Let's see how Mo, Major Tom, and Pete spin this one.
From the JYT:
Quote:
Catholic Order Jolted by Reports That Its Founder Led a Double Life
The Legionaries of Christ, an influential Roman Catholic religious order, have been shaken by new revelations that their founder, who died a year ago, had an affair with a woman and fathered a daughter just as he and his thriving conservative order were winning the acclaim of Pope John Paul II.
Before his death, the founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, had been forced to leave public ministry by Pope Benedict XVI because of accusations from more than a dozen men who said he had sexually abused them when they were students.
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(Subtext filter engaged)
Pope Maledict threw him out for not strictly following accepted Romanist practice, since he had at least one affair with someone who was both adult and female.
And here was his take on the vow of poverty:
Quote:
Father Fichter, once the chief financial officer for the order, said he informed the Vatican three years ago that every time Father Maciel left Rome, “I always had to give him $10,000 in cash — $5,000 in American dollars and $5,000 in the currency of wherever he was going.”
Father Fichter added: “As Legionaries, we were taught a very strict poverty; if I went out of town and bought a Bic pen and a chocolate bar, I would have to turn in the receipts. And yet for Father Maciel there was never any accounting. It was always cash, never any paper trail. And because he was this incredible hero to us, we never even questioned it for a second.”
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So his followers lived in strict poverty so he could have walking-around money. We True Christians™, of course, condemn any such thing.