Roberta Garza felt a familiar tearing this week on reading an Associated Press report that her older brother, Father Luis Garza, 58, had been accused of sexual abuse in a civil lawsuit filed in Waterbury, Conn.
The
siblings have not spoken in several years. Roberta is a columnist for
Milenio newspaper in Mexico City.
Luis, for nearly two decades the second-ranking figure in Rome of the Legion of Christ, now seems to her an exiled figure, cast into an outback as the Philippines regional director of the Legionaries.
Luis, for nearly two decades the second-ranking figure in Rome of the Legion of Christ, now seems to her an exiled figure, cast into an outback as the Philippines regional director of the Legionaries.
In the lawsuit, an adult identified as “John Roe 1” alleges
that Father Garza, and two other priests, including the late Marcial
Maciel Degollado, the Legion’s charismatic founder, abused the plaintiff
as a young adolescent at a center the order ran near Mexico City in the
early 1990s.
Father
Maciel launched the order in Mexico in 1941, established a campus in
Rome in the 1950s, and later an American headquarters in Cheshire, Conn.
Maciel, who died in 2008, was the greatest fundraiser of the modern
church. He was celebrated by Pope John Paul II for inspiring young men
like Garza to become priests, for Maciel’s record in launching prep
schools, several universities and religious colleges in Latin America,
North America and Europe.
Although
it is a comparatively small order of 2,400 priests (the Jesuits have
11,900) the Wall Street Journal reported in 2004 that the Legion had a
$650 million operating budget.
The Legion website featured video and photographs of Maciel in the company of John Paul, who in 1994 called him “an efficacious guide to youth.”
The Legion website featured video and photographs of Maciel in the company of John Paul, who in 1994 called him “an efficacious guide to youth.”
That
world changed in 2006 when Pope Benedict dismissed the 86-year old
Maciel to “a reserved life of prayer and penitence” after a Vatican
investigation into pedophilia accusations shadowing Maciel.
John Allen of the independent weekly National Catholic Reporter quoted an unnamed Vatican official saying that Maciel had “more than twenty but less than one hundred” victims over many years.
John Allen of the independent weekly National Catholic Reporter quoted an unnamed Vatican official saying that Maciel had “more than twenty but less than one hundred” victims over many years.
Maciel was 70 in 1990, when the new lawsuit charges that he began abusing the alleged victim, who is now in his early forties.
“I don’t know whether the allegations against Luis in the lawsuit are true or not,” Roberta Garza told The Daily Beast.
“But I know that Luis lied to us, his family, for years after he knew the truth about Maciel.”
Legion of Christ spokesman Jim Fair issued a statement, saying that Father Garza “categorically
denies his involvement in this or any other abuse and has said he will
cooperate fully in any inquiry regarding this matter.”
Attorney
Michael Reck told The Daily Beast that Maciel, Garza and Father Jose
Sabin sexually assaulted the plaintiff, a young American who had a
period of study in a Legion school in Mexico, in 1990-91.
Reck
said that the priests individually abused the boy in his early
adolescence, on numerous occasions. The youth had relatives near Mexico
City, who helped him return to his native California, ending his
experience with the Legion schools.
According to Reck, the plaintiff took action after seeing Alex Gibney’s recent HBO documentary on the clergy abuse crisis, Mea Maxima Culpa, which has a strand on Maciel.
“John Roe 1” reported the abuse to the Legion and sought legal representation from attorney Jeff Anderson, an interviewee in the film, according to Reck, a member of the law firm.
“John Roe 1” reported the abuse to the Legion and sought legal representation from attorney Jeff Anderson, an interviewee in the film, according to Reck, a member of the law firm.
Father
Garza was a key figure in the Legion’s strategy of defending Maciel
from pedophilia accusations while he was alive; but he has not been previously accused of sexual misconduct.
A
Vatican investigation of the Legion after Maciel’s death led to a
rewriting of their bylaws and an internal shake up. Pope Francis
maintained Benedict’s decision to reform the religious order despite the
cult-like tactics Maciel instilled to secure lockstep loyalty to
himself.
Garza
was vicar-general in Rome, the second in command, from 1992 to 2011.
After the Vatican intervention he left Rome in 2012 for Atlanta, as the
order’s North American director. He subsequently went to the
Philippines, where he is today -- “a big growth area for us with a lot
of schools,” Fair, the Legion spokesman told The Daily Beast.
