“Connecticut suit accuses another Legion of Christ priest of sex abuse” & related articles

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New Haven Register

In this Nov. 30, 2004, file photo, the late Pope John Paul II gives his blessing to the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of Christ’s Legionaries, during a special audience the pontiff granted to about four thousand participants of the Regnum Christi movement, at the Vatican.The Vatican is investigating seven priests from the troubled Legion of Christ religious order for alleged sexual abuse of minors and another two for other alleged crimes, The Associated Press has learned. At one time, before the charges against Maciel were proven, the Vatican had held him up as a role model.

In this Nov. 30, 2004, file photo, the late Pope John Paul II gives his blessing to the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of Christ’s Legionaries, during a special audience the pontiff granted to about four thousand participants of the Regnum Christi movement, at the Vatican.The Vatican is investigating seven priests from the troubled Legion of Christ religious order for alleged sexual abuse of minors and another two for other alleged crimes, The Associated Press has learned. At one time, before the charges against Maciel were proven, the Vatican had held him up as a role model. AP Photo/Plinio Lepri, File

HARTFORD >> A former top official for the scandal-plagued Legion of Christ sexually abused a teenage boy in the early 1990s, according to a lawsuit filed this week in Connecticut.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, accuses a priest who served as second-in-command to a man who founded the conservative religious order and molested his own seminarians. It’s believed to include the first such accusation against the Rev. Luis Garza, who’s believed to be living in the Philippines.

A Legion of Christ spokesman said Garza denies the allegations. Garza “categorially denies his involvement in this or any other abuse and has said he will cooperate fully in any inquiry regarding this matter,” spokesman Jim Fair said.

The plaintiff, whose name was not made public, says he was abused by Garza; the order’s founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel; and a third priest at a Legion boarding school in Mexico beginning in 1990 or 1991, when he was about 13 or 14 years old.

Over a couple years, the plaintiff was abused several times by each of the priests, according to J. Michael Reck, one of his attorneys. The plaintiff fled the school because of the abuse, made his way back across the Mexico-U.S. border and finished high school in the United States, Reck said.

The plaintiff grew up in California in a devoutly Catholic family with a reverence for priests. The boarding school, outside Mexico City, was one of the Legion’s training grounds for clerics, according to the complaint.

Fair said the Legion is committed to providing “a safe environment for young people in all its institutions and operations.”

The lawsuit names the Legion of Christ as the defendant and was filed in Waterbury Superior Court in Connecticut, the home state of the order’s U.S. headquarters.

Garza, a 58-year-old native of Mexico, was the order’s territorial director for Latin America and Mexico when the plaintiff says the abuse began. In November 1992, he was named Maciel’s No. 2 as vicar general, a position he held until 2011.

During his tenure, the Legion vigorously defended Maciel against sex abuse allegations by his former seminarians, which were first lodged at the Vatican in 1998 but were shelved amid a campaign by Garza and the Legion to denounce the accusations as libelous gossip and discredit the accusers.

The Legion, which was founded by Maciel decades ago in Mexico, was taken over by the Vatican in 2010 after a church investigation determined Maciel, who died in 2008, had molested several boys and fathered at least three children out of wedlock.

According to a 2011 deposition in a contested will case, Garza testified he confronted Maciel’s mistress and daughter, starting in 2006, after he became suspicious while visiting Maciel in Florida and seeing the women there.

Yet Garza said he never confronted Maciel about his double life and didn’t think it was necessary to share the news with the broader membership of the Legion or its lay movement Regnum Christi. He said he told only the Legion’s superior and two other priests.

The deposition was unsealed after a successful petition by The Associated Press and other news organizations.

The plaintiff’s complaint says he reported the sexual abuse to two leaders of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, first Cardinal Roger Mahony when he was archbishop and then Archbishop Jose Gomez.

A spokesman for the archdiocese said a search of correspondence files for Mahony and Gomez did not turn up anything concerning Garza. He said Mahony has no memory of speaking with anybody claiming abuse by Garza and there’s no indication of any appointment with the archbishop or call to his office about the matter.

The complaint also alleges the plaintiff reported the abuse to Legion officials in 2014. Reck said the Legion sent a representative to the plaintiff’s home but he never heard anything further.

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New Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Filed Against Legionaries Of Christ

The Hartford Courant

28 October 2016

A former member of the Legionaries of Christ has filed a lawsuit against the Cheshire-based religious group, claiming that when he was 12 years old he was molested by its leader, Marcial Maciel Degollado.

The civil lawsuit, filed in Waterbury Superior Court last week by New Haven attorney Joel Faxon, refers to the victim as John Roe and alleges that he was molested not only by Maciel but also by two other priests, Father Luis Garza, the former head of the North American chapter of the Legionaries, and Father Jose Sabin.

The lawsuit said John Roe enrolled in a Legionaries seminary school in 1989 when he was 12 and was supposed to attend a school in New Hampshire but instead ended up in a school the group ran in Mexico.

Beginning in about 1990 or 1991, John Roe was sexually assaulted on multiple separate occasions by Maciel, Garza and Sabin, the lawsuit alleges.

“These priests engaged in unpermitted, harmful and offensive sexual contact upon the person of Plaintiff. The sexual contact and/or acts constituted or would have constituted criminal conduct,” Faxon wrote in the suit.

The boy fled the campus and eventually made his way back to California, where his mother was living at that time, the suit says.

John Roe reported the alleged abuse to officials from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, both in writing and verbally, and in 2014 he reported the abuse directly to Legionnaire officials, but he never received a response from anyone, the lawsuit says.

“They knew or should have known that there was a specific danger of child sex abuse for children participating in their youth programs,” Faxon wrote. “By accepting Plaintiff into their residential facility and transporting him into a foreign country isolated from his parents, Defendants solicited, accepted and owed the highest possible duty to care for the minor Plaintiff.”

The lawsuit says Roe still suffers the effects of the sexual assaults, including post traumatic stress and depression and will continue to incur expenses for medical and psychological treatment.

He is seeking more than $15,000 in damages.

The Legionaries North American headquarters are in Cheshire. The group was founded by Maciel in Mexico in 1941.

Maciel was the subject of a 2006 investigation by the Vatican into allegations that he sexually assaulted numerous children and even may have had a child. Maciel died in 2008, but not before some of the sexual assault allegations were confirmed.

1 Response to “Connecticut suit accuses another Legion of Christ priest of sex abuse” & related articles

  1. Sylvia says:

    More bad news for the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ. Note the following regarding Father Garza:

    According to a 2011 deposition in a contested will case, Garza testified he confronted Maciel’s mistress and daughter, starting in 2006, after he became suspicious while visiting Maciel in Florida and seeing the women there.

    Yet Garza said he never confronted Maciel about his double life and didn’t think it was necessary to share the news with the broader membership of the Legion or its lay movement Regnum Christi. He said he told only the Legion’s superior and two other priests.

    I will add here that by 2011 it was well known that Father Marcel Maciel was a child molester and sexual predator. But Garza saw no need to warn others? and no need to protect young boys and seminarians? and no need to bring the ongoing sacrilege to an end?

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