PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Newly unsealed documents in a lawsuit
brought against the Roman Catholic order Legion of
Christ show the group's former second-in-command testified he discovered
the order's founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel,
had fathered a daughter in 2006, but never confronted him about his double life
and didn't share the news with the group's broader membership.
( Rev. Marcial Maciel )
The documents, previously sealed in a lawsuit in Rhode Island, include
thousands of pages of testimony from high-ranking leaders at the Legion, its members, and relatives of Rhode Island
widow Gabrielle Mee, who bequeathed $60 million
to the Legion before her death at age 96 in 2008.
The Legion, founded by Maciel decades ago in
Mexico City, was taken over by the Vatican in 2010 after a church investigation
determined that Maciel had sexually molested seminarians and fathered three
children by two women.
The scandal, which tarnished the legacy of Pope John Paul II, has been cited
as an especially egregious example of how the Vatican ignored decades of
reports about sexually abusive priests because church leaders put the interests
of the institution above those of the victims.
The documents released Friday, at the request of The Associated Press and
other news organizations, include the first-ever depositions made available of
high-ranking Legion officials, including the Rev. Luis Garza, the Legion's
former No. 2.
In a deposition December 2011, Garza says he became suspicious while
visiting Maciel in 2006 at a Jacksonville, Fla., hotel about two women he saw
there. He later learned they were Maciel's daughter and her mother, a fact he
confirmed with both women.
Garza said he obtained the daughter's birth certificate as proof — listing
the father as "Jose Rivas." Later, it was revealed that Maciel used
the "Jose Rivas" pseudonym with his other hidden family, a Mexican
woman with whom he had two sons.
Yet Garza said he never asked Maciel about his daughter or discussed it with
him, and he didn't think it was necessary to share the news with the Legion's
membership or its lay movement, Regnum Christi. He said he only told the
Legion's superior and two other priests.
"I didn't think at the time that the fact that fathering a child would
change in any way the way we needed to behave vis-a-vis Father
Maciel or the actions that we needed to do," Garza said in the
deposition. "Because we needed to comply with indications of the Holy See
and also because there was an issue of privacy and respect for the mother and
the daughter."
The Legion didn't acknowledge Maciel's children or the sexual abuse
allegations against him until February 2009, about a year after he died.
Mee's niece, Mary Lou Dauray, filed the Rhode Island lawsuit after her aunt
died, saying Mee was defrauded by an order whose leaders orchestrated an effort
to hide its founder's misdeeds from her aunt. A Superior Court judge ruled in
September that Dauray did not have standing to sue.
But the judge noted that the documents filed under seal raised a red flag.
He referred to the Legion's top officials as "clandestinely dubious
religious leaders," and said there was evidence that Mee had been unduly
persuaded to change her trusts and will.
Bernard Jackvony, the lawyer for Mee's niece, said taken as a whole, the
depositions expose how the Legion knew by 2004 that the Vatican was
investigating Maciel for sexual abuse and by 2006 that he had a daughter yet
kept the information private. He argued that Mee never would have given the
Legion her money had she known of Maciel's true nature.
"In terms of fraud, when you withhold information from people, that's
the same as if you said something to them that's not true," he said.
The Legion said Friday it didn't exert undue influence over Mee's
decision-making and she made her gifts of her own will.
Among other documents released Friday was 2001 testimony from Mee in a
separate lawsuit, showing her complete trust in the Legion.
"I know they needed money and what their dealings were, and I have
complete confidence and trust. I know it's all above board. It's all very
honest," she said. "I know no details and I don't ask."
The documents in Dauray's lawsuit were kept under seal until the AP, The New
York Times, the National Catholic Reporter and The Providence Journal
intervened, arguing that the documents were in the public interest. The Legion
argued that media coverage of the documents could taint prospective jurors if
there was a trial.
___
Winfield reported from Rome. Contributing to this report are Associated
Press writers Matt Brown in Billings, Mont., Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia
and Chris Sherman in McAllen, Texas, and AP Projects Editor Brooke Lansdale in
New York.
SCRIPTURES
MARK 5: 8For he said unto him,
Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. 9And he asked him, What is
thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. 10And
he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. 11Now there was
there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. 12And
all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter
into them. 13And
forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered
into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea,
(they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.
2 CORINTHIANS 11: 3But
I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so
your minds should
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. 4For if he that
cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye
receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye
have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.
JOHN 3: 19And this is the
condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil.
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