Still, the Philippines is a far cry from his once-lofty post in Rome.
Roberta
Garza Medina grew up in one of the wealthiest families in Latin
America, the youngest sibling with four brothers and three sisters.
The Garzas’ roots
are in Monterrey, Mexico’s industrial capital. A grandfather founded
Alfa, an agribusiness company that became a multinational which her
eldest brother, Dionisio, ran as CEO for many years. A sister, Paulina,
recently left Regnum Christi, the lay group associared with the Legion,
which raises money and helps staff the order’s schools. After many years
in a Regnum Christi house for celibate, “consecrated woman” in Rome,
she recently returned to Monterrey.
Roberta
has long been estranged from Luis and rarely speaks with the older
siblings who support the Legion and Regnum Christi. Maciel had the
impact of a meat cleaver on the once close-knit family. As the years
passed, the siblings grew factionalized. They socialize occasionally but
Roberta and a brother hold strongly negative view of the Legion.
Known to his followers as “Nuestro Padre” (Our
Father), Maciel courted the Garza parents as major donors in the 1970s,
while building the education network, stressing the Legion’s mission to
restore a fallen, post-Vatican II church to orthodoxy. Nevertheless, in
Mexico they aquired a cycnical nickname – “millionaires of Christ.”
Other top supporters included Carlos Slim, the Mexico City telecommunications magnet who became a major New York Times
stockholder, and the late William Casey, Ronald Reagan’s CIA director
whose seven-figure donation funded the construction of a building at the
Legion’s Cheshire, Connecticut campus, where a staff of 20 worked on
fundraising in the growth years.
As
a girl, Roberta cherished conversations in a family that “rarely
watched TV. We had an environment of open, candid discussions,” she says. Her mother donated jewelry and money to the Legion. “One of my aunts gave Maciel a house.”
Roberta
attended a boarding school in France and immersed herself in
literature. Back in Monterrey for high school, she saw Maciel as
cultivating her parents and older siblings for money-as-redemption.
Luis
graduated from the Legion school in Monterrey and entered Stanford
University, where he studied engineering and had a Regnum Christi
roommate. After graduation in 1978, Garza joined the Legion and eight
years later became a priest. He rose in the ranks, clearly in Maciel’s
favor, and became a key figure in guiding Legion finances as its second
in command.
Accusations
of pedophilia and drug addiction by Maciel broke in a 1997 Hartford
Courant investigation by this writer and Gerald Renner. Maciel denied
the charges without giving an interview; the Vatican refused any
comment.
Before the 1997 report, a Legion lawyer tried to pressure the Courant into dropping the story, claiming it would be libelous.
At
the time, according to Christopher Kunze, an ex-priest now living in
Wisconsin, “Luis Garza traveled to the majority of Legionary houses of
formation (in nearly 20 countries) obliging all members to observe
absolute silence under pain of mortal sin regarding any information we
might receive via personal meeting, phone conversation, postal service,
or e-mail on ‘false accusations against the Founder,’ “ Kunze said in an email.
“Garza
had everyone sign a document that none of us would ever take legal
action against the Legion of Christ. At the time, we did not know the
subject matter of accusations against Fr. Maciel nor why we might be
inclined to sue the Congregation [religious order.] All of our
consumption of news material was highly censored. The Hartford Courant
article was known likely to only a few members.”
Kunze, Garza and all Legionaries had taken the “private vows” never
to speak ill of Maciel or superiors, and to report any criticism of the
founder to their superiors. Kunze and other ex-Legionaries have spoken
or written about the psychological weight of “the private vows” that
undergirded Maciel’s cult of personality. The Vatican abolished the
private vows after Maciel’s death in an investigation that included
rewriting the Legion bylaws that Maciel used to shield his sex life.
Kunze
discovered the 1997 article many months later on the internet while
working in a Vatican office, Congregation for the Clergy. He left the
priesthood in 2000, returned to America, married and has children.
The Legion took no legal action against the Hartford Courant, though shortly after the report, the order mounted a website, LegionaryFacts.org,
which attacked Maciel’s accusers and posted supportive statements of
him and the order from George Wiegel, a biographer of John Paul and NBC
Vatican affairs commentator; First Things editor
Father Richard John Neuhaus; Catholic League president William Donohue;
Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon, who became U.S. ambassador to
the Vatican under President George W. Bush, and media commentator Bill
Bennett, among others.
While it is unknown what Garza knew about Maciel’s victims, if anything at all, he played a leading role in the 1998 campaign to attack the accusers.
