The Great Pretender: Marcie Maciel

And the subject of recalcitrant priests.
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I just read a fascinating review in The New York Review of Books on the life of Fr. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ.  The Maciel scandal seems to have been extensively covered in Mexico, and amazing revelations have come out about the man.  The holy founder priest leading a double, maybe a triple life - in the public eye no less: "Maciel was also a bigamist, pederast, dope fiend, and plagiarist."  If the information in the article is true, Maciel showed signs of trouble even as a young seminarian.  (Be forewarned, the review is also considered anti-Catholic/anti-Church - the author makes some rather derogatory remarks.)
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In 1938 Maciel was expelled from his uncle Guízar’s seminary, and shortly afterward from a seminary in the United States. According to witnesses, Maciel and his uncle had a gigantic row behind closed doors, and one witness, a Legionary who had known Maciel since childhood, told the psychoanalyst González that the bishop’s rage had to do with the fact that Maciel was locking himself up in the boarding house where he was staying with some of the younger boys at his uncle’s seminary. - NYR

How could that be?  How did Maciel manage to become so 'great' in the eyes of the Church, even in the eyes of John Paul II?  It is such an unsettling mystery how this man got away with so much.  His story would make a great film however, given the right script and director.  Jim Cavezial could play the more mature Maciel, with Raymond Arroyo playing the youthful seminarian.
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How to keep your job:  “obedezco, pero no cumplo" - obey but don't comply. 
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Exchanging emails with a friend concerning a few local priests who, unlike Maciel, openly support causes in opposition to Church teaching, and publicly participate in protests, parades, and unauthorized synods and the like, I asked him;  "Why aren't these guys disciplined and removed as pastors from their parishes?"  My friend, who has connections to the chancery explained to me; "It's like tenure with an university professor - you just can't fire them." 
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Really?  So you can't transfer them someplace else?  You can't give them early retirement?  But you can let them live and minister in open opposition to Church teaching?  I know many older priests have long owned their own homes, they have their own lives as it were, and perhaps ministry has become more a career, a position they paid their dues for.  Is that why a local ordinary can't just transfer a guy who has settled down someplace?  Because you can't expect him to leave a nice home and a dog, even if he lives a kinda/sorta irregular life, or who teaches error...  I'm not saying throw them out on the street - let them keep their homes, just remove them from active ministry.
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Why not? 
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The other question I always ask - "Why do dissidents and hypocrites stay in a Church they disagree with?"  The author of the Maciel piece offers one answer to that question at the end of his review.
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"In 1979, at the time of John Paul’s first visit to Mexico, I had a conversation with a progressive Spanish priest who lived with his partner, a middle-aged woman, about the split life he lived. Why, I asked, didn’t he leave the Church if so many of its norms violated his own convictions and desire for honesty? I remember his saying, in effect, that the possibility of doing good within an institution as enormous and influential as the Church was greater than the chances for doing good outside of it."

And perhaps more lucrative if you have tenure.  Will scandals never cease?
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Photo: Source   Creepy.  Caption:  "Who's your daddy?"

H/T Spirit Daily for the Maciel story.