Vows Of Silence: El Legionario de Cristo

Product Description 'Vows of Silence' captures the unfortunate but extremely important case of Father Marcial Maciel, who won the favor of Pope John Paul II despite years of pedophilia accusations. The greatest fundraiser of the modern church, Maciel founded the Legion of Christ, a religious order with a $650 million budget and history of controversial tactics. The film tracks abuse charges filed against Maciel, beginning in the 1950s, as well as evidence of drug abuse and financial improprieties. In 1998, formal charges are filed with Cardinal Ratzinger (who would later become Pope). The Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, tries to abort the case. In 2004, with Pope John Paul II dying, Ratzinger takes action. The film follows a secret Vatican investigator as witnesses testify about Maciel's sexual abuse, psychological tyranny, and the vows he imposed to secure Legionaries' silence. All signs indicate that those at the very top knew about Maciel's illegal activity, but never stopped him. The Maciel case illustrates the bigger question of how the Vatican justice system functions. Review Some think of the church scandals as a cluster of passing episodes. But the deeper and continuing scandal is less a matter of sex than of power the power over human lives that fosters, protects and covers up clerical arrogance. That is the important and lasting story Jason Berry tells in this shocking film. -- Garry Wills, author of 'What Jesus Meant' --Garry Wills If you want to know how the current Pope handled very credible, very well-documented and overwhelming evidence that a very powerful associate had long been a child-abuser, check this [film] out. The abuse-case that caused the Pope to lose his temper - to the point of a prissy smack - was Father Marcial Maciel. Until his death earlier this year, Maciel ran a large, far-right Catholic cult called the Legionaries of Christ. The Legionaries and their lay counterpart, Regnum Christi, are very powerful entities in the new Catholicism, given special protection by Pope John Paul II and much favor under his successor. And at the core of the Legionaries, like many religious cults, was a sexual abuse ring designed to please the founder. Secrecy was maintained by indoctrinating many members at a young age, and enforcing vows of silence on all topics related to Maciel. This cult-like stricture is still causing grief and suspicion in many parts of the Catholic world, most recently in the Baltimore archdiocese. The reason I bring this up today is because journalist Jason Berry, of the Hartford Courant, has a new and gripping documentary on Maciel and the abusive cult-like practices he pioneered. It's called 'Vows Of Silence'; and it carefully exposes the appalling facts of the enmeshment of the last two Popes in covering up sexual abuse and protecting a serial predator. Maciel was a sadly twisted gay man, who committed many acts of abuse, pederasty and pedophilia against other men and boys under his control. He is also a hero to the theoconservative movement, the leaders of which have yet to come to terms with his appalling record. Much of this the Vatican eventually conceded - but never held Maciel fully accountable for, part from asking him in his final years to recede from public view. More to the point: Maciel's abuse was known to Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI for years, and they did nothing about it. The Maciel case is important because it reveals the current and former Pope to be knowing, conscious protectors of a child abuser and shows how the sick sexual dysfunction at the heart of the Catholic hierarchy was abetted and fomented at the very, very top. I watched the film the other night and even after following this issue for years, was shocked at the gravity and specificity of the charges. The theocons still deny Maciel's guilt, of course. But many of them have long stopped valuing truth over power. -- Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish, at theatlantic.com --The Atlantic The case of Fr. Marciel Maciel Degollado, founder of the controversial order of priests known as the Legionaries of Christ, occupies a sadly distinctive place in the long history of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic church. A new documentary by Jason Berry, Vows of Silence, details the arduous path victims faced in bringing Maciel's abuse to the Vatican's attention. If many were surprised by Pope Benedict XVI's emphasis on the sex abuse crisis during his recent visit to the United States, the action he took against Maciel early in his papal tenure signaled that he viewed the crisis as a more serious matter than his predecessor, and that he intended to confront it more directly. Maciel was ultimately disciplined by Benedict in 2006, two years before Maciel's death. A cardinal on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, who refused to be identified, told NCR at the time that the material accumulated in the investigation left little doubt about the validity of charges brought, in an
ASIN: B001GMZGMI
VSKU: DBV.B001GMZGMI.A
Condition: Acceptable
Author/Artist:Narrator (English version): Jason Berry|Narrator (Spanish version): Carmen Aristegui|Jason Berry
Binding: Dvd
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