Sunday 12 November 2017






THE PRIEST, THE ‘GANGSTER’ AND THE WIDOW

The Paradise Papers reveal an Irish priest’s key role in the finances of a rich and secretive Catholic order, whose founder was a serial sex abuser


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An Irish priest played a key role in offshore structures holding substantial assets belonging to the wealthy and secretive Catholic order the Legionaries of Christ, the Paradise Papers have revealed.
The Paradise Papers are 13.4 million leaked legal and other files showing tax avoidance and other financial activity across numerous businesses from 1950 to 2016. They have been published over the past week as part of a global investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Fr Anthony Bannon (70), a former Irish superior of the organisation, appears in the leaked files from the Appleby law firm alongside the Mexican founder of the order, the late Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, as well as on the corporate registry in Panama.
The ‘sociopath’
Fr Maciel, a long-time friend of Pope John Paul II, has been condemned as a serial sex abuser of seminarians in his cult-like order. He used his order’s money to buy influence in the Vatican, and usually travelled with thousands of dollars in cash on his person.
He also fathered children by two women, and used false identities. One former member of the order, Dublin priest Fr Peter Byrne, tells The Irish Times that in his view Fr Maciel was a “sociopath” and a “gangster”.
Fr Byrne became a priest in 1978 after the order organised retreats for students of Dublin’s Synge Street School, which he at- tended. He did not know then that the order he was joining was “like a cult”, whose members revered the founder.
“I have no doubt he was an absolute gangster. He would be up there with the types of criminals you see on Netflix, the Narcos series. You can’t believe the lies that were involved. He had several women, several passports, different identities.
“Obviously he was a gangster from the outset. A sociopath. He had a capacity to assume identities, tell lies, fool people.”
Paul Lennon, a native of Cabra in Dublin who joined the legion in 1961, says Fr Maciel was “probably the best Catholic fundraiser of the 20th century. They have a huge financial empire. There is a lot of money out there.”
The Legionaries of Christ at its height is believed to have had an annual budget of $650 million (¤558.8m) and assets of approximately $1 billion.
“He should have been a financier instead of a founder of a religious order. He was astute about making friends with the very rich. People in Mexico mostly, but also in the United States,”says Lennon.
Fr Maciel was known for using strategic “donations” to senior figures in the Vatican to secure a favoured position there, which he in turn used when targeting rich donors in Mexico and around the world. His Vatican connections are believed to have helped him over the years as he resisted allegations of sexual abuse.



In court testimony in the US, Fr Stephen Fichter, a former finance director for the legion in Rome, said that when Fr Maciel was travelling he would “always have to give him $10,000 in cash: $5,000 in American dollars and $5,000 equivalent in the currency of the country where he was travelling. “I do not know what he used that money for.”
There are other allegations of abuse within the order. In the US in 2016, a law suit alleging sexual abuse in Mexico was taken against Fr Luis Garza, a one-time second in command to Fr Maciel and “territorial director” for the order in North America. A spokesman for the order has said Fr Garza denies the allegation.
Fr Bannon’s role
Fr Anthony Bannon joined the Legionaries of Christ in 1964, and went on to become “one of the big men” in the order, Lennon says. “He is major.”
Fr Bannon was a key promoter of the movement in the US for more than 20 years, was close to Fr Maciel, and was the most important Irish member of the order, Lennon says.
“He really bought into the whole thing. They get money by hob-nobbing with the rich people in whatever part of the world they are stationed in. They don’t mess around with the small people.”
Fr Byrne says Fr Bannon was highly regarded by Fr Maciel and by the congregation for the work he did building up the order in the US.
Fr Bannon, who is now working in Mexico with Regnum Christi, a secular arm of the legion, chose not to respond to questions from The Irish Times for this article.
A spokesman for the order in Rome failed to respond to requests for a comment about the use of offshore companies by the legion or the current status of its assets.
The leaked documents name two companies in Bermuda that are linked to the Legionaries of Christ. The documents name Fr Bannon and Fr Maciel among the contacts to be located at the legion’s head office on the Via Aurelia in Rome.
The companies are called International Volunteer Services, which was incorporated in 1995 and liquidated in 2013, and the Society for Better Education, which was incorporated in 1992 and liquidated in 2006.
International Volunteer Services was in turn owned by a British Virgin Islands company called ECYPH Ltd, and had a bank account with Citibank of New York.
Fr Bannon was also director of three companies in Panama: First Fountain Corporation, Dawn Developments Company and Southwest International Inc.
According to a book on the finances of the legion, El Imperio Financiero de Los Legionarios De Cristo, by Raul Olmos, the Panamanian companies were formed in the 1980s by Fr Maciel when he started to put in place an offshore structure for his wealthy movement. Filings in Panama described Fr Bannon as the executive vice-president of the three companies.



