Parents will burn in hell. Narrator of secrets and hypocrisy. So there we were, where they had had sex all night long, and he took out all his paraphernalia and started to celebrate mass. Narrator and a story of leaked documents exposing a bitter internal power struggle. I published documents dealing with corruption, scandals, frauds, nepotism. Narrator now a new pope, francis, must battle the forces that overwhelmed his predecessor. If he wants to change the church, its going to mean decisive action. And its risky to take on the vatican curia. Tonight on frontline, secrets of the vatican. Frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support for frontliis provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information is available at macfound. Org. Additional funding is provided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The wyncote foundation. And by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. taking oath in latin narrator a year ago, when the cardinals converged on rome to elect a new pope, they all understood what was at stake. The atmosphere was the most serious, the most intense that ive ever, ever known because of the issues which the church was facing. At the top level in rome, things were not going well. And then the shame of child abuse has had a most serious effect, i think, on the church not just in the west, but i think all over the world. The Catholic Church, and in particular the pope, has the highest moral voice in the world. If that voice is diminished by scandals, thats a serious matter. Narrator this was one of the shortest conclaves ever. crowd cheering bells ringing by the evening of the next day, white smoke from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel confirmed that 1. 2 billion catholics had a new pope. crowd cheering cameras snapping cheering continues speaking italian he said, ill give you my blessing, but before the bishop blesses the people, he said, i want you to pray over me. crowd falls silent you could have heard a pin drop. There were people crying in the square with joy. Pope francis comes on the scene at a time when the church is in a deep crisis. He said, the church is like a Field Hospital after a battle. Hes talking about people who are wounded within the church. Narrator a new beginning for a wounded church. organ music playing eight years earlier, when Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict, he also promised a new beginning. He was taking over at a time when the church was reeling from the scandal of sexual abuse by the clergy, and he promised firm action. translated i still remember very clearly when Cardinal Ratzinger, in 2005, went through the stations of the cross. At the ninth station, i think, he stopped and denounced all the filth that is inside the church. But he said, its not the people from outside who bring the filth into the church. It is us who make it dirty. Narrator he knew a lot about filth in the church. For 24 years, as prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, Cardinal Ratzinger had been responsible for matters of theology and discipline. Many serious cases of priestly abuse crossed his desk, none more troubling than the scandal surrounding the legionaries of christ a scandal that, until very recently, the church fought hard to suppress. The legionaries was one of the fastestgrowing orders in the church, recruiting young men in great numbers from countries across the world. The order was founded in 1941 by marcial maciel, a young man with powerful family connections to mexicos conservative catholic elite. Maciel was the greatest fundraiser of the modern church. The man had a gilded touch. Narrator journalist jason berry spent years investigating maciel and the legionaries of christ. He could get millionaires and the wives and widows of multimillionaires to support his movement of renascent orthodoxy. And he was bringing in a great many young men to this religious order that saw itself on a crusade to save the church from the decay of the modern world. The maciel case is one of the darkest chapters in the history of the contemporary church, without a doubt. Without a doubt. Narrator in 1947, 10yearold juan vaca was personally chosen by maciel to enter one of his seminaries. Like all the other boys, he had to swear before god that he would never speak ill of maciel. I was enrolled with that mentality maciel gave us that we were a very selected group, an elite, chosen by god to conquer the world, but at the same time he started to control our minds, to control our communication with our parents. Narrator on a winters night in 1949, maciels control of juan vaca reached another level. We used to go to bed after last prayers in chapel. A colleague of mine, he said, nuestro padre our father wants you go to his bedroom. In his bedroom . To me, as a child, it was very strange. Anyway, i went to his bedroom. He was already in bed, and he took my hand and said, please give me a massage in my stomach, because i have terrible pain. He said, lower, lower. Finally, i was touching his penis, and he got an erection. I felt completely petrified. I was in shock. So after a few seconds, i would say, i felt his semen on my hand. Okay, maciel said, now i feel much better. Now you can go and go back to sleep. Narrator the next morning, after a sleepless night, juan felt unable to follow the call to mass and went straight to maciels office. I told him, i cannot go to communion because i committed a sin last night with you. He said, no, juan, dont worry, i give you the absolution. I forgive you. And he gave me the sacramental absolution of a sin. He said, dont worry. What you did was an act of charity, because you helped me to relieve of my pain. You didnt commit a sin. Narrator the abuse continued on a regular basis, and juan discovered that there were 20 other boys involved. In the meantime, the legion went from strength to strength. applause juan vaca was ordained in 1969 and became maciels deputy, but he was caught in a twisted relationship. He never touched me again since 