Plan to make John Paul II saint opposed

MEXICO CITY, Wednesday

Victims of paedophile priests in Mexico criticised yesterday the imminent beatification of John Paul II, saying the late pope turned a blind eye to abuse cases, particularly concerning Marcial Maciel.

Maciel, who founded the worldwide Legion of Christ movement in Mexico, was accused last year of having molested seminarians and fathering children, in a Vatican probe into longstanding allegations.

“It’s not possible that he (John Paul II) didn’t know about the case of Marcial Maciel, a man who was primordial in his papacy,” Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests spokesman Joaquin Aguilar Mendez told AFP.

Before Maciel’s fall from grace, John Paul II championed him and the order he founded in 1941. Longstanding allegations against Maciel finally led Pope Benedict XVI to bar him from active duty in 2006, two years before he died.

The beatification of John Paul II six years after his death was a sign of “desperation” by the Catholic church to clean its record over pedophile scandals as soon as possible, said Aguilar, himself a victim of abuse by a pedophile priest.

Former priest Alberto Athie, among the first to denounce sexual abuse committed by Maciel, lamented the rapid beatification process for John Paul II due to take place on May 1, following a spate of other similar scandals.

“Why the hurry to beatificate him when a whole group of serious crimes have not been analyzed deeply?” asked Athie.

The Legion of Christ is present in more than 20 countries and runs 12 universities. It counts 800 priests, 2,500 seminarians and 70,000 lay members.

Meanwhile, the French nun whose miraculous cure of Parkinson’s disease through the intercession of late Pope John Paul II put him on the path to sainthood, said yesterday that the phenomenon remained a “great mystery.”

“Why me? It remains a great mystery. There are, without a doubt, people, children who are more sick than myself. I can’t answer you. We are in the hands of life. There were the prayers of all” fellow nuns, Marie Simon-Pierre told reporters at the archdiocese of Aix-en-Provence in southern France.

By: AFP