January's Catholic World News on the late Father Marcial Maciel.

Founder of the Legion of Christ.

"Father Marcial Maciel (1920 - 2008), was a vicious sexual predator, a child abuser ... ,

"and so cynical and ambitious a manipulator of Church offices ...

"... that he has evoked comparisons with the Borgias."


Snippet from R. Michael Dunnigan's fine article titled Cloaking Maciel in a Capuchin Hood.


As the author assures us:

"The search for historical parallels to the scandal involving the Legion of Christ is dubious."


He also reminds us:


"The Holy See released a statement in May 2010 declaring that Maciel's behavior amounted to real crimes, and that his immoral and criminal conduct now has been established by incontrovertible testimonies.

"In fact, the totality of the evidence reveals in Maciel a life devoid of scruples and authentic religious sentiment.

"The chief difficulty now for the religious community that Maciel founded is whether such a community can survive after crime, scandal, and depravity have so utterly disgraced its founder.

"This is a question of truly historic significance, not only for the Legion of Christ, but for all Catholics in religious life and indeed for the entire Church..."


Great read! :)

Especially for those lucky 30 + households right here in zip code 78832 who now have their gift subscriptions to The Catholic World News arriving every month!

So far only Thomas and Carolina Hinojosa haven't started receiving theirs yet!

Of course, their zip is most likely still in Chicago, Illinois, where it was 44 years ago this month.

When Thomas and I were first sharing two - man fox holes.

In the last of the really big time Stone-age Wars!

Long, long, ago and far, far, away!

His email out of the blue yesterday reminded us of all that!

'Way to go, Thomas and Carolina :)