Over the past decade Fr Bannon featured in a series of court cases in Rhode Island in the US where he was the executor of the will of a wealthy widow who, it was alleged, had come under undue influence from the order. The legal effort to have her will overturned failed.
A wealthy widow
The case involved the estate of Gabrielle Mee, who died leaving $60 million (¤51.5m) to the legion in the US. Fr Bannon had power of attorney over her affairs while she was still alive.
In one of a number of judgments relating to the case, Judge Maureen McKenna Goldberg of the Rhode Island Supreme Court outlined in 2015 how Mee, who was pre-deceased by her wealthy businessman husband, first learned of the legion in 1985, and soon thereafter made a $1 million donation.
In 1991 she changed her will so that 90 per cent of her wealth would go to the legion. Later that same year she became a “consecrated woman” with the legion’s lay organisation Regnum Christi. Certain conditions that normally applied for such consecrations were waived by Fr Maciel in her case. Consecrated members of the organisation have to commit to donating their assets to it, and Mee began residing at a Regnum Christi facility in Rhode Island.
According to the judge, the records show that when family members visited Mee they were monitored to some extent by other Regnum Christi members, and that Mee was denied a request she made to a “tribunal” that she be allowed visit family members outside Rhode Island.
A property Mee owned that she had allowed another religious group to use was taken back and given to the legion in 1994, when she learned that a man in the group had been accused of soliciting sex from another man. Other changes to Mee’s will in 1994 were, according to the judge, drafted by Fr Bannon, at Mee’s request, and adopted by the Bank of America, which was administering trusts established by Mee and her late husband.
In 1996, Mee and her trusts were relied upon when the order borrowed money from the Bank of America for the purchase of a former IBM training complex in Westchester County, New York, known as Thornwood, for $35 million.
The following year the Hartford Courant published an article revealing that Fr Maciel had been accused by nine men of sexually abusing them between the 1940s and the 1960s. The men also alleged that Fr Maciel had abused upwards of 30 boys over the same period.
“The record is silent as to whether [Mee] was personally notified of the accusations by Fr Bannon or Bank of America,” according to the judge. Fr Bannon apologised to the bank for not giving it notice of what was to emerge about Fr Maciel.
In 2000, Mee further changed her will leaving more of her estate to the legion and replacing the Bank of America with Fr Bannon as executor of the estate. Fr Bannon had earlier been given a power of attorney to represent Mee in relation to the trusts in talks with the bank. By this stage she was aged 89.
In 2006, Mee directed a number of gifts to the legion. In September of that year she
directed the Bank of America to give an additional $3,000 a month from her trusts to the order. In December she donated $1.2 million from her personal funds.
In 2007 she made a $590,000 gift and in May of the following year Fr Bannon asked the bank to transfer $400,000 from her account to the legion.
Two days after this transfer was made, on May 16th, 2008, Mee died at the Regnum Christi facility.

