The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II Free

FREE VOWS OF SILENCE: THE ABUSE OF POWER IN THE PAPACY OF JOHN PAUL II PDF

Based on years of research and hundreds of interviews, Vows of Silence is a riveting account of Vatican cover-ups and the tumult they have caused in the church worldwide. Both a profound criticism and a call to reform by two Catholic writers, the book reveals an agenda of top-down control under John Paul II and a Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II so obsessed with secrecy as to spawn disinformation. Vows of Silence cuts between the life story of Father Tom Doyle, who sacrificed a diplomatic career with the Vatican to seek justice for sex-abuse victims, and Father Marcial Maciel, an accused pedophile and founder of the Legion of Christ, a cult-like religious order that began in Mexico, opened prep schools in countries around the globe, and won the favor of John Paul II in Rome. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Father Doyle and with ex-Legionnaires who filed a canonical suit against Maciel, as well as interviews with Vatican insiders and an array of sources in Ireland, Canada, and Australia, the authors provide a penetrating account of a hierarchy directly in conflict with its followers. With scrupulous, factual reporting, Vows of Silence chronicles the Church's struggle between orthodoxy and reform-going straight to the heart of one of the world's largest power structures. Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II writes for many publications and appears often on national television. He lives in New Orleans. Gerald Renner is a veteran journalist who recently retired from the Hartford Courant, where he was a staff writer specializing in religious news, issues, and trends. He lives in Norwalk, Connecticut. The S urvivors N etwork of those A bused by P riests. Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests www. + VOWS OF SILENCE +

Jump to navigation. In the foreword, Fr. Andrew Greeley referred to "what may be the greatest scandal in the history of religion in America and perhaps the greatest problem Catholicism has faced since the Reformation. Given the current moment and its possibilities and the fact that Berry is singular in his experience covering the scandal from multiple angles, NCR asked if he would write a reflection on the matter as the church's bishops are about to gather in Rome to consider the issue. Below is the concluding Part 3. Inbarely a year after becoming pope, John Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II II visited his native Poland and stood up to the Communist regime with ringing sermons on freedom. Almost overnight, he became a force in global politics in the Cold War era. He played a catalytic role in the collapse of the Soviet empire in as the Berlin Wall cracked apart. In November ofwith John Paul triumphant on the world stage, the U. American bishops were already sending scores of offenders to church-run treatment facilities; they wanted power to the oust the worst of them. John Paul refused. For years, I wondered why. As pope, his long delays in signing papers to release priests from their vows reflected John Paul's view that a man changes ontologically on becoming a priest, his very being made new. Priests could sin but pick up and carry on. The idea of a criminal sexual underground in clerical life was beyond his ken. What if U. If a few bishops had taken the lead, sacking the worst priests, the reliance on treatment tanks as de facto safe houses, or the dishonest tactics to help a Lane Fontenot or Gary Berthiaume, might have ended sooner. Canon law allows for internal church courts to assess a priest's guilt before sending the file to Rome, requesting that he be laicized. American bishops were reluctant to use that canonical process without a speedy judgment; the files were increasingly vulnerable to subpoena by plaintiff lawyers. A priest found guilty by a secret church court would raise the financial stakes for a settlement or verdict, particularly if the bishop was waiting to hear from Rome. I learned more about the standoff on a milky afternoon in Rome in An influential canon lawyer spoke with me on the condition that he not be identified. We sat in a spartan conference room in a building older than most American states. The Holy See was well aware of the rising lawsuit costs inhe told me. In how many cases did they apply the penal procedures [ecclesial courts]? Well, none. He leaned forward, eyes flared. To say that people were not qualified begs the issue. The U. Divorce rates had escalated in the s; the Vatican had allowed certain exceptions to facilitate annulments. This was highly criticized in Rome. That experience of dealing with American bishops set up a resistance to special norms for [removing] pedophiles. As the crisis grew, Pope John Paul heard directly from bishops on their ad limina visits every fifth-year meetings to brief the pope on a given diocese. Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul IIBishop Ronald Mulkearns of Ballarat, Australia, spoke of his month "nightmare" over Gerald Ridsdale, a priest with scores of victims before he went to prison for many years. I admitted to the Holy Father that the past year has been by far the worst in my experience as a bishop. Then-Bishop George Pell accompanied Ridsdale to his trial. By the time Ridsdale entered prison inthe Vatican had laicized him, which suggests that Mulkearns got something out of his meeting with John Paul. Any other interest John Paul had in "all of these issues" furnished Mulkearns scant guidance. Inhe resigned in a firestorm of criticism for recycling other predators. The past stalked Mulkearns. In FebruaryAustralia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had received accusations that he destroyed documents in Ridsdale's file and compelled Mulkearns' testimony by video-link from his nursing home. He lasted 90 minutes, apologizing, claiming he couldn't remember details. He died two months later. Pell became a cardinal and under Francis took an important role in Vatican finances, only to take leave indragged back to Australia's deepening scandal. Australia has some 4, cases of clergy child sex abuse by 1, perpetrators, between and — seven percent of the nation's clergy, according to La Croix International. Pell was recently convicted of sexual abusethough under Australia's arcane press laws, key details have been withheld. Pell sits in a cold limbo. John Paul sank deeper into denial. John Paul's alter-ego on the crisis was Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who after thirteen years in Chile, where he wielded a large hand in choosing bishops, became secretary of state in Sodano, 91, now dean of the College of Cardinals, has been a peerless cover-up proponent in the brotherhood. Sodano used more muscle after a stunning canonical case landed in at Ratzinger's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith tribunal. At this point, John Paul's passivity shifted to defiance. Eight former Legionaries of Christ including a Florida diocesan priest filed abuse charges from their years as teenage seminarians against the founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado. I went up to the apartment, handed him the envelope, said goodbye. Nor did Sodano, a "cheerleader for the Legion," as one ex-Legionary priest told me. Nor did NCR hear back in when questions translated into Polish went to the office in Krakow of Cardinal Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II Dziwisz, which replied that he "does not have time for an interview. As John Paul's longtime assistant, Msgr. One of the priests called the funds given to Dziwisz "an elegant way of giving a bribe. All that money! All that goodwill hunting doled out under Maciel, the greatest fundraiser of the modern church and equally its greatest criminal. President Ronald Reagan's CIA director, William Casey, and his wife, made a seven-figure donation for construction of a Legion building in Cheshire, Connecticut, and were memorialized in a plaque. Ratzinger, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith theologian who prosecuted church intellectuals for questioning moral teaching on birth control and other issues, was a law-and-order purist. After a speech at the Legionary college, he declined the envelope with money. As for Pope Benedict, I would like to emphasize that he is a man who had the courage to do a lot of work in this area. There is an anecdote: he had all the documents regarding the congregation in which sexual and economic abuse occurred. He wanted to reach for them, but he came across obstacles and could not reach everyone. Pope John Paul II, who wanted to know the truth, asked him Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II meet. Joseph Ratzinger presented documentation on him, all papers he collected. When he returned, he told the secretary: "Give it to the archives, the other party won. Who could the "other party" have been if not Sodano? Ratzinger's determination was impressive, though in the end the Vatican ended up mired in Maciel's legacy. InRatzinger persuaded John Paul to consolidate authority to laicize sex offenders at his tribunal, something no one else in the Curia wanted. The moment began in November Sodano arranged for a dying John Paul, his speech slurred from the neurological disorder, to celebrate Maciel's 60th anniversary as a priest at a lavish Vatican ceremony. The pope praised the long-accused pedophile for his "integral formation of the person. Sodano appreciated money. So did Andrea Sodano, his nephew, a structural engineer in Rome who partnered with a flashy Italian promoter, Raffaello Follieri, who set up shop in Manhattan to buy U. Buy low, sell high. Secretary of State Sodano lent his presence for a company launch in the city of cities before Follieri was indicted for defrauding investors. Snug in Rome, Andrea refused a subpoena request to testify. Follieri did time in a federal penitentiary. Sodano was Machiavellian, means justify the power; Ratzinger, a moralist, understood that with John Paul dying, whomever the cardinals chose as next pope would inherit a disaster if the Maciel case were aborted. He ordered a canon lawyer, Msgr. Charles Scicluna, to investigate. Scicluna was taking testimony in New York when John Paul died in Months later, when Scicluna delivered his fateful report — finding "more than 20 but less than Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II as a background source who if not Scicluna? Allen Jr. How could the Vatican stage the sainthood ceremony with Maciel on display, all smiles, a living symbol of the pedophilia cover-up, displayed for a hungry news media? On May 19,the Vatican ordered Maciel to "a life of prayer and penitence. Maciel, 86, left Rome for his native Cotija, Mexico, and a reunion with Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II of his former paramours and their year-old daughter, whose support in Spain he had covered from Legion