the blogger hopes to publish very soon his correspondence with the Giant of Catholic Conservancy
And -added on June 3rd- here it is!
Monday, March 22, 2010
RJ Neuhuas Deceived by Maciel and Legion
the blogger hopes to publish very soon his correspondence with the Giant of Catholic Conservancy
And -added on June 3rd- here it is!
Monday, March 8, 2010
Was Maciel a Pedophile?
I came upon this brief definition today in the New World Encyclopedia online. Without shedding the complexity and ambiguity inherent in this abuse the central premises are helpful in understanding Maciel and other "pedophiles", even in the light of other liaisons with young women and adolescent boys and young men...
The word pedophilia comes from the Greek paidophilia (παιδοφιλια)—pais (παις, "child") and philia (φιλια, "love, friendship"). Paidophilia was coined by Greek poets as a substitute for "paiderastia" (pederasty) (Liddell and Scott 1959).
The term paedophilia erotica was coined in 1886 by the Austro-German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in his writing Psychopathia Sexualis (1886). He described the following characteristics:
1] the sexual interest is toward children, either prepubescent or at the beginning of puberty
2] the sexual interest is the primary one, that is, exclusively or mainly toward children
3] the sexual interest remains over time
Strictly speaking, this definition would include many adolescents and prepubescents for whom such an interest might be normal. Thus, some experts add the criterion that the interest be toward children at least five years younger than the subject. However, according to other experts, a diagnosis of pedophilia can also be appropriate for a post-pubescent adolescent (Janssen 2003).
In the United States and several other countries, the term "pedophile" is also used to denote significantly older adults who are sexually attracted to adolescents, as well as those who have sexually abused a child (Ames and Houston 1990).
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Pedophile Pediatrician Abuser of Girls Indicted in Deleware, USA
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Del. doctor indicted in serial child abuse scandal
By RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press Writer Randall Chase, Associated Press Writer
Tue Feb 23, 8:22 am ET
DOVER, Del. – Prosecutors expect to add more counts to a lengthy indictment against a Delaware pediatrician charged with serial molestation of 103 children as investigators urge former patients and parents to come forward.
A grand jury returned a 160-page indictment Monday against Dr. Earl Bradley of Lewes with 471 counts of sexual crimes.
The case has shocked the close-knit coastal community of Lewes and the central Delaware town of Milford, where Bradley closed an office in 2005 after police investigated him.
Bradley's attorney, Eugene Maurer, said he would seek to move the trial out of Sussex County. But he said the "real battleground" in the case will be Bradley's mental state, not what is seen on videotapes seized from Bradley's home and office or alleged in the indictment.
Announcing the grand jury's indictment, Attorney General Beau Biden said all of the alleged victims, mainly girls but including one boy, were caught on more than 13 hours of video recordings, some dating to 1998.
"The charges in this indictment are unique in the history of the state of Delaware, as far as I can tell," he said.
The charges against Bradley include rape, sexual exploitation of a child, unlawful sexual contact, continuous sexual abuse of a child, assault and reckless endangering.
Bradley, who was arrested in December and initially charged with 29 felony counts for allegedly abusing nine children, is being held with bail set at $2.9 million. His medical license was permanently revoked by the state Board of Medical Practice last week.
Maurer said he had not read the indictment but was not surprised by the allegations.
"I'm sure they have their reasons for including all these different victims in this indictment," said Maurer, noting that under state law, a single conviction of rape would be enough to put Bradley behind bars for life.
The indictment alleges Bradley was videotaping his sexual exploitation of patients as far back as December 1998. Many victims were assaulted repeatedly, some on consecutive days, according to the indictment, which alleges that one girl was raped more than a dozen times over a period that lasted more than a year.
Authorities would not say whether they think Bradley had videotaped all of his alleged assaults or whether there may be more victims.
"I expect that we will add to this indictment with new charges over the coming months," Biden said.
He encouraged parents and victims of Bradley, "regardless of age or gender," to contact prosecutors, who have sent out about 3,100 letters to Bradley's patients and set up an office in Lewes to handle complaints and direct potential victims and their families to counseling and other services.
Sussex County prosecutor Paula Ryan declined to say how many alleged victims seen on videotape have been identified by name, or to provide an age range. The indictment refers to each alleged victim only as "Jane Doe" or "John Doe."
After years of suspicions among parents and questions about his strange behavior from colleagues, Bradley was arrested after a 2-year-old girl told her mother that the doctor hurt her in December when he took her to a basement room of his office after an exam.
While prosecutors allege regular and repeated abuse by Bradley, the indictment contains a gap of more than a year, from October 2004 to June 2006, in which no alleged crimes are listed.
