Will Dyke Hold for Global Religious Patriarchy?

ordination catholic priests

Over the weekend, the Vatican announced it will appoint a special envoy to run and reform The Legionaries of Christ, whose founder Father Marcial Maciel, led a double life for decades.

The now infamous Maciel, who died in 2008 at 87, founded the ultra-conservative Legion of Christ order in Mexico in 1941. Maciel’s influence probably exists to this day in Mexico’s anti-abortion politics.

When Rome mandates that raped nine-year-old girls carrying twins cannot receive a legal abortion, the cultural, religious powerhouse called The Legionaries of Christ, sees to it that the girl is sacrificed, if necessary.

In a 2009 case Archbishop Don Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Recife excommunicated the doctor, the child’s mother and the medical team involved in a legal abortion, telling Globo TV that, “A graver act than (rape) is abortion, to eliminate an innocent life.”

This prioritization of values around ‘life’ led Father Marcial Maciel to father children, molest young boys and successfully and impressively organize an autocratic reign of worldwide, patriarchal terror.

In yesterday’s announcement the Vatican said that the special envoy and a corollary commission will oversee the “purification” of the order and the “re-definition” of its secretive, militaristic culture.

Maciel “skillfully managed to build up an alibi to gain the trust, confidence and surrounding silence, and strengthen his role as charismatic founder,” the Vatican said. Living “a life devoid of scruples and of genuine religious feeling,” the statement continued, Maciel “created around himself a defense mechanism that made him untouchable for a long time.” via LA Times

Macial was protected by former Vatican secretary of state and, by office, the most powerful man next to Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, now the dean of the College of Cardinals and an outspoken defender of Benedict.

“Until Pope Benedict confronts Sodano’s role in the cover-up of Maciel, I don’t see how he can move beyond the crisis that has engulfed his papacy,” Mr. Jason Berry of The National Catholic Reporter said.Berry is the co-author of a book that helped to break open the charges around Maciel.

Read More