Really, Joseph? With the dots carefully connected between key Cardinals in the appropriate dicasteries who could grease the skids concerning approval of statutes, constitutions and norms (not to mention stonewall abuse charges about the congregation) you bring up the one example of a family donation? Perhaps you didn't get to the names in the curia that were quite evident. It's not who gave the money, but where it went.

As a long-time critic of FIRST THINGS' reluctance to embrace the reality of Maciel's sexual misconduct, I would like to commend Mr. Bottum for being readily open to the eminently reasonable likelihood of financial malfeasance in Maciel's milieu also. It is good to see people, and especially Christians, face up to bitter and difficult truths with courage.

I commend your respectful reporting of the facts. The NCR piece is thinly sourced although, as you say they are fumbling toward the truth. A truth which I think will be another Pandora's box for the Vatican.

Fr. Maciel took the practice of influence peddling in Rome to a new low. In of itself it is shocking only because of what we now know about his double life. It's surprising to me that the NCR would not be able to find out the answer to its own questions: Are envelopes with thousands of dollars in cash given to cardinals when they say Mass, give talks or have dinner in a religious house mere donations? The Legion of Christ raises money as a charity. How does it record such outlays? Does anyone in the Vatican have access to Legion financial records? This "not knowing" strikes me as extraordinarily naive. We might hope it should be otherwise, but I'm afraid the Vatican has always been a microcosm of what goes on with politicians, governments and multinational corporations. Spare me the surprise.

With regard to your efforts to investigate Legionary finances in Mexico you know it's not an easy task. Apart from any sinister reasons - of which I am unaware - in Mexico because of the anti-clerical laws, religious congregations "hid" their assets behind small, purposely created, "shell corporations" like a limited-liability corporation. The upside of this is that religious property (schools, universities, hospitals etc.) were protected from expropriation because the religious did not "own" them. The downside legacy is that it is not easy for an outsider to know precisely what is owned and by whom.

I am skeptical of Berry's article because he is using all of the usual sources. This taints his objectivity in my opinion, and makes his article just that less credible---though it will sell, as Vatican conspiracies involving money invariably do. Maybe part 2 will be better?

another question: Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, great friend and supporter of Fr Maciel and the Legionaries, loaned something like $240,000,000 to the NY Times in the 1990s to tide it over some bad times. pjhowes suggests here that he called in a favor a week or so ago: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100032982/a-vast-sex-and-money-scandal-threatens-the-vatican-but-once-again-ratzinger-emerges-as-the-campaigner-against-filth/

I hope we can get to the bottom of the well on the Maciel scandal. What is really frustrating is hearing that the LC are shutting the doors of SCC in the middle of the semester. You cannot tell me the LC do not have the funds to hold this school over until the end of the semester. The innocent still suffer!

Jack mentioned Fr. Marciel's "double life". Could it be that he was genuinely, mentally ill? That he had a split personality? Could God have used the "good" personality to establish a beautiful, faithful, and holy religious order? And Satan use the "bad" personality to try and destroy not only the LC"S but the Church as well? Not defending, just asking.

I used to sit next to Fr. Maciel's personal secretary when we attended theology together in school. He never told me much, but he did admit that each month the Legion would purchase several thousand dollars of Vatican stamps as an investment. Seems trivial to me now as it did then. But we did here that other religious communities sometimes referred to them as the "Millionaires of Christ." I strongly suspect the founder, perhaps others in the community as well, mishandled money.
Frankly, I admired the Legion a great deal for their evident discipline and fidelity to Church teaching. Some of us occasionally sensed there was something a little odd about them, but no one could say exactly what it was. One symptom we seemed to notice was the exact uniformity of them all, right down to the pencils they used. Also, although they were always willing to talk to those who approached them, they would never spontaneously strike up a conversation with outsiders.
Both their community and mine, the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, went through the pain of seeing a charismatic leader, reputed to be a saint, exposed as an immoral fraud. In both cases it was Pope Benedict XVI who put an end to the Vatican intrigue about these case, and finally made public, clear decisions. How unfair it is for anyone to write, think, or say that this Holy Father has ever had anything to do with a cover-up! Some Vatican officials might have tried that in the matters I am referring to (Fr. Gino of the Oblates and Fr. Maciel of the Legion), but Cardinal Ratzinger was the one who realized that the testimony and evidence could not be ignored. In the end, the Oblates had their purification in1988 onward. As the former Secretary General I was in the middle of it and ended up losing my faith for years. By God's mercy that is now in the past. But all should pray for the Legion, its members, and its benefactors. The spiritual and emotional pain they will endure during this time is impossible to describe.