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FATHER ANTHONY BANNON

In May 2009, Fr Bannon filed a petition of probate on the will, but it was challenged by a niece of the deceased on the grounds of undue influence.
That and another case continued, via appeals, to run through the courts up to early this year. The niece failed on the grounds of not having an interest in the will, and a second case from an anti-abortion charity that argued it was entitled to 10 per cent of the estate was settled.
Irish schools
The legion’s global footprint includes two single-sex, second-level boarding schools in Kilcroney, Bray, Co Wicklow, which are in turn linked to the Oakline network of schools in Switzerland and the US. The order owns universities and more than 100 schools in Mexico, as well as schools and colleges in Latin America and the US.
Fees for boarding in the Oak Academy for boys in Wicklow are ¤41,785, while fees for the Woodlands Academy for girls are ¤42,529. The schools are mostly used by students from South America and Mexico anxious to improve their English.
The order formerly ran a novitiate here, as well as a boys’ club in Dalkey, Co Dublin. It used to visit Irish boys’ schools to encourage students to consider joining the order.
The members of the order who appear on Irish land registry records are all senior figures. Fr Bannon, along with fellow priests Fr Mateos Francisco Alvaro Corcuera and Fr Juan Manuel Duenas, were the owners of land in Kilcroney until it was transferred in 2014 to Fr Eduardo Robles Gil, the head of the legion since that year.
Fr Maciel, Fr Bannon and Fr Corcuera appear on the land records in relation to property the legion had in Leopardstown and Rathdown, Co Dublin. In 2008 property at Leopardstown, where the order had a seminary, was transferred to the ownership of Fr Eduardo Vigneaux.
Money was the explanation for Fr Maciel’s ability to continue operating when there were serious sexual abuse allegations against him, according to Lennon and journalists who have investigated the order.
Fr Maciel was backed by Pope John Paul and other senior Vatican figures when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was investigating the sexual abuse allegations. After Ratzinger became Pope Benedict, the Vatican ordered Fr Maciel out of active ministry and told him to lead a “life of prayer and penance”.
“He was never condemned or found guilty in any way,” said Fr Byrne. “That’s been buried, and there has never been any true reconciliation with his victims. There is no transparency in relation to the whole issue of the congregation’s finances. No one knows anything.”
After the Vatican statement in 2006, Fr Maciel went to live with his daughter and the girl’s mother in a gated villa with a swimming pool in Jacksonville, Florida.
Last rites
Fr Maciel died on January 30th, 2008 in his Florida home. Fr Corcuera, who had bought the property in which Fr Maciel died, was at his bedside, along with other members of the order, Fr Maciel’s daughter Normita, and the girl’s mother Norma Hilda Banos.
The order announced on its website that Fr Maciel had gone to heaven. Fr Corcuera took charge of the legion.
In 2010, when news broke that Fr Maciel had fathered children, the legion apologised to its followers and, eventually, to the victims of Fr Maciel’s abuse. Benedict, meanwhile, had ordered an inquiry, and the order went into a type of receivership.
Fr Peter Byrne, now a priest in Balally, Dublin, says it was difficult for the members of the order when the truth about its founder emerged. He was “stunned” and, along with others, experienced a type of crisis. Of the 83 Irish ordained into the order, 47 left.
“We tried to get renewal, to get the victims recognised. Some of us left the order, some left the priesthood. There was a core group that resisted change.”
In hindsight, he says, the order was more interested in influencing the rich than preaching the Gospel.It was Fr Maciel’s modus operandi to “get close to people, do them favours, see that they were sorted”.
Paul Lennon left the order in 1984, and the priesthood in 1989. He now works as a mental health therapist in Guatemala.
It has been reported that Fr Maciel refused to make a last confession or receive the last rites.

PAT SAYS:

This article almost sums up all that is wrong with the RC Church - corruption, abuse, sexual hypocrisy, abuse of power and an almost total "anti-Christ" position on so many issues.

These people never seem to ask themselves; WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?

They are most interested in their manmade laws than the teachings of Jesus.

Maciel was encouraged and protected by the SO CALLED ST JOHN PAUL 11 in spite of his corruption, his abuse of women, children, priests, and seminarians.

He was protected because he was very wealthy and associated with the wealthy.

AND because he gave so much money to The Vatican and to John Paul's Poland.

The Legionaries of Christ should have been disbanded - and should still be disbanded.


61 comments:

  1. The useless, fat-headed Polack (JPII) protected Maciel, and other child rapists-abusers.

    No doubt he is where he truly deserves to be.

    I shan't pray for him. What the HELL is the point?

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    1. Pat seriously, what the f..k is your issue? This mc guy gets to be racially abusive and yet you censor every other comment. You sad little wannabe priest.

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    2. I don't think accusing each other of alcoholism is helpful.

      Let's tackle each other's arguments.

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    3. I actually don't disagree with MC's opinion if JP2 *but* there was no need to refer to his being Polish, which turns it into a racial slur. You really need to get with the programme and understand that the days when using racial terms like that are gone. Does MC understand that? Doesn?t matter - *you* are publishing it here.
      There can be no doubt that JP2 was a huge facilitator of abuse and also the Ratzinger could have done much more, much soone, but didn't.

