Legionaire Internal Memo - "the majority knew nothing, including those who are currently in command of the Legion"

Long-time, well-respected Vatican watcher Sandro Magister has written an insightful piece entitled "Legion Leaders Absolve Themselves Before They Sink." In it, he discusses an internal Legionaire memo released May 5 and recently leaked to the public. Magister has this to say about the memo:

In it, the current leaders of the Legion not only minimize the damaging force of the Vatican statement on May 1, but they also deny the accusation that they knew for many years about the double life of founder Marcial Maciel, and covered it up.

In fact, they write in the memo that when the Vatican statement says that "most of the Legionaries were unaware of this life," this "means that the majority knew nothing, including those who are currently in command of the Legion."

But then who made up the "system of power" that – as the Vatican statement affirms – built around Maciel a "mechanism of defense" of his unworthy life, with the "silence of the entourage" and with the "deplorable discrediting and ostracism of those who doubted his upright behavior"? Of whom was it composed, if not the leaders of today and yesterday?

Implausibly, after absolving themselves this way, the authors of the memo add that "it remains to be examined whether there was culpability on the part of those whom the Vatican statement mentions." As if, in addition to the double life of Maciel, there was also a double leadership at the head of the Legion, the second of them also kept concealed.

This is a must-read for those interested in following the Legionaire story. You can read the entire piece here.