Word: priestly
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Disgrace already hung over the Rev. Marcial Maciel when he died in 2008 at the age of 87. In 2005, beset by burgeoning charges that he had sexually abused young seminarians for decades, the Mexican priest had resigned as head of the Legionaries of Christ, one of the Roman Catholic Church's most powerful clerical orders. In 2006 the Vatican - which under the late Pope John Paul II had been one of Padre Maciel's staunchest allies - made him give up public ministry and confine himself to a life of "prayer and penitence...
...tried to rape me." The abuse, González said, got worse after that and lasted years. His brother Omar said he too had been sexually abused by Maciel, starting at age 8. (The sons never took Maciel's surname.) Says Maciel victim Juan Vaca, 72, a former priest and adjunct psychology and sociology professor at Mercy College in New York: "This simply confirms what sort of personality we [were] dealing with: a malignant narcissist." (See the top 10 scandals...
...insists it did not pay, suggesting that the money was the motive for the tell-all radio interview. Masferrer says the Legion has also circulated reports that Maciel was surrounded by exorcists in his final days, suggesting that his immoral acts were the work of demons and not the priest. That's a Hail Mary ploy at best. And it does little to obscure the fact that it's up to Benedict to decide whether Padre Maciel's Legion is itself possessed of enough demons to warrant more severe penance...
Father Jim Martin did not seek the title of Stephen Colbert's TV priest. All he was doing was waiting in the wings for his third appearance on the comedian's show, on which the ebullient, bespectacled cleric was scheduled to be quizzed on poverty - why Martin embraces it when its allure escapes so many other Americans. Then the priest suddenly heard his host direct the audience to welcome "The Colbert Report chaplain...
Although the Episcopal Church ordained its first openly gay priest in New Jersey in 1989, many other denominations do not embrace gay ministers...