Biden and Gov. Jack Markell have ordered reviews to determine whether doctors, hospitals, state agencies or law enforcement authorities failed to comply with a state law that requires all such entities to report to the medical licensing board in writing within 30 days if they believe a doctor is or "may be" guilty of unprofessional conduct.
Biden said Monday that those investigations are aimed at determining "how this physician could lurk in our midst for as long as he did."
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Former LC, Alex Martin, speaks of widespread corruption of Religious Life in Legion of Christ
Fr. Maciel, Benefactress Flora Barragan, Pope VI, private audience in the 60s
Posted on GlobalPost a propos Investigation
by Spanish speaker in English
[without edits]
May be pseudonym
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
[5] Oh, Sweet Jesus, thank you for Protecting me from Maciel the Pervert!
The author of Our Father who art in bed, Paul Lennon, with parents in Rome, 1966
When I look back on the following episode, described in my memoir, Our Father who art in bed, excerpted below,
I experience retro-active fear and revulsion:
I, too, was geographically close to him, the predator,
under the same roof, walking the same corridors...
Oh, my God! He sexually abused people on my watch - not that I knew of it at the time, pedophiles are so astute! But Vaca, Jurado and Parga were in the Legion at the same time as me, "prefects" in Salamanca and in Rome. Then, ten years ago, it came as a blow when I learned that one of my close companions in Bundoran and Rome, Michael Caheny, was also a victim.
Oh, Sweet Jesus, thank you for protecting me!
Oh, Holy Mother, how I cry for those that were abused!
My General Confession to Nuestro Padre
I am at Sanborn’s restaurant at the Plaza de las Estrellas
mall in Mexico City’s Anzures district on Saturday, September
10, 2005. Sitting across the table, Dr. Fernando González
interviews me about my experiences with the Legion of Christ
against the background of pedophilia. He is researching Maciel
& Legion abuses, and will later publish Marcial Maciel, the
Legion of Christ: Unpublished Testimonies and Documents. I tell him
honestly I was never sexually abused in the Legion, nor was I
ever approached in an inappropriate way by any member. Two
years after Sanborn’s I still must rack my brain to recall one
unusual incident.
It involved Father R.C., LC. I was already an
ordained priest. During one of my few visits to Rome, we were
strolling along the Via Aurelia Nova close to our Legionary
residence. A woman passed by. I paid only fleeting attention
to her. I can only infer that she was “a lady of the night” from
R.C.’s question: “Ever thought of going off with a prostitute?”
I said nothing but thought to myself: “What could have caused
you to pass a remark like that? Don’t you know I have sisters? I
love and respect women. Of course, I find them attractive. But
I don’t use them! I forgive you because you are a Legionary. One
never knows why Legionaries do things. Maybe you were on a
special mission to spy on me, to look for chinks in my armor.
What would you have said, thought, done if my answer had
been ‘Yes’? Was it just your own morbid curiosity? Yours was
certainly not the kind of question sanctioned by the myriad of
Legion rules, norms, guidelines and instructions.”
Entering the LC at age 17 and 7 months, I admit I was
very immature mentally, emotionally, and spiritually; naïve
and sexually unaware, too. However, as the son of a warm
and structured home, I had strong relationships with my
mother—her only son—and with my father; he and I were
“boon companions.” I did not need Nuestro Padre as a surrogate
father.
I had the “privilege” of going to confession to Nuestro
Padre for the first time before my Religious Profession in
Salamanca, September 1962. I was 18 years and 10 months
old. By then my Spanish was good enough. It was suggested
to me by my spiritual director/superior that I make a general
confession to Nuestro Padre to receive special graces through
the Founder and as the best way of preparing for the religious
life.
During the relatively uneventful and sheltered life I
had lived before entering the Holy Novitiate at age 17, I
had accumulated two “sins against purity” that troubled my
somewhat scrupulous conscience and about which I felt very
ashamed. Before entering the Legion I had unloaded one to
a Carmelite friar at St. Teresa’s Clarendon St., Dublin. In fear
and trembling I unloaded the second to Nuestro Padre, Man of
God. I do not recall any Earth-shattering advice or apocalyptic
revelation. I felt he was kind. At the end, I kissed the end of his
stole as a sign of reverence and gratitude. He may have brushed
my cheek with the tassel in a fatherly way. I experienced a great
sense of relief because I had been able to get rid of that sin. I
don’t remember any advice. Now, I had no sin on my soul, I
was free through the Sacrament of Confession, and I was ready
to take on my vows—although the doubts of faith continued
to torture me.
My interviewer Fernando insists: was there nothing, not
even the slightest sexual innuendo in this encounter with Fr
Maciel? No, nothing. “And you were not aware of any abuse
going on around you as appears from the testimonies of others?”
Not at all.