1961, but i knew he was doing with others. Maciel was also abusing drugs dolantin, a derivative of morphine. Narrator in 1971, father vaca was given a senior position with the legionaries in the united states, but by now, he was in conflict with himself. I am lying to people, getting money for missions when its being used to support this type of life marcial is having. Narrator eventually, father vaca wrote a document setting out all the crimes hed witnessed and presented it to maciel personally, with a request to be released from the legionaries. Everything is right here in these papers, please read. So when he was, like, halfway, he started to cry, you know, he said, juan, you cannot do this to me. You did this, more than that to me for 32 years, and this is it. Well, i was just already making the decision to name you the second in command in the order my assistant general. I said, father, even if you give me your position, i dont want it. This is it. Narrator in 1976, father juan vaca made a decision. He would send his damning report to the vatican. I named 21 colleagues of mine that had been also abused. I witnessed the abuse myself. Narrator father vaca also described maciels misappropriation of funds to maintain his extravagant lifestyle and the bribes hed paid to doctors and the police. We knew that the letter was received because we sent it through the diplomatic pouch because we got protocol number suchandsuch received, but no answer. No reply to the content of my information, nothing at all. people cheering speaking spanish narrator not only did the vatican not respond to the letter, but Pope John Paul led massive celebrations to mark both the 50th and the 60th anniversaries of father maciels priestly ordination. The vatican did nothing. John paul continued to praise maciel despite the pending allegations. speaking spanish narrator he described the founder of the legionaries of christ as an efficacious guide to youth. That quote incensed maciels victims. They would go public with the testimony they now had on maciel. Cardinal joseph ratzinger. Narrator the official responsible for investigating child abuse cases, was Cardinal Ratzinger. He had to respond to the news media about the charges against maciel. Theres a question whether. Come to me when the moment is given not yet. Narrator but he was in a bind. John pauls public celebration of maciel made it very difficult for him to take action, and all the while, maciels activities went unchecked. The situation changed at the end of 2004. At that time, Cardinal Ratzinger made a decision, to his credit, that maciel had to be investigated. So he sent a canon lawyer in his office, monsignor charles scicluna, to america and mexico to take the testimony of these men. He clearly knew that whoever would become the next pope needed to have maciel under investigation, lest the vatican be tarnished by this scandal of a much accused pedophile and nothing happening to him. people singing narrator with the death of Pope John Paul, it was ratzinger himself, now Pope Benedict, who would have to pursue the case against maciel. Once hes pope, then the question becomes, how do you deal with this man . What should have happened was that the order should have been disbanded, and instead, he invited him to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penance. Narrator there was no description of his crimes. No apologies to his victims. Why didnt he just banish him . Why . Because the legionaries of christ is a large and very wealthy order and puts lots of money in the vaticans coffers. The legion, which had defended him all along, never admitted that he abused any of these altar boys or young seminarians, announced at his death that he had gone to heaven. singing a year later, the legionaries announced that he had a child. Well, it soon became apparent that he had a grown daughter living with her mother, one of maciels paramours in madrid. singing narrator and, it turned out, a son by another woman in mexico. The price of the churchs failure to act was revealed in jason berrys interview with raul gonzales. He was a good person when he acts like our daddy, and a demon when he acts like a predator. Narrator maciel lived multiple lives, and this is a rare glimpse of him on holiday. Raul and his halfbrother omar would be invited on trips like these, but raul says there was a heavy price for the boys to pay. All the days that we stayed with my dad, on every trip, there were abuses. Was it mostly masturbation . No. Well, i feel really sorry about my brother, because he was, um. He was penetrated by my dad, and my brother also penetrated him because my dad told him that that was the way he was going to learn. And he always told us how to kiss, we have to kiss him because thats the way we were going to learn how to kiss a girl when we grew up. And you were ten, 11 years old . Um. Ten. Whoa, im going to have to stop. He took me on a. On a walk. He said. Ratzinger gave his famous sermon shortly before the funeral of john paul referring to filth in the church. Many people believe, as i do, that he was really referring to maciel, and by that time, he had a good deal of information on him. Narrator and as Pope Benedict, he also knew as much as anyone in the church the extent of the clergy sex abuse scandal. He took every opportunity to apologize. To the men suffering because of abuse as children, especially within the church by her ministers. There is no doubt that for a person like joseph ratzinger, who is so engaged in faith, these crimes are horrible. During his trip to the united states, he told it to the reporter, saying there is no place, there has not to be place in the church for such people. I had the opportunity to meet Cardinal Ratzinger a couple of times when he was a cardinal, and i found him to be a very charming, selfeffacing, gentle person. When he encountered as pope the issue of sexual abuse of children, i think his reaction was genuine. But he was a creature of the Institutional Church. Thats the only life he knew, and he could not do what was