In
1998, eight of Maciel’s victims—a Spanish priest and seven middle-aged
Mexicans who had given us on the record interviews—filed a canon law
case at the Vatican asking Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to excommunicate
Maciel from the church.
Pope
John Paul II never wavered from his view of Maciel as a revitalizing
figure, drawing young men to an order promoting orthodoxy.
The
pope is supreme arbiter of canon law. John Paul was passive on the
abuse charges against Maciel, consistent with his failure to confront
the larger clergy abuse crisis.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State was close to Maciel and received financial gifts from the Legion, as several priests told me for previous reporting. Sodano put pressure on Ratzinger to abort the case.
But, in late 2004, when an ailing John Paul with five months to live, again celebrated Maciel at a Vatican ceremony, Ratzinger broke ranks and ordered an investigation, realizing that whomever the next pope might be, he shouldn’t inherit a cover-up.
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Secretary of State was close to Maciel and received financial gifts from the Legion, as several priests told me for previous reporting. Sodano put pressure on Ratzinger to abort the case.
But, in late 2004, when an ailing John Paul with five months to live, again celebrated Maciel at a Vatican ceremony, Ratzinger broke ranks and ordered an investigation, realizing that whomever the next pope might be, he shouldn’t inherit a cover-up.
After
Ratzinger became Benedict in 2005, the canon lawyer he delegated to
investigate Maciel, Msgr. Charles Scicluna, gave the new pope a report
that sealed Maciel’s fate – sort of.
“Maciel was a con man, a pedophile and a drug abuser,” Roberta
tells The Daily Beast.
“Luis was part of the defense after the pope sent Maciel off in 2006. The Legion refused to acknowledge that it was for abusing seminarians.”
“Luis was part of the defense after the pope sent Maciel off in 2006. The Legion refused to acknowledge that it was for abusing seminarians.”
Roberta
Garza dates Luis’s deception to 2006, when the Vatican order approved
by Benedict effectively banished Maciel from Rome to a “reserved life
of prayer and penitence.”
Scicluna had taken testimony from several dozen ex-Legion seminarians in Europe, the U.S. and Mexico, men who gave graphic accounts of being sexually plundered by Maciel as boys in the 1950s and 60s, saying that he often injected himself with Dolantin, a form of morphine. But the Legion and Garza spun the banishment as a voluntary retirement by a lauded leader of Christ’s flock.
Scicluna had taken testimony from several dozen ex-Legion seminarians in Europe, the U.S. and Mexico, men who gave graphic accounts of being sexually plundered by Maciel as boys in the 1950s and 60s, saying that he often injected himself with Dolantin, a form of morphine. But the Legion and Garza spun the banishment as a voluntary retirement by a lauded leader of Christ’s flock.
The
2006 expulsion order, typical of the understated language of Vatican
documents, never specified what Maciel had done, and “invited” him to a penitential life. “The Legion did spin control in Monterrey to make people believe it was a voluntary retirement,” says Roberta Garza.
The
Legion proclaimed its loyalty to the pope, and, in fathomless irony,
compared Maciel to Christ for accepting his punishment with "tranquility
of conscience."
It was a tortured exercise in semantics all around: the Vatican sending Maciel into penitential life without sspecifying what he had done, and singling out the Legion and Regnum Christi for praise, despite their long cover-up, in an effort to keep priests and followers in the fold.
The abuse survivors who testified to Scicluna, the Vatican investigator, were furious at not being publicly acknowledged. And the Legion, while pledging fidelity to Benedict, spread the word to supporters that Nuestro Padre, falsely accused like Jesus, would one day be a saint!
It was a tortured exercise in semantics all around: the Vatican sending Maciel into penitential life without sspecifying what he had done, and singling out the Legion and Regnum Christi for praise, despite their long cover-up, in an effort to keep priests and followers in the fold.
The abuse survivors who testified to Scicluna, the Vatican investigator, were furious at not being publicly acknowledged. And the Legion, while pledging fidelity to Benedict, spread the word to supporters that Nuestro Padre, falsely accused like Jesus, would one day be a saint!
Maciel
went first to his hometown, Cotija, Mexico, and as later reports
confirmed, had a reunion with his former paramour, Norma Hilda Baños,
and Normita, their daughter born in 1983, three years after the pair met
in Acapulco.
