ME AND MACIEL

An ex-confrere of mine just attached your issue on the LC and RC to me. You've done a fine job. I was with the LC from 1961-1984. In fact I was one of the first 'founders'in Ireland [which Maciel targeted as a stepping stone to the US and English speaking world.] Father Maciel: MASTER OF THE GAME, -think Graham Greene and John Le Carre spy novels- a diabolically clever strategist. Maciel is so clever at drawing the wool over peoples' eyes he has John Paul II eating out of his hand!

And a very strange bird. Dangerous, perhaps EVIL. Utterly bereft of human compassion, and therefore, at least in my book, no way a saint!

ME

I instinctively disliked him and also being short and not particularly handson was never one of his closer entourage. My lack of wholehearted and narrow-minded adulation for him and 'the movement' also precluded me from ever holding a position of authority even though I was bright, earnest and hardworking, and one of the first Irish Legionary priests, ordained in Rome in 1969. [I did spearhead the 'Schools of Faith' among Mexico City's upper classes from 1975-82].

MACIEL

I have the privilege of being one of the few 'brothers' who ever questioned Maciel's jugement at community gatherings when he, NUESTRO PADRE, [the name the Jesuits give to Saint Ignatius] would instruct his disciples. He would shoot me down and humiliate me in front of the others, calling me a 'rationalist' and 'lacking faith'. Once you stand up to Maciel, you're out. You cannot question his authority.

I never experienced his pedophilia personally but did know some of the witnesses personally [some of them were 'nurses' he appointed to take care of the communities, and his own, health needs] -especially Juan Manuel Fernandez Amenabar- and have no reason to doubt them. The twisted manipulation described in some of the testimonials are vintage Maciel: 'I have a special dispensation from His Holiness...' I can easily picture him telling those little boys not to worry after abusing them. I had a couple of major depressive episodes during my 'career' in the Legion and no director or superior ever suggested I see a therapist. I did not know what was wrong with me. I was told It was my lack of faith, to 'sit tight and pray and it will go away.' I suppose I'm resiliant so I didn't loose my mind.

The abuse is, therefore, much more than

• sexual; its
• emotional, of the
• mind, of the
• conscience, of the spirit, of the
• soul!

Based on 23 years of contact with Maciel, my humble MA Counseling and Post masters in Marriage and Family Therapy -which, by the way, is more real supervised mental health training than he or any other 'formers' have- I would venture to say he is a totally

1. Narcissistic person: he believes himself to be totally special, and therefore beyond or above rules that bind ordinary people. -It has its advantages to be 'God's chosen one'-. There have always been strong strains of
2. Hypochondriasis in all these illnesses he has always had and that require special medical treatment, specialists, hospitals, medications, rest in luxury hotels and spas, people tending hand an foot, etc., etc, Maciel is above all a
3. Magalomaniac, with an insatiable thirst for power, control of peoples' souls and lives, and adulation. I don't know where multiple abuser fits into all this...

PS. The Legion and RC is a very toxic place. You have to get out before you can realize how sick you were.

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