Father Marcial Maciel, was my dad, and he sexually abused me, Raul Gonzalez claims in lawsuit

By Michael Sheridan
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, June 22nd 2010, 8:52 AM

Lepri/AP

Pope John Paul II is seen giving his blessing to Father Marcial Maciel in 2004. Maciel has been accused of sexually abusing children, including his own, in a lawsuit. He died in 2008.

Mone/AP

Raul Gonzalez

 

He was a celebrated priest, praised by Pope John Paul II.

But Father Marcial Maciel had secrets, which included illegitimate children and sexual abuse, according to a lawsuit filed in Connecticut on Monday.

Raul Gonzalez claims the Vatican protected the man he knew as his father for decades, chiefly because of his efforts with the highly profitable Legion of Christ.

"My dad told my mom that he was a CIA agent," Gonzalez told ABC News' "Nightline." "He always told my mom that he was a really busy man. That he was always flying on his trips because of the business of his company."

It wasn't until he saw Maciel on the cover of a magazine, dressed in priest garb, that he learned the truth.
In the lawsuit, Gonzalez claims he, and other children, were sexually abused by Father Maciel during his time as director of the Legionaries of Christ, a congregation he founded in 1941.

"He is one of the many, many kids, and others abused and deceived by Maciel," says Jeffrey Anderson, Gonzalez's lawyer.

Gonzalez alleges the abuse began when he was 7 years old during a trip to Colombia. He told "Nightline" that his half-brother, Omar, also was abused.

"He told me that his uncle sometimes made him masturbate him and, basically, the idea of my dad was to transmit that idea to me," said Gonzalez, according to ABC News.

Gonzalez described many different kinds of abuse he claims Maciel committed.

"He always told us we had to kiss him because that was how we would learn how to kiss a girl when we grew up," he said.

In the lawsuit, he alleges Father Maciel was protected by the church -- including Pope Paul II -- because of his efforts in raising money, as well as providing gifts and benefits to Vatican officials.

"My dad told my mom that when John Paul II dies, he was going to be in trouble," Gonzalez said.
After the death of Pope Paul II, Maciel was stripped of his authority and the Legion of Christ was taken over by the Vatican. Father Maciel was still a priest when he died in 2008.

The Vatican and the Legion of Christ did not comment on the ABC News report. Gonzalez says he has met with officials several times regarding a settlement, and has demanded $26 million.

msheridan@nydailynews.com; or follow him at Twitter.com/NYDNSheridan


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Pope made Hitlers vice-chancellor Knight of Malta

Pope made Hitlers vice-chancellor Knight of Malta

Franz von Papen brought Hitler to power in 1933. In 1959 Von Papen was made a «Knight of Malta» and awarded the Grand Cross by the Pope in Rome.

Franz von Papen as a prisoner of war in 1945, next to an American military police

Nazi-Germany would not have been the same without Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen. He was the head of the Catholic Centre Party, that merged with the Nazi party after Hitler came to power in Germany.
In 1932 Von Papen was made Chancellor of Germany. And when Nazi-leader Adolf Hitler took over as the leader of Germany in 1933, Hitler made Von Papen the Vice-Chancellor.

Franz von Papen.

On 8 April 1933, Von Papen travelled to the Vatican to offer a «Reichskonkordat» that defined the German state’s relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. Von Papen secured the Vatican religious freedom in Nazi-Germany.
Papen and his allies were quickly marginalized by Hitler and he left the government after the Night of the Long Knives on 2 July 1934. Some of Von Papens confidants were then purged by the Nazis.
Von Papen was sent to Wiena as German ambassador. Even though he was dismissed from his mission in Austria on 4 February 1938, a month before the Anschluss. But Papen was not removed because He has deserted Hitler.
From 1939 to 1944 Von Papen served the Nazi-government as Ambassador to Turkey.
In August 1944, Papen had his last meeting with Hitler after arriving back in Germany from Turkey. Here, Hitler awarded Papen the Knight’s Cross of the Military Merit Order.
Papen was one of the defendants at the main Nuremberg War Crimes Trial. The court acquitted him, stating that he had, in the court’s view, committed a number of “political immoralities,” but that these actions were not punishable under the “conspiracy to commit crimes against peace” charged in Papen’s indictment.

Franz von Papen as a Nazi

Von Papen was later sentenced to eight years in prison by a West German denazification court, but was released on appeal in 1949.
Franz Von Papen was made a Papal Chamberlain by Pope Pius XI. But when this pope died in 1939, war time Pope Pius XII did not renew his honorary title.
But Pope John XXIII restored Von Papen`s title of Papal Chamberlain on 24 July 1959. Papen was also made a «Knight of Malta», and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Pontifical Order of Pius IX.
Why did the Roman Catholic Church honor Hitlers vice-chancellor, who had been rewarded by Hitler in 1944, at the hight of the Holocaust?
One answer has to be found in the merits of Franz Von Papen before World War II.
Papen was expelled from the United States during World War I for complicity in the planning of sabotage such as blowing up U.S. railroad lines. On 28 December 1915, he was declared persona non grata by the U.S. after his exposure and recalled to Germany.

Franz von Papen was awarded the grand cross by the Pope in 1959.