By
then, Maciel had long since moved Norma and Normita to Madrid,
supporting them with Legion funds. That support is at issue in another
lawsuit the Legion faces in Connecticut, brought by a second shadow
family of Maciel, represented by the Anderson firm and attorney Joel
Faxon.
In
2010, Jose Raul Rivas Gutiérrez, now 33, gave a radio interview in
Mexico City, identifying himself as Maciel’s biological son. He and his
older brother, Omar, accuse Maciel of sexually abusing them as boys and
teenagers. Their mother, Blanca Lara Gutiérrez, has given interviews in
Mexico attesting to her long relationship with Maciel, who gave them
financial support as well.
Blanca
gave birth to Raul just as Maciel was wooing Norma in Acapulco. Omar is
Blanca’s son from a previous relationship. Maciel visited the family
periodically for short visits, supporting them financially until about
the year 2000, as Raul told me in a 2010 interview.
Maciel
took Raul and his half-sister Normita, as children, to Rome and a Mass
celebrated by John Paul. Raul was photographed with the pope. By putting
his own children that close to John Paul, Maciel showed a cynical
audacity, and confidence, layered in psychopathic narcissism.
Father
Garza gave deposition testimony about Maciel’s daughter in 2012 for a
lawsuit in Rhode Island brought by the niece of a deceased widow whose
will gave the Legion $60 million. Mary Lou Dauray accused the Legion of
using fraud to milk her late aunt, the widow Gabrielle Mee, of the
estate.
In early 2008, Norma and Normita were at a Legion condo in a Jacksonville, Fla. gated community as Maciel’s health was slipping.
With
no hint of irony, Garza testified that the Legion bought the condo for
Maciel to have a place for his “life of penance and absence from public
ministry.”
While he visited Maciel, testified Garza, he learned about the identity as of Maciel’s former lover and love-child.
Garza
became suspicious of Norma and Normita, sitting poolside with Maciel in
his penitential retreat. Mother and daughter were staying at the nearby
Sawgrass Hotel.
Several other priests, and Maciel’s brother, Javier, were staying at the condo and “knew the women,” stated Garza, inferring that he, Father Garza, did not know “the women.”
Several other priests, and Maciel’s brother, Javier, were staying at the condo and “knew the women,” stated Garza, inferring that he, Father Garza, did not know “the women.”
A
dispassionate take of his testimony might conclude that Garza was
trying to portray himself, as duped, cutting distance between himself
and the galvanizing priest who had betrayed so many others; that he
learned very late of Normita’s existence.
Garza might have been so denial-programmed after decades of revering Maciel, raising huge sums for the order through his web of family connections -- and even, reportedly, donating some $3 million of his own inheritance to the Legion -- that the socially rigid priest, staying in a “less expensive” hotel in Jacksonville was boggled at the sight of Normita, 23, who bore a clear resemblance to her father Maciel.
Garza might have been so denial-programmed after decades of revering Maciel, raising huge sums for the order through his web of family connections -- and even, reportedly, donating some $3 million of his own inheritance to the Legion -- that the socially rigid priest, staying in a “less expensive” hotel in Jacksonville was boggled at the sight of Normita, 23, who bore a clear resemblance to her father Maciel.
Garza told Dauray’s attorney, Bernard Jackvony, that he asked Norma point blank "if the girl” – Normita – “was the daughter of Father Maciel...She confirmed that."
Insisting
that he had to be sure, Garza testified that he researched and found
Normita’s birth certificate; he also determined that she had studied at
Northern Anahuac, a Legion university in Mexico.
But Garza still didn’t tell the rank-and-file Legionaries who had followed Maciel or the general public.
In the deposition he cast himself as a loyalist betrayed.
Like all Legionaries, Luis Garza had taken the “private vows” never
to speak ill of Maciel or superiors, never to seek higher office in the
Legion, and to report any criticism of the founder to their superiors.
Many ex-Legionaries have spoken and written about the psychological
weight of “the private vows,” the most coercive form of secrecy in the order that revolved around a cult of personality in Maciel.
When he “discovered” Normita,
Luis Garza, were he to follow the Legion’s iron law, still in effect at
the time, had but one person in whom to confide: Maciel’s successor,
the new director general, Fr. Alvaro Corcuera, from a prominent family
in Mexico City and who, like Garza, adulated Maciel. According to his testimony, Garza only told Corcuera and two other priests.
