Marcial Maciel

Uncommon card · No. 158222

Marcial Maciel Degollado (March 10, 1920 – January 30, 2008) was a Mexican Catholic priest and sex offender. Maciel founded the Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement. He was general director of the Legion from 1941 to 2005. Throughout most of his career, he was respected within the church as "the greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church" and as a prolific recruiter of new seminarians. Late in his life, Maciel was revealed to have been a longtime drug addict and alcoholic who sexually abused at least 60 boys and young men in his care. After his death, it came to light that he had also maintained sexual relationships with at least four women, one of whom was a minor at the time. He fathered as many as six children, two of whom he is alleged to have sexually abused. In 2006, Pope Benedict XVI removed Maciel from active ministry, based on the results of an investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in April 2005. Maciel was ordered "to conduct...

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