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  2. Thought it is Benedict who was polish?

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  3. As revelations continue to appear the role of JP2 continues to be an eye opener. In 1,000 years history will still say he was a saint - log after these type of actions are forgotten. What then of the Saints we believe today?? What is their true history??

    Thee are many fads in the Church... but there is only one Christ, and Pat rightly puts forward theone true question; what would Jesus do.

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    1. I no longer have much regard for the Roman Catholic pantheon of saints, because I know that, from at least the Middle Ages, politics and cronyism played an increasingly influential role in canonisation causes.

      Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII, was canonised in 1935, not for his piety, but for his loyalty to the unHoly See against Henry's increasingly autocratic rule. More's opposition to State tyranny was considered a model to those in Europe falling under Nazi and Fascist repression. However, More had been a sadistic murderer, having had at least three people burned alive under his chancellorship for daring to have a copy of the Bible in English.

      Men like the odious Pope Emeritus Benedict would probably defend More as being filled with zeal for Christ and for the Church, just as this pope defended, on the same ground, those who ran the tribunals of the Papal Inquisition.

      Bishop Pat's question (what would Jesus do?) becomes ever more pressing in these circumstances. Would Jesus have acted as Thomas More did? Would he have had people so hideously put to death, as More had done? Would he have defended the torturers (and moral torturers) of the Inquisition?

      There is no evidence whatever that Thomas More repented of his mortal sinfulness before being executed in a way that was much less painful and savage than the kind of death he had accorded others. And yet, in 1935 the unHoly See had him declared 'saint', 'among the elect in Heaven'. What a truly terrible blasphemy and sacrilege!

      Paul the Apostle was a murderer, too. In fact, if you read Acts of the Apostles (where Paul answers to the Herodian king, Agrippa) the text clearly implies that Paul was a multiple murderer, having presided at the executions of more than one early Christian.

      Paul was honest about himself and about what he had done, and does indeed refer to himdelf as a murderer, not as a man morally exonerated by religious zeal. Paul confessed his moral outrages...and repented.

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    2. Magna, what an excellent response to my earlier comment. Thank you; your comment brings me back to basics and reminds me of the hope that was lived out in the early church. Thank you.

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  4. The story of Maciel and the Legionaries of Christ is a sad and sorry tale. If the church was composed of pure spirits all would be heavenly even on this earth, but the reality is that we are an incarnate church made up of sinful human beings. As long as this remains the case we will have to deal with the consequence of sinful and dishonest behaviour in some of our members. So Pat, do you know of any perfect human beings? Is your church of the disaffected composed of pure spirits incapable of deceit and double dealings? The answer is - of course not.
    Sadly Maciel used his power and influence as a means of controlling people, and it seems that for many years the brown envelope culture thrived in the Vatican.

    It is also true that many fine young people, enthused by the call of the Gospel joined the Legion and as we now know were sometimes subjected to bizarre sexual abuse by the founder; but they remain good men taken advantage of in a most sacrilegious way.

    Pat for once I agree with you, the Legionaries should have been wound up and provision made for the members to be given the option of transferring to other congregations. The teaching of Jesus about the rotten tree incapable of bearing good fruit comes to mind.
    But that's where our agreement ends Pat, because unlike you I don't condemn the whole church because of the sinful actions of a few in high places.
    When Joseph Ratzinger became Pope within weeks he had ordered the nullification of the fourth vow that Legionaries were required to make to never criticize their superiors, and some weeks later he had Maciel removed as head of the order and silenced as a priest.
    So Pat don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The church is and always will be a work in progress and as long as it's made up of flesh and blood humanity will be imperfect and at times downright sinful. But it's the Lord's church in the end and thrives around the world despite its sinful members. Alleluia.

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    1. I totally agree that the Legion should have been disbanded. Every time it is mentioned all one can think of is Maciel and it casts a shadow over the good men who are still there


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    2. Ah, the old sinfulness argument. You're missing out on the requirement to repent and amend. I also fail to find where the faith says one should cover up crimes and be paid off? Your argument is the great weakness in Christianity which allows these things to go on.

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    3. Why has no other religion had such corruption? Go and get a decent religion and stop being a hypocritical enabler.

