Marcial Maciel Degollado
| Marcial Maciel | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Founder and Former General Director of the Legion of Christ | |
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In office January 3, 1941 – January 20, 2005 |
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| Succeeded by | Fr. Álvaro Corcuera |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Marcial Maciel Degollado 10 March 1920 Cotija, Michoacán, Mexico |
| Died | 30 January 2008 (aged 87) Jacksonville, Florida, United States |
Marcial Maciel Degollado (March 10, 1920 – January 30, 2008) was a Mexican Catholic priest who founded the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement, serving as general director of the Legion from 1941 to 2005. Throughout most of his career, he was respected within the church as "the greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church" and as a prolific recruiter of new seminarians. Late in his life, Maciel was revealed to have sexually abused boys and young men and maintained relationships with at least two women, fathering as many as six children. He allegedly abused two of these as well.
In 2006 and shortly after taking over from John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI removed Maciel from active ministry based on the results of an investigation that he had started as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Maciel was ordered "to conduct a reserved life of prayer and penance, renouncing every public ministry," and died in 2008. On March 25, 2010, a communiqué on the Legion's website acknowledged as factual the "reprehensible actions" by Maciel, including sexual abuse of minor seminarians. In May 2010 the Vatican denounced Maciel's actions and appointed a Papal Delegate to oversee the order and its governance.
Maciel was born in Cotija, Michoacán, Mexico, to a family with strong connections to the Catholic Church. Numerous relatives were priests in the Church. He had a troubled youth. Maciel was the grand-nephew of Bishop Rafael Guízar Valencia, who was canonized as a Mexican saint in 2007. There has been speculation that conduct by Maciel at age 18 contributed to the death of this great uncle, who had a heart attack. According to an investigative report:
The day before Bishop Guizar died, he had been heard shouting angrily at Marcial Maciel. He was giving his eighteen-year-old nephew a dressing down after two women had come to the bishop's house to complain about Maciel, who was their neighbor. Father Orozco, who was among the original group of boys to found the Legion of Christ in 1941, said he heard the women had complained about the "noise" Maciel was making with children he had brought into his home to teach religion. He said that the seminary officials blamed Maciel for his uncle's heart attack.
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