Retaining Moral Authority Is Growing Vatican Challenge

The 38 Legionaries of Christ deacons ordained June 30, 2009 come from 9 countries: Brazil (2), Canada (2), the Czech Republic (1), Spain (6), Italy (1), Mexico (19), the United States (5), Venezuela (1), and Vietnam (1). The youngest deacon is 29 years old, while the oldest is a 50-year-old Spaniard who is also a physician, a doctor in bioethics, and a professor at the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum College in Rome.RedTracker| Today’s LATimes writes an excellent thought piece A troubling order for the Catholic Church, with a focus on the Legionaries of Christ, the most conservative Catholic order founded by Regnum Christi, a perverted conservative now disgraced and all but disowned by Pope Benedict.

The sanctimonious founder Marcial Maciel was a lifelong sexual predator warmly embraced by Pope John Paul II, who believed new, traditionalist orders — like the Legionaries and Opus Dei — would provide a defense against secularism. The Vatican believes that secularism will destroy the Catholic Church.

The pontiff publicly called Maciel “an efficacious example to youth” and took him along as a key advisor on his trips to Latin America. The reality of Maciel’s life and his treatment of young boys and men is nauseating.

Pope Benedict may accuse us of ‘petty gossip’ as he did over the weekend, but the Vatican is clueless in understanding that it may lose its moral authority over its pious position as the aggrieved party. 

A troubling order for the Catholic Church raises the divisive issue of conservative power in today’s Catholic Church, stating that being a Democrat in America is almost unsustainable with current Catholic values.

At ordination, Legionaries swore a vow — since abolished by Benedict — never to speak ill of a superior and to report anyone who did. Rather than considering criticism of the church ‘petty gossip’, Pope Benedict must take seriously the reality that finally it’s sinking in to many citizens of the world that the Vatican men consider themselves ‘above the law’. This term is gaining traction each day and best describes the views of a conservative Catholic church.

When men believe they are above the law, they act accordingly — making themselves a true danger to democratic institutions. Anne

Vatican News | Legionaries of Christ Investigation Intersects New Sex Abuse Scandals