necessary. Hes a shy man, hes a very kind man, and they made him pope. He had absolutely zero pastoral experience. Joseph ratzinger should never, ever have been a bishop. He just didnt have the gifts, the charisma. Hes a theologian. Hes a catechist. He didnt have the administrative skills. Narrator so when the clergy Sexual Abuse Scandal exploded into an International Crisis on his watch, Pope Benedict seemed unable to take charge, while the Church Hierarchy responded as it had done for years. I worked from 1981 to 1986 as the secretary canon lawyer at the Vatican Embassy in washington, d. C. Narrator in that role, father doyles job was to deal with sexual abuse cases on behalf of the church. My job was to talk to the diocese and find out what was going on, and above all, see that they kept a lid on that there was no publicity, that it didnt become known to the public, causing scandal. Narrator then he began to have doubts about what he was doing. Even at the early stages, i had met some of the victims. My life was changed when i met them. Then it went from a purely academic issue, from names on a piece of paper, to human beings, and that, of course, for me at least, it was a drastic change. Narrator faced with so many cases, father doyle decided to speak out. The physical and spiritual abuse that these. I believe i saw the inside of the workings of the Institutional Church in a way that i had never believed even existed. I was severely disillusioned. Because if christ were here today, hed be with them. applause those of us who have been the most outspoken and the most directly accusatory of the hierarchy have lost any possibility of a career in the clerical world. Im still a priest, but im not active in the official ministry of the Catholic Church. I do not wear clerical garb at all because i see clericalism as one of the most prominent and important causes for this entire problem the attitude that the clergy are somehow removed and above other catholics and that we have to be protected at all costs. Narrator father doyle is not alone. Other priests have now come forward and in spite of retaliation by the church are speaking out on behalf of victims. Were actually doing what the church theology, the teaching of the second vatican council, and the church law says we ought to be doing. Yes, yes. All the christian faithful, everybody, they have a right and even an obligation to make their concerns known not only to church leaders, but all the rest of the christian faithful. Were just trying to heal through this. We want to be able to trust the clergy. Its hard. Just very hard. One of the wonderful things about coming together for us has been just to listen and to hear. I have carried this guilt and shame with me for how many decades, and its like, its not mine. It never was. This was done to me. I carried it for decades. Narrator when the church chose to suppress stories of clergy sexual abuse, it was to silence people like monica barrett. It was a saturday, and i was eight years old. And my father took my younger sister and i, and we drove out to lake geneva to visit with this priest, william effinger. At one point in the day, father effinger said he needed help in the church with candles. And my father said, go help him. And we went into the church, where he assaulted me for a period of time, and ultimately ended up raping me. While he was raping me, i didnt understand what was happening. I just knew there was this incredible pain and i could hardly breathe, and i kept praying that god would just let me die. And when he finished, he stood up and he looked at me and he said, if you tell anybody what you did, they wont believe you. And if you tell anybody, your parents will burn in hell. And then he gave me penance to do, and he turned and looked at me, and he smoothed his hair back with both of his hands and he walked down the aisle of the church, and i remember hearing the door close. And i just sat there because i didnt know what i should do, and eventually i realized that there was blood on my legs and there was blood on the new purple shorts that my grandma had given to me for my birthday. And so when i got to the end of the aisle of the church, i wiped the blood off with some of the holy water, and i went and i sat outside under this big tree and i was just crying because i was in pain and i didnt understand what had happened to me and i was scared. As a child who went to catholic school, we were taught that the priest is basically the closest youll ever get to god. And for me, when i was raped by that priest, it just pulled my entire foundation out from under me. Everything was just taken away in that day. Narrator eventually, father effinger was convicted of Sexual Assault on another child and died in prison. But monica never got her day in court because of the statute of limitations. But the diocese of milwaukee countersued for 14,000 in legal expenses. They very much were trying to intimidate me and to beat me down and to hold me out as the example, saying, this is what will happen to you if you come forward and tell your truth. Narrator monica was not alone in her battle for justice in milwaukee. Hers was one of hundreds of cases which were aggressively challenged by the diocese, as they were compelled to pay out 30 million in settlements. In all these years, i have to say that the archdiocese of milwaukee has a demonstrated history of having been both the most callous and the most disturbing, the most disturbing. They have fundamentally violated the fundamental safety principles applying to children. Narrator Jeff Anderson has represented victims of clergy abuse for 29 years. He has long argued that milwaukee is following procedures laid down in rome. When it comes to the vatican and its role in this crisis, all i have ever seen them do is talk, both denying responsibility and saying that theyre doing something, when in fact theyre doing nothing other than what theyve done in the past for decades and centuries, which is to deny, minimize blame, keep secrets and protect themselves. Intimid