In April 1916, a United States federal grand jury issued an indictment against Papen for a plot to blow up Canada’s Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. But Papen was then safely on German soil. He remained under indictment until he became Chancellor of Germany in 1932, at which time the charges were dropped.
Later in World War I, Papen served as an officer first on the Western Front. From 1917 he as an officer on the General Staff in the Middle East and a major in the Ottoman army in Palestine.
Than, who was Franz Von Papen?
Like Tony Blair, He was a committed «papist». He was linked to the Papal effort to make The United State of America one of the Papal states under the Vatican seat of power.
He even served as a officer in the Ottoman Army in «Palestine», who tried its best to avoid Jerusalem being liberated by British forces. There were worse things that could happen to Jerusalem, than being under Muslim control. The Catholic faithful wanted to avoid a Protestant Christian take-over, followed by a Jewish home coming.
Today a former nominal protestant turned faithful papal soldier is trying to complete the task given to Franz von Papen. His name is Tony Blair. The former Prime Minister of Anglican United Kingdom has been given the Papal task to end the Zionist control over the «Holy city».
Franz Von Papen was not only a Nazi-collaborator. He had always been a faithful papist and a freemason. Thats why the Pope of Rome restored him in 1959.

20. Juli 1933. Franz von Papen signs the deal between Nazi-Germany and the Vatican

Franz von Papen with Hitler and Josef Goebbels.

After World War II, Franz von Papen was made a papal knight by the Pope

Freemasons on the march, the order of the Knights of Malta with Franz von Papen.

Papal soldier Franz von Papen with his Vatican order after World War II

After the war, Franz von Papen on the back of a horse. A free man, honored by the Roman Catholic Pope of Rome.

Read more about the Knights of Malta: Click here

Hitchens: Kagan Should be Grilled Over Recent Vatican Brief

By Ashby Jones

Last week, we wrote an article for the WSJ on the U.S. government’s decision to side with the Vatican in a high-profile case involving alleged sexual abuse against a former priest. Click here for the story; here for the LB post on the story.
The solicitor general’s office urged the Supreme Court to set aside a federal appellate court ruling in a case that had allowed the Oregon suit to go forward against the Vatican. Specifically, the SG’s office argued in its brief that the Ninth Circuit misapplied the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a 1976 federal law governing when U.S. courts can hear cases against other countries.
Writing for Slate, noted author — and no friend to organized religion — Christopher Hitchens recently weighed in on the brief which, Hitchens notes, came out of Elena Kagan’s office, though it wasn’t signed by her specifically. (Neal Katyal, the Acting SG, was the top name on the brief.)
Hitchens, not surprisingly, isn’t a fan of the Obama administration’s position in the case, and thinks that those “scrutinizing the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court might want to pay some attention to the decision of her office,” a decision Hitchens characterizes as taking “the side of the Vatican in the continuing scandal of child rape and the associated scandal of a coordinated obstruction of justice.”
Continues Hitchens, on the decision to invoke the Vatican’s sovereignty as a justification for judicial immunity:

There are a number of fascinating ramifications of this opinion. It is not usually considered polite to mention that the majority of Supreme Court justices are practicing Roman Catholics. . . . We will soon have a Supreme Court that contains no Protestants and no secularists and which is being asked to rule on a matter central to the religious beliefs of a majority of its members, who are bound to regard the man formerly known as Joseph Ratzinger as the vicar of Christ on earth. If they now take refuge in the lesser claim that he is the bureaucratic head of a foreign government, will that serve to assuage their consciences?

Hitchens’ piece ends with this flourish:

It will be a disgrace if the Supreme Court overrules the sane and legal finding of the 9th Circuit. . . . [A]t last the majesty of American law is being deployed in this matter—but on the side of an institution that has irreparably stained itself with crime. Kagan and her colleagues should be made to feel the shame of this, as should the president, who talks so glibly about human rights and equality before the law.

The Vatican, through its lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, has argued that the Vatican doesn’t employ priests or exercise the requisite control over them to justify the U.S. courts exercising jurisdiction over the Vatican, let alone establishing liability. In regard to the Oregon case, Lena noted that the plaintiff has not provided evidence that the Vatican moved the priest in question around, or had control over the priest.
Specifically, the solicitor general’s office argued in its brief that the Ninth Circuit misapplied the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a 1976 federal law governing when U.S. courts can hear cases against other countries.
LBers, any thoughts?

Vatican Bank Under Scrutiny

Vatican bank under scrutiny VATICAN CITY - ITALIAN prosecutors are investigating the Vatican bank on suspicion of involvement in money laundering, La Repubblica daily reported on Tuesday.

The newspaper said the Institute of Religious Works (IOR) and 10 Italian banks, including major institutions such as Intesa San Saolo and Unicredit, were the target of the investigation.

'The hypothesis of the investigators is that subjects with their fiscal residence in Italy are using the IOR as a 'screen' to hide different dealings, such as fraud or tax evasion,' the paper said.

The IOR manages bank accounts for religious orders and Catholic associations and benefits from Vatican offshore status.

Investigators have uncovered transactions of around 180 million euros (S$310 million) over a two-year period in one of the accounts held at the IOR.

In September 2009 the IOR nominated a new chief executive, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, Spanish banking giant Santander's representative in Italy. US archbishop Paul Marcinkus headed up the bank in 1971-1989 during which time it was caught up in scandals including the collapse of the private Italian bank, Banco Ambrosiano in 1982 amid accusations of links to the mafia and political terrorism. -- AFP