Taking into account the two dozen testimonies of sexual
abuse from the 40s and 50s, and those beginning to appear
regarding the 60s and 70s, why were so many of us so totally
unaware? Could it be that Father Maciel is a Master of the
Game of secret societies, with their isolated concentric circles
of information and power? Maciel in the middle, surrounded
by a first cadre of “unconditionals” who silently acquiesce to his
power? Only The Master knows everything. The unconditionals
know more than the following circle, and so on. The victims do
not necessarily belong to the inner circle, for it is now clear that
those closest to Maciel are used to bring more sheep into the
shepherd’s fold. They appear within a separate circle, isolated
from the community at large, which in turn is totally oblivious
to what goes on behind the infirmary door or Father Maciel’s
sickbay? Reading the chilling descriptions in John Le Carré’s
A Perfect Spy and Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago regarding
secrecy, isolation, and control lead one to such considerations.
I don’t think I can fairly say that Father Maciel was an
indiscriminate sexual predator, thought there is no doubt that
he had a large harem to choose from for years as undisputed
totalitarian leader of the Legion of Christ. Thus there is no
reason to believe that all who came within his “spiritual”
radius or halo were potential victims. That said, could it be
that the “sin” I confessed to Father Maciel in that first general
confession, about being sexually accosted by an Irish Christian
Brother, somehow “immunized” me against abuse? If so, oh
blessed “sin”! Or could it be that my conscience was already
gelling, thus making me impervious to molding according
to this Spiritual Director’s unusual criteria? Had I already
gathered sufficient “ego strength” to avoid enmeshment with
the guru? Or had he simply not found me attractive? Maybe I
wasn’t his type. Or my nose was too big.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
[4] Fr. Maciel's "Personal Assistants" and Male Nurses
El Puma’s Personal Assistants and Male Nurses
[Excerpt from "Our Father (Maciel) who art in bed"'s sole chapter on Fr. Maciel's Pedophile Activities]
During Novitiate in Salamanca, 1961-62, I was trained
as community nurse—which included giving shots of various
kinds—by Jesus Martinez-Penilla. Called “Padre Penilla,”
he was probably just another philosophy or theology student
appointed as “Prefect”, i.e., assistant superior. I never had any
problems with him, despite later reports linking him to sexual
abuse scandals in Ontaneda, Spain. He may have been Father
Maciel’s nurse, administering intravenous, intramuscular, and
subcutaneous shots to him. There was always a good stock of
injections, from vitamins to sedatives, in the supply cabinet.
Some medications were used exclusively by Father Maciel,
“Nuestro Padre’s medicines,” or could only be administered with
his authorization. I distinctly remember largactil phials which,
I believe, Father Penilla administered either to Father Maciel or
other members of the community on an as needed basis. We all
knew that Nuestro Padre was affected by a variety of illnesses
that required rest, special care, and medication. Knowing Father
Maciel’s secretive nature, it is more than likely that he kept
his personal effects—including more personal medications—
always close at hand, in his room, with his luggage, or in the
infamous crocodile-skin briefcase.
I was never Nuestro Padre’s nurse.
During my stay in Salamanca, Brother Guillermo
Adame was his personal assistant, secretary, valet, nurse and
chauffer. This young man—a dark-skinned well built Mexican
with chiseled features and jet black hair, who was never
ordained—later had a nervous breakdown and left the order; a
“throwaway”? His younger brother, Carlos, was also a member
for a period and he too left without holy orders. Both were
musically talented. I distinctly remember Guillermo playing
Bach’s Toccata on the chapel organ. Other special “secretaries”
to Maciel paraded by during my Legion training in Salamanca
and Rome: Valente Velasquez, Raul De Anda, Bonifacio Padilla,
Francisco Parga and others. In retrospect I thank God for not
having the “privilege” of being particularly close to El Puma.
He did want to be our “father”; he loved to be considered such
by the brothers, and to be addressed with terms of affection.
I remember feeling early on some anger toward a fellow Irish
novice for using what I perceived as the even more endearing
term of “Mon Père” when addressing the Founder. Although
some of the older members used this name, the title smacked
of too much adulation for me.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
[3] Father Maciel's Sexual Seduction Technique
El Puma’s Accusers, flashbacks
[excerpt from Our Father [Maciel] who art in bed, a Naive and Sentimental Dubliner in the Legion of Christ....]
I supported Father Peter Cronin when, in 1992, he
initiated a newsletter to other ex-legionaries whose whereabouts
he knew. We were unaware of the serious accusations of sexual
abuse against Father Maciel at that time and for several years
later. The bomb exploded in the American media in 1997 with
the Hartford Courant articles of Renner and Berry. I had not
read them and was still oblivious.
