Jun 21, 2010 / 23:34 pm
A man claiming to be the son of Fr. Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legion of Christ, is suing the Legion in a Connecticut court, claiming that the religious order should have known of Maciel’s propensity to abuse children.
Earlier this year José Raúl González Lara came forward claiming that the controversial founder of the Legion was his father. He said that he thought his father worked for the CIA or Shell Oil until he saw a 1997 magazine detailing Maciel’s misdeeds and recognized the pictured priest as his father.
In March 2010, the Legion issued a statement expressing its solidarity with the suffering of the González Lara family and its desire to sort through the details.
The same statement made public a letter that Fr. Carlos Skertchly, L.C., written to Raúl González Lara on January 12, 2010. In that letter, Fr. Skertchly informed Raul that his previous request for $26 million dollars to “keep quiet about the truth” was viewed as “illicit” by the Legion. “We prefer to seek and face the truth, no matter how painful it may be,” wrote Fr. Skertchly.