Thinly sourced? It seems very well sourced to me. It seems a bit rich to call Berry out when he has been getting the story right from the very beginning. It was this magazine that used thinly sourced "evidence" to claim that Maciel was innocent beyond moral certainty. I have been a subscriber to and reading First Things for nearly 14 years, but I think Berry deserves much credit, especially when he and others have been trashed by this and other publications, for serving the truth when it comes to Maciel.

I write as a great fan of First Things who thinks you all have been right about almost everything where you differ from the National Catholic Reporter. The Legion of Christ has been a huge exception, and the absolutely dismal past of First Things in relation to Fr. Maciel and the Legion of Christ makes snark in Mr. Bottum’s post particularly inappropriate.

Jason Berry and the National Catholic Reporter were telling the truth about Fr. Maciel’s crimes at a time when the editor of First Things was participating in a campaign of calumny against the victims of Fr. Maciel’s abuse. Certainly by the time that Fr. Neuhaus published his infamous diatribe against Berry, his partner Gerald Renner, and the accusers/victims, there was enough documented evidence and public first-person testimony to persuade anyone who was not either systematically sheltered from information, willfully obtuse, or simply not paying attention. Most of the Regnum Christi and Legionaries of Christ faithful and the late great John Paul II were probably in the sheltered category, but the prominent conservatives who continued to flack for the Legion almost certainly qualify as willfully obtuse at best.

This is a truly shameful blot on the reputation of your fine journal. I have been told that it is unseemly to make posthumous apologies for others, so perhaps a “purification of memory” is not in order. But surely those who carry on Father Neuhaus’ legacy, including the current editor of this magazine and the public intellectuals who joined in piling on the victims, have some work to do to restore their own honor. George Weigel’s call for accountability, which though it was tardy, coming only after the Legion was already down, was a small start. There is much more to be done.

to JMJ2in1,

Lk 6, 43-45 "A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.
A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks." (NAB)

You can also read Mt 12,25-37

@ JMJ2in1

"Jack mentioned Fr. Marciel's "double life". Could it be that he was genuinely, mentally ill? That he had a split personality? Could God have used the "good" personality to establish a beautiful, faithful, and holy religious order? And Satan use the "bad" personality to try and destroy not only the LC"S but the Church as well? Not defending, just asking."

Yes, JMJ2in1, that is most likely what happened.

"That ain’t exactly what any real journalist would call a smoking gun, and the National Catholic Reporter has clearly rushed the story in a patent effort to link up with the media attention focused on the priest scandals in Europe. (And in a effort to tar with the Maciel scandal the conservatives the paper dislikes.) Not a stunning moment in professional Catholic journalism."

'exactly', 'real journalist', 'smoking gun', 'clearly', 'rushed', 'link up', 'tar', stunning; where'd i leave that damn book on fallacies?

We know how Maciel passed around cash (not checks) to build up his support. Did Neuhaus and First Things receive "donations" from him, his order, or the rich guys behind them? First Things sure looks like a subsidized journal. How many subscriptions have you sold to these people?

The Berry article and Bottom's response are fueling my misgivings about what kind of Pope JPII was. His charm and charisma were apparently very powerful in attracting people to the Faith and helping many of to be once again proud to be Catholics. And his clear support for orthodoxy is not to be denied. But this and other stories of despicable priests and bishops during his reign are very disturbing. It is increasingly clear to me that as the Pope, the administrative head of Christ's Church, he did a really lousy job. I think he should have stayed in Rome and poped.

Conquest Dad carried my sentiments exactly. When I tried a few years ago in email to alert Fr. Neuhaus to the Legion's fraudulent front organizations, he gave me very severe "fraternal correction" about scandal-mongering and calumny. I asked him in reply if he would have said the same thing to Alexander SolzhenI itsyn when he told the truth about the Potemkin Villages of Communist Russia. But Fr. Neuhaus did not reply. It may not be polite to say, "I told you so," but I'm saying that I tried to tell him so. He knows the truth now. May he RIP.

Before too much criticism of Jason Berry's latest is done by FT, it ould be well to take a little stroll down memory lane. The March 2002 issue of First Things did not exactly cover itself with glory when the following was written in "The Public Square" regarding Fr. Maciel. But if Fr. Neuhaus could be fooled, any of us could have been fooled:

"I am not neutral about the Legionaries. I have spent time with Fr. Maciel, and he impresses me as a man who combines uncomplicated faith, gentle kindness, military self-discipline, and a relentless determination to do what he believes God has called him to do. They are the qualities one would expect of someone who at age twenty-one in Mexico vowed to do something great for Christ and his Church, and has been allowed to do it. In the language of the tradition, they are qualities associated with holiness; in his case a virile holiness of tenacious resolve that has been refined in the fires of frequent opposition and misunderstanding."