In 1998 I received a phone call at my home from José
Barba: “Paul, do you remember me? I am José Barba. Do you
believe our testimonies?” It was too point-blank. “Testimonies,
about what?” I was totally at sea. I lacked context and
information. First, we had to catch up on the past twenty-five
years of our lives. Such is frequently the disjointed existence
of ex-Legionaries. I remembered José Barba, known as one of
the most intelligent LC students ever, from a visit I paid him
when he was an ex-Legionary teaching at La Universidad de
las Americas in Puebla, Mexico. Legionary priest Juan Manuel
Amenábar—who would later accuse Father Maciel on his
deathbed—because of the relative freedom his fundraising
activities then afforded him, found a way to visit his old
confrere. I do not know why he took me in tow that day.
Barba now launched into an explanation of his efforts to
bring the testimonies of ten ex-Legionaries accusing Father
Maciel of sexually abusing them to the notice of the Catholic
hierarchy. He mentioned other members I knew personally,
Juan Vaca and Arturo Jurado. I was surprised but the stories
seemed credible. He told me about one of his encounters with
Father Maciel. It was true to the Legion atmosphere, and to
the customs and character of the Marcial Maciel I had come to
know beyond the aura of holiness and the legend of integrity.
One thing I was convinced of regarding Maciel: he had no
concern or respect for people. Nevertheless, I could not roundly
condemn him without knowing more. I would be open to
learning more about the accusations. After that I read the
newspaper articles. They rang true. They were all different,
but said the same thing. Maciel’s method sounded uncannily
authentic; the abuse sickeningly real.
“Dear Arturo (Jurado),
On Tuesday I received the videotapes you sent and started
watching them last night (April 4, 2003; Mexican Canal 40,
Círculo Rojo Program April 15, 2002), beginning with the
first video: the “rough” version of the testimonies of three brave
ex-Legionaries. On the screen appeared the face of Jose Barba
whom I haven’t seen for many years, and there he was, full of
dignity, ruefully talking about his abuse. I was saddened and
angry at Father Maciel listening to Jose’s story. I, who love
to sleep late, did not sleep well. I got up at six; a record for
me. As I follow with the second tape, the Mexican Canal 40
report, I understand better the nature of, and grasp the reality
and seriousness of, this abuse. Hearing and watching Alejandro
Espinoza talk about the recruitment of “pretty” boys I made an
uncanny connection with my own “intuition.” I seem to have
stumbled onto the realization of Maciel being an “ephebophile”,
an adult who loves adolescents, a few days ago when I shared
my reflections with our ReGAIN group.
Memories and names from my own experience come
to mind. When I arrived in Salamanca in September 1961,
I do remember seeing a certain Arturo Jurado. He belonged
to another community, and therefore we were not allowed to
speak or communicate in any way, although we lived under
the same roof. (You told me later, Arturo, that Maciel had
you “quarantined” as a form of punishment.) At the time I
assumed Bro. Jurado was already a Philosophy student in
apostolic practices (i.e., a period when the Legionary takes a
break from studies to get experience in one of the Legion’s
Apostolates or missions). From what I remember, although I
could not talk to him, he did seem to be a particularly gentle
and quiet individual. I certainly do not remember crashing into
him during one of our “friendly” intramural soccer matches.
But maybe that too was forbidden to you during your solitary
confinement.”
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There are a lot of Good, very good priests. However the Legion knows how to spin a story to match their needs. I had a lot of good times in the Legion, they treated me very well, I was no abused by anyone, However even after leaving the Legion it was not until the Legion revealed the true story about the Founder that I became aware of the true nature of the Legion and its ability to brainwash people. because the Legion did pervert Religious life for its only ends and that of its founder. Many Legionaries did not live as Legionaries should, they would live apart, have their own money, own houses, cars, etc.. Any now I know why, because the founder was not a true Catholic, he did not believe, he was a parasite of the church, using faith for his own means.
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Its sad when I think of the day in Mexico in 1998 when Fr. Alvaro spoke to us in Rosedal in Mexico about the allegations. He said they were false and were made to discredit "Nuestro Padre". These guys so intelligent as they are, were not able or willing to see the truth or even investigate. Fr. Macial has more power in the Legion than the Pope did, He knew how to use is power.
I hope and pray that the 5 Bishops will be able to see the true structure of the Legion (not the legion Painted by superiors), They will see pious communities, clean seminarians. What they don't and won't see are the one to one's the seminarians get with superiors, team balance, and the culture that is still there of hiding the truth. Even today they did don't criticize a superior, they keep the spirit of the Legion (I know this from a priest in the legion)
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From what I can see in the Media only the Tip of the Iceberg has been revealed, There is a lot more to come. I feel sorry for the men of Faith in the Legion.