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  5. Benedict waited far too long to take action against Maciel, 09:20. He had, for decades before, evidence of sexual abuse by Maciel and could have submitted this to law enforcement agencies. But spineless Ratzinger did not want to oppose publicly JPII. He put loyalty to this domineering facilitator of child-sexual abuse ahead of children's welfare. Moreover, when he did act against Maciel, he did not have him laicised, as other child-abusing priests were laicised, but merely 'invited' him to spend the rest of his life 'in prayer and penance'.

    Stop defending Benedict!

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    1. There is a very big secret story behind Benedict's resignation too.

      It has to do with the Gay Mafia at The Vatican and a lot of covering up over many years.

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    2. Pope Benedict resigned because he was so mentally and physically exhausted at the end of each day that he felt he was no longer able to fulfil the role.

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  6. Very interesting reading today.
    I love your blogs Pat and especially the replys
    Still must get to mass now and say a pray for you.

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  7. Pat, a claim such as the one you make at 10.37 is only as good as the sources you provide.

    Can you substantiate it?

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    1. 11:37 - can you be so good as to try to unsubstantiate the existence of a gay mafia bringing ruin on the Church, eh?

      Gianliugi Nuzzi (Italian journalist) has just released a book, Original Sin, detailing homosexual abuse in a Vatican- run Minor Seminary. Is this, Gaynooth, and all the other endless gay scandals not veritable proof of a powerful gay mafia that is currently holding sway in the Vatican and dioceses around the world?

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  8. Maciel and his managers seem to have had the type of modus operandi replicated by many of the rich and powerful. It's well described in the American book on Trump written by Washington Post investigative reporters Kranish & Fisher. The current Thurs night Channel Four Series, "Trump, An American Dream" also focuses on Trump's manipulative cronyism. All I've read about Maciel suggests he operated similarly.
    But separate from all the ugly devious machinations I'm continually obliged with respect to such 'religious figures' as represented by Maciel and Co, to question the depth and quality of their alleged religious beliefs. The dichotomy between supposed religious beliefs of a substantial number of clerics of all persuasions and their negative human behaviour causes me to question the integrity of those religious beliefs. And I simply cannot accept "explanations" relying on 'weak human nature', the "Fall of Adam" from grace etc etc.
    In fact I also wonder just how many of our Irish RC clerics have changed their understanding of their deist religious beliefs as they move on in age and experience from their initial youthful idealistic dedication. Indeed how many older clerics no longer have faith and belief, either in the RC institution as representing their faith, or in the "faith" itself, but, shackled by economic considerations, are obliged to continue with a charade?
    MMM

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    1. MMM 12.36. Having lived through very changing and challenging times as a Priest, yes, my religious beliefs, my perception of human nature, my understanding of Christianity, my questions about God, my prayer, my spirituality, my insights into priesthood, ministry and life have all changed. For many years I have simply tried to live the gospel challenge, believing that the values, vision and ministry of Jesus must underpin my life. I live within my humanity and am therefore always in need of personal renewal. While I despair at the politics and machinations of the institutional Church and feel humiliated by the failures of many and have at times felt like departing, I remain as a priest, not out of economic considerations, but because I believe passionately about the gospel of Christ and in the essence of priesthood, which is to imitate Christ - and to be of service to others in whatever way is appropriate, helpful and enriching. I try to prevent my "faith" of not being a charade, trying rather to absorb the insights and wisdom gained through the years. While very disillusioned at times, I have found wonderful contentment and fulfilment and hope the years ahead will be the same. Thank you for your considered and challenging comments. So well narrated compared to the imbalance of MC!!

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    2. 'Imbalance', 18:22? What imbalance is there in my posts here today?

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    3. MC at 19.01. Your racist slur on Pope St. John Paul 11 and your "contempt" for Pope Benedict earlier today and your obsessive need for attention displayed so frequently in your contributions - often expressed boorishly, nastily and in a derogatory manner - are all testament to an emotional and mental imbalance. I'm not the only observer of these "imbalances" - just look back at bloggers over the past few days. You lack fairness.

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    4. In your opinion, 19:24. In your opinion. And I value your opinion very highly.

      By the way, I wasn't being racist, as JPII belonged to the same race as I: caucasian. Do try to be more careful with terminolgy, otherwise you will appear illiterate.