coffers. With Maciel gone, the Legionaries' long defense of Maciel shifted to bizarre spin control, pledging fealty to the pope, while telling followers that Maciel was wrongly accused, like Jesus, but accepted his fate with " tranquility of conscience. On Maciel's death inthe Legion announced he was in heaven. Thirteen months later, Legion authorities announced their "discovery" that he had a daughter, shocking diehard supporters. Only then, 12 years after the pedophilia charges reported in the Hartford Courant, did the Legion finally make a public apology to victims. This was three years after Maciel's dismissal from Rome, when the order took down its website attacking Maciel's victims, Gerald Renner and me. Soon, two men from Mexico asserted they were Maciel's sons. The Vatican, which had known about the daughter for close to four years, announced — an investigation of the Legion! Benedict in called Maciel "out of moral bounds … a wasted, twisted life. Vows of Silence

It was April of Father Vaca, thirty-nine, had dark hair flecked with silver, a fair brown face, and the discerning bishop could perhaps see the melancholy in his eyes and the sadness in his demeanor. In later years Vaca would study psychology to, as he said, "determine where sickness ends and evil begins. Vaca had joined the Long Island diocese just as McGann's predecessor was retiring. Men from the religious orders, like Jesuits or Franciscans, often serve in dioceses, but few asked to officially change status from religious to diocesan clergy. Father Vaca had impeccable credentials. In Orange, Connecticut, he had served five years as the U. Under Father Maciel, the Legionaries built a network of schools and universities in Mexico, and branched out with prep schools and seminaries in Spain, Latin America, Ireland, and now America. With the Legion's growth, Maciel's stature rose in the eyes of the Roman Curia. By the Legion would claim eleven universities and over prep schools worldwide. Recruited by Maciel as a ten-year-old in Mexico, Vaca had grown Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II in the Legion, studying at the order's seminaries in Europe. Vaca told Bishop McGann that Maciel began sexually abusing him when he was twelve. He said that Nuestro Padre - Our Father, as Legionaries call the founder general - had used him in a perverse sexual relationship until Vaca was twenty-five. Maciel ran the Legion like a dictator, according to Vaca, and had dominated him by cutting him off from his family. Bishop McGann took it all in. Then he asked a classically American question: Didn't anybody blow the whistle? McGann's diocese encompassed Suffolk and Nassau Counties. He relied upon the generosity of Irish, Italian, and Hispanic descendants of an immigrant church, many of whom commuted into Manhattan jobs their forebears barely imagined. McGann was of that generation of bishops who were builders, broadening the infrastructure of parishes, schools, colleges, and services that lifted Catholics from the margins of society to prosperity and power. Sexual misconduct of priests was not a media topic in those days. Within the clerical world, stories occasionally circulated of priests having affairs with women, or even men. Priests were human, not without sin. In the eyes of millions of Catholics, the church nevertheless stood for moral rectitude. Father Vaca's charges went far beyond "sin. McGann's priest was alleging severe moral crimes by the head of an international order. The Holy Father must be informed about this. Father Vaca had asked his bishop for help. McGann was deceased when a Long Island grand jury made headlines in with a voluminous report that condemned the Rockville Centre diocese for a systemic pattern of concealing priests who molested children and lying to the families of those abused. In the case of Father Vaca, a bishop tried to do the right thing. McGann told the Mexican cleric he would report Maciel to the Vatican. Vaca was skeptical; he thought Maciel had influence in the Curia to block an investigation. McGann insisted that they report through correct channels; he would write to the papal delegate in Washington, D. But a document of such gravity must be specific: Vaca had to take that next step. Over the summer Vaca settled into parish work in the town of Baldwin. On October 20,he sat down in St. Christopher's Rectory and wrote a twelve-page, single-spaced letter to Maciel. After thanking Maciel for his release from the Legion, Vaca got blunt:. For me, Father, the disgrace and moral torture of my life began on that night of December Using the excuse that you were in pain, you ordered me to remain in your bed. I was not yet thirteen years old; you knew that God had kept me intact until then, pure, without ever having seriously stained the innocence of my infancy, when you, on that night, in the midst of my terrible confusion and anguish, ripped the masculine virginity from me. I had arrived at the Legion in my Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II, with no sexual experience of any kind It was you who initiated the aberrant and sacrilegious abuse that night; the abuse that would last for thirteen painful years. Vaca's cri de coeur is a riveting document, even amidst the recent tide of legal actions against priests and the media's coverage of the double lives that too many clerics have led. Vaca identified twenty men with Mexican or Spanish surnames, their place of residence in parentheses. Vaca also impugned Regnum Christi, an