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Silverstein cited the Legion's own admission that consecrated women, who like nuns make promises of chastity, obedience and poverty, must donate half their assets to the Legion within 15 years and all their assets within 25 years. At the same time, the Legion withheld full information from Mee about Maciel's misdeeds, which first came to light in 1997 with a newspaper article alleging the sexual abuse, Silverstein wrote. By 2006, Legion leaders say they knew of Maciel's child. Mee died May 16, 2008. The Legion claimed in court filings that Mee was informed of Maciel's double life, but Silverstein cited evidence disputing that and noted that she had cut off support to another religious movement as soon as she learned that one of its founders had had sexual relations with another man. "Plaintiffs argue, and the court recognizes, that this could reasonably indicate how Mrs. Mee would have acted if she had known of the allegations (or the extent of the allegations) against Father Maciel," Silverstein wrote. An email seeking comment Friday from the Legion was not immediately returned.
The Legion has been facing a serious slump in fundraising following the revelations of Maciel's double life. Properties have been sold off and schools have been closed as the Legion's once exponential growth has contracted, with dozens of priests leaving the order and fewer seminarians joining its ranks. According to testimony cited by the order, the Legion' $35 million purchase of a property in Thornwood, New York, in 1996 was made possible by guarantees from the Legion and Mee that her trusts would pay the Legion's $25 million bank loan. The Legion announced in April it was selling the property, where seminarians studied philosophy, to help reduce its debts.
[Associated
Press;
Michelle R. Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed.
Follow Nicole Winfield at http://twitter.com/nwinfield.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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