ROME (CNS) – At the door of the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University, priests and seminarians prepared to welcome former Vatican officials and other important guests. Inside the auditorium, the rector checked the final details of the three hour long multimedia tribute to Pope John Paul II.
Onstage, 30 children from the order’s elementary school held white roses in front of a portrait of the late Pope and rehearsed in unison: “John Paul II, we love you!”
Like other Religious communities in Rome, the Legionaries of Christ joined in the joy and enthusiasm of Pope John Paul’s beatification.
They seemed untroubled by critics who view the sex abuse scandal of the Legionaries’ founder, the late Mexican Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, as a black mark on Pope John Paul’s pontificate.
“The Vatican cleared all this up. The postulator (of Pope John Paul’s sainthood cause) cleared it up. They did an investigation and said that the Pope had nothing at all to do with this episode,” said Fr Pedro Barrajon, the rector of the Legionaries’ university.
Fr Barrajon said the fallout from the sex abuse revelations about Fr Maciel did not diminish the happiness felt by priests and seminarians at the late Pope’s beatification.
“At least for me, it’s not a problem,” he said.
Pope John Paul was one of Fr Maciel’s biggest supporters. In 2004, at a Vatican encounter marking the 60th anniversary of Fr Maciel’s ordination, the Pope warmly greeted him and said the priest’s ministry had been “full of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.”
A year after Pope John Paul died, after investigating allegations that Fr Maciel had sexually abused young seminarians, the Vatican ordered the priest to stop practicing his ministry in public and to live a life of prayer and penitence.
After his death in 2008, the Legionaries revealed that Fr Maciel had fathered a daughter and later acknowledged that he had abused seminarians. George Weigel, the US biographer of Pope John Paul II, has said he believes the late Pope was, like many others, deceived by Fr Maciel. He said there’s not a shred of evidence to support the idea that Pope John Paul knew of the abuse and did nothing about it.
That view is shared by most officials at the Vatican, who believe that critics who have focused on Fr Maciel are distorting Pope John Paul’s record as Pope and missing the point of his beatification.
A Legionary priest who attended the 29 April tribute to Pope John Paul agreed. While the revelations about Fr Maciel have been painful, he said, they haven’t affected the admiration and esteem people feel for Pope John Paul.
The priest, who asked not to be identified, acknowledged that spirits at the Legionaries’ headquarters were a bit “dampened” these days, as the Order undergoes a thorough investigation and reform ordered by Pope Benedict XVI. But as hard as it is for the Legionary priests and seminarians, he said, “maybe it had to happen this way.”
There was no sign or mention of Fr Maciel as the tribute to Pope John Paul got under way.
The founder’s photo has been removed from the walls of the seminary and university, and Legionary books and other publications were under review to make sure there is no “inappropriate reference” to Fr Maciel.
There was one minor exception at the 29 April event, probably unnoticed by the organisers. A Legionary booklet on Pope John Paul, printed in 2005 and available at the auditorium entrance, closed with a quotation from Fr Maciel extolling the spiritual qualities that made Pope John Paul a saint.