Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Fr. John O'Reilly, Maciel Protege, Convicted of child abuse in Chile

http://img.emol.com/2012/09/08/oereili_7546.jpg

Just learned about this. See previous posts on this blog



The blogger is researching claims made by a Chilean digital news that Fr. O'Reilly, who was close to Pedophile Legion of Christ Founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel, was whisked out of Ireland in 1985 before he could be investigated for abusing minors....Being an international order and having lots of money the Legion often switches its members across the continents for its own "efficacy" (convenience).

What we do know is that Dublin born Fr. O'Reilly entered the Legion of Christ at around 18 years of age and trained at the Legion Novitiate in Leopardstown, later in Salamanca and Rome. While in Rome he was one of the privileged few to be Fr. Maciel's personal waiter. He, like many other naive Legionaries, during 6 decades, admired and adulated the supposed saint. 

Fr. O'Reilly, on the heels of fellow Dubliner, Fr. Raymond Cosgrave, spearheaded the Legion's recruitment, fundraising and societal influence among Chile's upper classes, establishing the exclusive Instituto Cumbres school in a residential neighborhood of the Chilean capital, Santiago while socializing with the rich and famous.

He achieved prominence and power for the Legion culminating in his being made a Chilean citizen several years ago

 

Chile: Irish Priest Guilty of Sex-Abuse on Minor

An Irish-born priest was found guilty on Wednesday of sexually abusing a minor while he was chaplain at a school in Chile's capital.
A court in Santiago said that the Rev. John O'Reilly committed the abuse while he was the spiritual guide at the Cumbres school located in the affluent neighborhood of Las Condes.
The families of two sisters had accused the priest of molesting the pre-teen girls between 2007 and 2012. The court absolved him in one of the cases. His sentence will be announced on Nov. 11.
"The court has established ... beyond all reasonable doubt the following facts: that O'Reilly decided to carry out actions of a sexual nature through body contact with a school student," Judge Maria Teresa Barrientos, said adding that the priest committed the abuse several times in 2010 and 2012 during school hours.
O'Reilly, who arrived to Chile in the mid-1980s and was granted Chilean citizenship in 2008, is a member of the Legion of Christ. The once-respected conservative order fell into scandal after it revealed that its founder had fathered a child and had sexually abused seminarians.
Prosecutors are asking for O'Reilly, who has denied any wrongdoing, to serve 10 years in prison and be banned from any job near children.
The Roman Catholic Church retains a strong influence over society in Chile, although it has lost credibility since 2010, when four men alleged that they were abused by one of the country's most revered priests when they were between 14 and 17 years old.
The Vatican sanctioned Rev. Fernando Karadima by ordering him to a life of "penitence and prayer." A Chilean judge later dismissed a criminal case because the statute of limitations had expired, but she concluded that the abuse allegations were truthful.
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