      And my ' "contempt" ' for Benedict is justified, given his cowardly and total disregard for the welfare of vulnerable children, and youth, at risk from such repulsive men as Maciel. Benedict put loyalty to JPII above justice for the innocent. Shame on him!

      No, I don't lack fairness; I just 'tell it like it is'.

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    5. Thank you Anon @ 18:22. Your comments show that indeed there are those in the clerical ranks who have retained initial youthful ideals and commitment to the service of others. I'm sure there are many others of the quiet non demonstrative disposition working away quietly in the background.Maybe we shouldn't make wrong assumptions based on the poor behaviour of others of a more clamorous nature.
      It can't have been easy for you, especially when there are many alternative avenues of service in nursing, social work etc. For me, many of these caring professions also emulate the central gospel mandate of care for others, but the priestly role additionally adds the whole mandatory overlay of a deist religious belief system. That's the bit I can't subscribe to as a central driving motivation.
      So when you refer to the imitation of Christ as the essence of priesthood, I struggle a bit. I can well understand and follow the caring for others as a positive attribute, but see it not as a priestly essence, but as a central socially useful evolution derived from humankind's development of ethical principles much older than the New Testament directives.
      In the end: each to their own. I'm pleased that your commitment provides the contentment and fulfilment that we all need as human social animals. Thanks again for your thoughtful comments.
      MMM

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    6. MMM 20.25. I agree with your argument that service to others by way of caring, compassion and working for the well being and betterment of others is not the preserve of clerics or religious only. Indeed, I have been enriched by many of a non religious system and by the witness of the genuine goodness and caring of friends and parishioners, for me, to be true to my life as a priest and to maintain an inner integrity, I must always remember the One I seek to imitate. While challenging and difficult to truly live priesthood with commitment and conviction in today's culture, I remain steadfast to the ideals of what I promised to live and to uphold all those years ago, struggling often in the process. Thank you for your insightful sharing.

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    7. I too would like to thank 18:22 for his contribution today and his words of wisdom to MC which of course fell on stony ground.

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  9. As the above article states, Maciel was a sociopath who could flip in and out of different roles/identities at will. Is it not fair to say that if he could fool many intelligent wealthy people in such manner as to inveigle them to part with millions that he was also capable of fooling and beguiling John Paul 2?

    I think it highly unfair to blacken and calumniate JP2 because of his affection for the Legionaries of Christ.

    I knew some LOC priests, and can I tell you that they were sincere, holy, virtuous, spiritual and genuine men who sincerely loved Christ and His Church. Albeit, they had an unhealthy sense of loyalty and allegiance to Maciel due to 14 odd years of a rigorous formation process whereby they were indoctrinated with the cult of Maciel's personality - nuestro Padre (as he was referred to).

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  10. Why does our church need these cults and extreme forms of religious groupings, like Opus Dei etc
    why can’t people just can’t be normal with reasonable priests.
    No wonder I’m a very poor ordinary catholic.
    It’s obvious to me that theses popes had no moral compass aka backbone.
    And why does a poster quickly defend Benidict, why didn’t you just say...in your opinion.
    My opinion is that he couldn’t control what was going on, he prob bullied, so he did the decent thing.

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    1. And even more to the point! -Why are you yourself @13.19 so dictatorial to other people?!

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  11. 12.52
    Surely when they matured they should have grew a pair.
    I’m not the same person I was when younger
    The onus is on all of us to develop and mature and learn and question.
    How many of you priests have the guts to see what is going on within the Holy See and within holy Ireland, the land of saints and scholars
    Sticking your head in the sand is not what we need.

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    1. And many of them did "grow a pair" @ 13:24. They left the order, and rightly so. The point of my comment was not to blacken John Paul 2 and other decent holy men just because they were fooled by a sociopath. Remember, practically an entire nation, Germany, was fooled and bewitched by a sociopath called Adolph Hitler. But can we in good conscience denounce all Germans as a result?

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    2. 13:24, there is a difference (a morally culpable one) between being fooled and being wilfully foolish.

      JPII did not want to believe the mounting evidence against Maciel, because he appeared to consider the man holy and, in mind-boggling irony, a moral example to youth.

      Because of JPII's prejudice, we may never know how many children and others suffered needlessly at Maciel's hands.

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    3. My post above was directed at 14:08, not 13:24.

