Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [109]
In summer 2004 Chris Kunze, three years out of the priesthood, attended a ReGAIN conference in Atlanta. He embraced Juan Vaca in common cause. Three years later in the Georgia capital, Jeb Bush spoke at a Legion–Regnum Christi conference. Among those present, Cardinal Franc Rodé, the Vatican prefect in charge of religious orders, was a champion of Regnum Christi. Rodé flew on to Cancun for a vacation on the Legion’s dime, according to Legion insiders.
Maciel scored another coup in 2003 when Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa wrote an illustrious preface to Christ Is My Life, Nuestro Padre’s book-length interview with Jésus Colina. The book was Maciel’s self-defense against the pending CDF charges. Colina, a member of Regnum Christi, founded Zenit, the Legion-sponsored news agency. In the soft questions, Colina proved himself a willing dupe. So did Bertone, who had worked for Ratzinger in the CDF as a canon lawyer before his appointment in Genoa. In the Italian preface, Bertone wrote of Maciel:
The answers that Fr. Maciel gives in the interview are profound and simple and have the frankness of one who lives his mission in the world and in the Church with his sights and his heart fixed on Christ Jesus. The key to this success is, without doubt, the attractive force of the love of Christ. This has always encouraged Fr. Maciel and his institute not to allow themselves to be conquered by controversy, which has not been lacking in their history.79
Bertone would succeed Sodano as Pope Benedict’s secretary of state.
RATZINGER BREAKS RANKS
John Paul in his twilight showed a surreal dissociation from the abuse crisis. As the Irish scandals worsened, California bishops faced more than nine hundred civil lawsuits filed under a 2002 law that extended the statute of limitations in reaction to Law’s cover-up in Boston. The Vatican had no real plan. The CDF by then had seven hundred cases of priests whose bishops wanted them ousted. Ratzinger was slowly laicizing the worst offenders. But John Paul’s lavish praise of Maciel marked Sodano’s chessboard move against the CDF case. If the Holy Father extols him, how can Father Maciel be bad? On November 30, 2004, the pope gave the Legion administrative control of the Pontifical Institute Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center, an international conference center and hotel school. John Paul praised Regnum Christi for fostering a “civilization of Christian justice and love” and approved their statutes to Sodano’s smile. Did the ailing pontiff read what he endorsed?
103. Recruitment happens in stages, going successfully from kindness to friendship, from friendship to confidence, from confidence to conviction, from conviction to submission.
494. No one shall visit outsiders in their homes, deal with them frequently or speak with them by telephone without justifiable reasons or for apostolic purposes …
504.2. No one shall attend public spectacles or sporting events, even under the pretext of accompanying outside persons or groups, especially if such groups are mixed.
509. The center’s Director or Manager shall review all correspondence from members of the center and release that which he or she judges to be opportune.
514.1. Live your consecration with a sense of removal as it relates to dealings with your family and try to fundamentally channel this relationship into conquering them for Christ.
“I think the only honest answer is that the pope and his senior aides obviously do not believe the charges,” John Allen, the National Catholic Reporter’s Vatican correspondent, wrote on December 3, 2004.80 In a striking coincidence, Archbishop Harry Flynn of St. Paul, Minnesota, released a letter to his pastors that banned the Legion and Regnum Christi from the archdiocese and criticized Father Anthony