising his voice and overcoming great weakness: "It looks, feels, the legionnaires are present" .
When the Mexican bishop Carlos Talavera in 1999 delivered a letter to Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and now Pope, detailing the abuses of Maciel on former Legionary priest Juan Manuel Fernandez Amenabar, Ratzinger's response was inconclusive, as stated later that the bishop: "Unfortunately we can not open the case of Father Maciel because she is so dear to the Holy Father, has greatly helped the Church and consider it a serious matter.
would die John Paul II in April 2005 for the affair Maciel is reactivated. And nothing could save him from conviction. The eternal fire had it insured.
Jesus Rodriguez is the author of Confession . The strange adventures of Marcial Maciel and other mysteries of the Legion of Christ (Debate).
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