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    4. They should have grown a pair..

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  12. 12:52, when the odious Josef Ratzinger was in the closing years of his prefecture of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he showed, after many years of culpable silence on the matter, a conscience of sorts when he attempted to have JPII move against Maciel; but the autocratic pope stopped Ratzinger's investigation in its tracks. JPII was wifully blind to the mounting evidence, already in Ratzinger's possession, of Maciel's moral and sexual outrages; he would countenance absolutely no criticism of the priest he favoured. Ratzinger was too loyal to JPII to oppose his master's wishes.

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  13. Where are the legionaries up to at present. I remember them from Rome. They made no secret of the fact that their ministry was from the rich down. Maybe in serving the money of God they in some part ended up worshipping the god of money

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  14. Pat, we know you dislike many people but that you admire those of similar mind. However, the skewed and prejudiced comments of Magna leaves me wondering if he has any friends at all. His outrageous racist skur in Pope St Jihn Paul 11 and his hate filled rhetoric against Pope Benedict should not be tolerated. He, Magna, needs a reality check for his own well being.

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    1. You seem to approve of JPII and Pope Emeritus Benedict, despite what each did, and failed, to do.

      Facilitating child-sexual abuse doesn't matter to you then, 19:30?

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    2. Why make ad hominem attacks aka someone having no friends? Attack the post not the poster. Magna pointed out the wicked acts of both popes and that’s fact. Rebut that if you may.

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    3. Magna, 20.15, you're an absurd voice. You depend too much on this blog for friendship and fame. I prefer real life and real people. Of course I abhor child abuse. Pope St. John Paul 11 pray for you.

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    4. 19:30 thank you.

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    5. 21:03, I don't share your highly optimistic (some might say 'irrational') belief that the Pole is in Heaven

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    6. Judge not and you shall not be judged...

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    7. 13:32, if your comment was directed at me, then you should know that such judgement as you mentioned works both ways, that is, against and for a person.

      If no one may judge another unworthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, then, equally, no one may judge him worthy of it either. That is Christ's call alone.

      Institutional Roman Catholicism has judged JPII (and many others) worthy of the Kingdom, something it had no right to do. And in JPII's case, it did so (as Prof Eamon Duffy said) 'with unseemly haste'.

      Politics and cronyism remain a feature of canonisation causes.

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  15. And you dear sir@19.30 should just mind your own posts and refer to the posts not the poster.

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  16. Magna, even when you are knowingly wrong, abusive and nasty, you sneer in contempt instead of showing any semblance of regret or sorrow. But if your insensitivity satisfies your insstiable thirst for notoriety, keep on offending.

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    1. Er, can you at least attempt to answer my posts instead of attacking me. Well, can you?

      Delete
  17. 19 30
    A couple of weeks ago we encouraged Pat to disallow any posts that did not refer to the post but the poster.
    Pat you are failing in your duties as owner of this blog.

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  18. Pat and Magna are the same person. Duh.

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    Replies
    1. So you support popes who facilitate child-sexual abuse (rape), 23:18?

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    2. Don't agree. Completely different articulation styles. Magna, when coherent, displays considerable knowledge and evidence of a broad study of religious historical matters. I appreciate the depth of his sharing this knowledge, and that recently his less caustic side has been evident. I hope this continues.
      MMM

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    3. I agree with MMM in one matter only RE: Magna. He can be quite knowledgeable and informative. That's good but when he's in his nasty, irrational, abusive moods, his words are more than caustic. They are cutting, defaming, racist and display a total disregard for others. In the process he loses all self respect. Otherwise he can be acceptable.

      Delete
  19. Saw your picture in the Paper yesterday, Pat. Jayzus you’re some munter so ye are. Your husband must be thrilled.

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  20. @22.51
    An insane deduction.. Good job you're not a lawyer!

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    Replies
    1. It's '23:51'.

      Good job we're not relying on you for accuracy.😆

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    2. Good job you're in a different time zone of the world then... That's something!

      Delete
  21. Has anyone got any details of Fr Anthony Bannon's early life???I knew an Anthony Bannon as a kid and am wondering are they the same. Both os us were born in Dublin and are about the same age

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  22. Am looking for details of Fr Anthony Bannon's early life as imknew a kid of that name. We lived in Dublin and about the same age, please

    ReplyDelete