The
Vatican learned about Maciel’s daughter in late 2004 as Cardinal Franc
Rodé, who oversaw the congregation for religious orders, told me in a
2012 interview on a joint assignment for GlobalPost and National
Catholic Reporter. A priest had shown him a video of Maciel and the
young girl. Rodé said he told the papal investigator, Msgr. Scicluna. Did Rodé confront Maciel? No, the cardinal told me. Why? “I was not his confessor.”
Instead,
he urged Maciel to step down as director-general. Maciel complied in
2004 and the Legionaries elected Alvaro Corcuera in his place.
In
January of 2008, as Maciel lay dying in the Jacksonville condo, Norma,
Normita, and several priests, including Garza and Corcuera gathered
round him.
According to a report in Madrid’s El Mundo, Maciel recoiled when Corcuera tried to anoint him in the last rites of the church, barking “I said no!”
Maciel “did not believe in God’s pardon,” El Mundo reported, a view which his sordid biographical data might confirm, but an opinion just the same.
But
his power reached beyond the grave. Having never acknowledged that
Maciel abused anyone, the Legion had put its entire strategy into the
paradoxical stance of supporting Pope Benedict while treating Maciel as a
wrongly-accused saint. Now, there was a 23-year old daughter at the
deathbed with Corcuera and Garza.
The Legion press release on Maciel’s death announced that he had gone to heaven – an opinion the opposite of El Mundo’s that he had no faith.
The
pressure on Corcuera as Maciel’s successor must have been enormous. The
Vatican had known about Maciel’s daughter, at least, since 2004, but
high officials wanted the Legion, not a spokesman for Pope Benedict, to
divulge the truth about Maciel.
A
year after his death, in early 2009, Corcuera began visiting Legion
houses, sharing the truth about the founder’s offspring. When that news
broke in the New York Times, the Legion finally issued an apology to
Maciel’s many seminary victims, a day late and many dollars short.
Dozens of priests began leaving the order. The fundraising strategy
built around Maciel tanked. And the Vatican announced it would
investigate the Legion.
The
task fell to Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, a Vatican canon lawyer, who
oversaw a rewriting of the order’s bylaws, getting rid of the “private
vow” – but otherwise ignoring the corrosive psychodynamics of the order.
The
image of the Vatican as a top-down controlling force of a church that
is also the largest organization in the world is something of a myth.
The Vatican does intervene in certain messy circumstances, yanking
bishops when they get in trouble, while receiving rivers of documents
from dioceses and religious orders the world over. Rome also has to
approve the defrocking of pedophiles and other clerical criminals.
But
the Legion under Maciel was a runaway train from the start. Maciel
courted the wealthiest, most conservative Catholics, while keeping his
sexual history with youths, so it seems, far from the money supply.
Maciel’s
profligate spending to support his secret children, and conceal his
life as a pedophile, has raised far-reaching questions. People have
donated to the Legion of Christ as a religious charity.
Dauray,
the niece of Mrs. Mee, lost her case against the Legion on a
technicality; the court held that because she had pledged to give the
will’s proceeds to charities in keeping with her aunt’s wishes, she
lacked a personal legal standing to sue.
Her attorney, Jackvony, a former Republican lieutenant governor of Rhode Island, told the Daily Beast: “I
asked the Rhode Island attorney general to investigate the Legion and
become a party in the litigation for interfering with a charitable
trust. He refused.”
The
Legion of Christ is building a luxury hotel at the Sea of Galilee, near
an archeological site said to be the village of St. Mary Magdalene,
according to the New York Times and other reports.
The
construction began as the Legion closed or divested itself of ownership
of several American prep schools, and sold off real estate in Rhode
Island and Connecticut amid the tide of lawsuits with ongoing bills for
legal defense.
Jesuits,
Dominicans, Franciscans and other orders have campuses and capital
drives for their endowments; religious orders have also paid heavily in
cases of abusive priests. How many religious orders, which qualify as
charities, build and operate five star hotels? Where did the Legion get
the money for the big project in Israel?
On
reading the lawsuit accusing her brother of sex abuse, Roberta Garza
says that she had seen no previous signs to suggest such aberrant
behavior by him. But, she was understandably troubled.
“The Legion removed Luis from the U.S. and sent him to the Philippines in what seems like a form of punishment,” she told The Daily Beast. “I don’t know whether I feel sorry for him. I
feel really sorry for losing everything I imagined family should be.
That’s gone, in no small part thanks to Maciel and the Legion. Luis was
instrumental in guiding and covering up for them.”