organization the Legion had fostered to inspire laypeople as evangelists for the kingdom of Christ on earth. Vaca scored "the RC movement itself, with their procedures of secretism, absolutism and brainwashing systems, following the methods of secret societies rather than the open and simple evangelic methods Vaca wanted to be left alone to rebuild his life. Finally, "for the good of the Church," he Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II Maciel, "Renounce your position. A dispassionate analysis of the letter holds three possibilities. The first is that Vaca was unstable and fabricated a defamatory picture of Maciel. The second is that Maciel was guilty and had no reason to risk self-incrimination with an answer. The third possibility - which presumably crossed Bishop McGann's mind - is that Vaca was substantially telling the truth, though perhaps not every single allegation, like brainwashing, could be proven. Under the Code of Canon Law, McGann had a responsibility to act on the letter, or dismiss it, based on his judgment of Vaca's character and credibility. Of the twenty victims Vaca listed, one was a priest in the same Long Island diocese. McGann consulted with his canon lawyer, the Reverend John A. Father Alesandro sent the package to the papal delegate in Washington. In vouching for the two ex-Legionaries, McGann and Alesandro were inviting a Vatican investigation into a man with an established base in the ecclesiastical power structure in Rome. The result was - nothing. No Vatican official requested more information. The allegation that the founder of an international religious order was a pederast, and that his organization used brainwashing, met a cool Roman silence. Two years later, in August ofVaca flew to Mexico to be with his family as his father was dying of cancer. His sister, still in Regnum Christi, resisted his pleas to leave the group. But Vaca was in a deeper crisis. He had fallen in love with a woman and felt guilty for remaining a priest. On return to Long Island he told Bishop McGann and asked to be laicized - to be dispensed from the obligations of the priesthood. Laicization required sending a petition to Rome. As part of his reason for leaving, Vaca again returned to the sexual abuse by Maciel. Taking Vaca's troubled background into account, the bishop suggested he take a leave of absence from ministry to sort out his life. McGann also asked Vaca to see a psychiatrist. Several months into the sessions, Vaca disentangled himself from the relationship and returned to ministry. He also renewed his quest to see Maciel removed. Once again, the canonist Alesandro sent a dossier to the Holy See's apostolic delegate in Washington, D. The Sacred Congregation for Religious at the Vatican sent a receipt of the complaint. Inwhen Gerald Renner asked Monsignor Alesandro why nothing happened, he spoke with reluctance: "All I can say is that there are different levels where people are informed about this. It was our duty to get this stuff into the right hands. I don't know why it was not acted on It's a substantive allegation that should have been acted on. Juan Vaca left the priesthood after psychotherapy and more struggle with celibacy. On August 31,he married in a civil ceremony. Although he no longer functioned as a priest, Vaca and his wife wanted their marriage blessed by the church. For a former priest or bishop, that requires the pope's approval of laicization. Monsignor Alesandro again sent a Vaca document to the apostolic embassy in Washington. Again he received confirmation of its receipt by Rome. Vaca wrote as if speaking personally to John Paul II, reflecting on his life, his failings, his marriage. He wrote of "being poorly trained" for the priesthood "because of the serious traumas I suffered for years for being sexually and psychologically Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II by the Superior General and Founder, Marcial Maciel Four years later Vaca received the dispensation, one of thousands bearing the papal signature. He never heard a word about Maciel or the allegations. Inin response to our questions for a report, Maciel denied the allegations, and continues to. Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II Vatican is under no obligation to assist investigative journalists. In the seven years since we first contacted the office of the papal spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, for comment on accusations by nine ex-Legion members that Maciel had abused them, the Vatican refused comment. No Vatican official ever told us Maciel was innocent. There was simply no answer to the accusations in media reports. The charges that Vaca and others filed against Maciel in a Vatican court of canon law in were shelved: no decision. Instead, Pope John Paul in praised Maciel at a sixtieth anniversary celebration of the Legion's founding. That symbolic acquittal from a pope who championed human rights under dictatorships is a numbing message on the state of justice in the church. Maciel refused to be interviewed. The Legion of Christ hired a blue-chip Washington Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II firm to try to kill the report. The Legion uses its newspapers, publicists, and apologists on its Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II site to portray Maciel as a victim falsely accused. His supporters include some of the wealthiest citizens of Spain and Latin America, many of whose children attend or have studied at Legion schools or colleges.