Who Could Ever Have Imagined?
A hat tip to Atheist Revolution for this nauseating revelation:
A Secret Shame: Inside The Latest Scandal To Rock The Catholic Church
When Todd Carpunky was 16, he joined the Legion of Christ. I his six years with the Catholic order, he bore witness to a culture of sexual abuse that rocked the Church. Here, he talks candidly to Peter Stanford about the secretive world created by the order’s founder while the papal authorities looked the other way
Much has been made of the power wielded by the secretive Opus Dei under John Paul II, not least by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code, but many Vatican-watchers believe that the Legion of Christ was bigger, richer (annual budget £435m), more influential, and even more sinister.
Parents of youngsters recruited as Legionaries described it as a cult that targeted the young and naive in particular, some of them just 13, and then “brainwashed” them. But it is Maciel himself who has proved most controversial. Nuestro Padre was, according to one biographer, “a narcissistic sociopath” with a taste for flights on Concorde and five-star hotels. He is acknowledged by the Legion to have fathered at least one child – a 23-year-old daughter said to be called Norma Hilda and now living in Madrid.
It has also been alleged that he was a paedophile. The first accusation came in 1976 from the former head of the Legion in the US. By 1998, the Vatican had received sworn statements from eight men, all detailing how Maciel had abused them when they were young recruits.
And anyone actually cares what the Pope thinks or says? I see him as the CEO of a corporation that has no product, collects money based on fear of the unkown, and is full of pedophile managers that it protects and moves from on branch to another whenever their actions get noticed. Were the Catholic Church really a private corporation it would have been driven out of business long ago. Who would trust their kids with these people?
Throughout the 1990s, a series of allegations of sexual abuse of minors by priests that had been covered up by the church authorities shook Catholicism in America, Canada, Australia, Ireland, the UK and other countries. At least two cardinals were forced to retire, dozens of paedophile priests were jailed for their crimes, and the Church paid out millions of pounds in compensation to victims. The damage to its reputation in the eyes of its own congregations has been huge, and bishops have struggled to convince sceptics that they have put into place procedures rigorous enough to ensure that such a betrayal never happens again.
Yet in Maciel’s case, it took 30 years – until 2006, after John Paul’s death – for the new pope, Benedict XVI, finally to issue a public rebuke, and then it was simply an order that he should see out his days in private prayer rather than face a court. The long delay is evidence, some have suggested, that the Vatican still does not take the issue of paedophile priests sufficiently seriously.
Ya think? They create and enforce and environment where these predators can thrive. Then they use all the resources and devices at their disposal to cover up, buy off or trivialize the damage these sick bastards cause. Can you imagine if say, Bernie Madoff was just given a sentence that the had to “see out his days in private prayer rather than face a court?” Or any other criminal? Why is it that belief in an invisible friend and funny clothes allows for these people to continue to get away with violating the trust and bodies of the people that they hold sway over? Oh, and the law. If they were not protected by their mumbo jumbo superstitious organization they would be getting gang raped in a penitentiary. And penitentiary of course comes from the Latin “penitenciarie”-a priest that administers penance.
Another secretive Catholic order. Another expose of rampant sexual abuse, pedophilia and psychological control. And somebody is surprised by this?
Not I.
