Legion of Christ says arrested priest has been charged with rape

Simán offers a carefully curated timeline in an attempt to prove due diligence from the Legion of Christ.

In full Legionary of Christ fashion, Simán renders his order as the victim of “media lynching” in Mexico.

By Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez

Late Tuesday afternoon, the Legion of Christ acknowledged Antonio Cabrera has been charged with rape for aggressions going back to 2004, 2007, and 2011.

Cabrera, a key figure in the order, a member of Marcial Maciel’s inner circle, was arrested by authorities at the Mexico City International Airport, when trying to leave the country.

The statement signed by priest Alberto Simán, the current Legion’s territorial director of Mexico and Central America, addresses other members of the order and, in full Legion of Christ defensive mode, renders its order as the victims of a “media lynching.”

The statement is a timeline of sorts acknowledging dates of the internal process, while explicitly calling other members of the Legion to avoid rushing into conclusions, as they cling to the idea that Cabrera is innocent, despite already accepting canonical accusations against the former faculty member of the Universidad Anáhuac.

Simán’s statement echoes what the order used to do when their websites, in the early days of this century, denied any and all allegations of abuse raised since the 1950s against Marcial Maciel.

In a contradictory fashion, the statement says that the first news of Cabrera’s behavior is from November 25, 2022, when the “mother of the alleged victim” filed a complaint.

Simán dismisses it, associating said report with “a minor issue” that happened during a trip to Europe, when the victim, identified as a male, was a minor, providing no further details.

Following Simán’s timeline, there was a previous report of that matter, going all the way back to 2016 or 2017, for which he seems to imply there is no paper or electronic record, as the matter was reported to a Legionary associated with another province or territory of the same order.

Simán claims it was after the 2022 report that he followed the Catholic Church’s procedure as stated in Canon 1717 of the Code of Canon Law. The canon details the initial steps a leader of a diocese or an order must follow after a formal report of clergy sexual abuse.

Canon 1717 of the Code of Canon Law outlines the preliminary procedure when a bishop or other ecclesiastical authority receives a report about an offense. It is the canon opening the Book VII of the Code, dealing with the so-called penal processes involving clergy in the Catholic Church.

In theory, it mandates a “careful inquiry” into the issue or offense, either personally or through someone he appoints, unless he decides from the outset that such an inquiry “seems entirely superfluous.”

This is where the issues begin, as there is a long-standing record of cases where the inquiry appears as “entirely superfluous” to the incumbent authority. Once again, the best example of it comes from Maciel himself, who always found such an attitude in key figures of the Mexican Conference of Catholic Bishops, going all the way to John Paul II himself.

By keeping that faculty of the so called “ordinary,” a bishop or the superior of an order, as Simán would be in the case of the Legion of Christ, superiors have a chance at delaying consideration of an early symptom of clergy sexual abuse.

Simán accepted the need for a probe, so one started on December 1, 2022. He claims he set “restrictions” on Cabrera’s ministry, barring him from interaction with minors, and from getting in contact with the victim or his family.

Simán claims the Legion carried an “extensive probe” going all the way to August 8, 2023. He acknowledges that the team in charge found some “elements” that form the basis of the formal criminal charges before the Mexican authorities.

Immediately, Simán claims there was “a series of mistakes” in the probe, “forcing” him to follow canon 1718.3. It is unclear why he followed that additional step, but the fact is that one month later, he signed a “decree”, more like an internal memorandum, sending the full file to the Legion’s Headquarters, so they could send it officially to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The Legion’s general director or superior general, as usually styled in the Catholic Church, is U.S. priest John Connor. He was appointed to the position back in February 2020, and he is currently, since April, on a leave of absence due to illness.

In full Church bureaucratic mode, it took almost four months for Connor’s office to send, on January 24, 2024, the files to Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Argentine Cardinal who is the prefect of the Dicastery since July 2023.

Connor’s office seems to have been willing to acknowledge some wrongdoing as Simán claims the Legion’s general director was seeking to open a “penal (for the purposes of the Catholic Church) administrative process”.

Victor Manuel Fernández’s office took six months to answer Connor on June 13, 2024, but only to acknowledge the need for such a process.

Simán then goes on to explain that, as to facilitate the process for the victim and his family, they decided to continue the process in the Church tribunals in Madrid, Spain. According to Simán, the Church tribunal in Spain received the files on September 3, 2024.

The Legion's superior in Mexico seems to be surprised by the decision of the tribunal in Madrid to formally indict, for the purposes of the Church, Cabrera on April 25, 2025.

Simán claims the family originally declined the idea of pursuing the case in civil courts in Mexico. He simultaneously portrays the Legion as the victim of “long” and “out of our control” canonical processes yet acknowledges the frustration and desperation of the victims and their relatives.

Repeatedly, over the nearly three full letter-sized pages, Simán claims to have the victims in mind. He also insists he has been trying to deal with the issue while urging the other members of the Legion of Christ to keep praying.

Despite it all, last week Cabrera was arrested when trying to leave Mexico for an undisclosed location, as a previous story, linked above, recounts. The full, Spanish-language statement appears as a PDF in the box after this paragraph.

Full Legion of Christ statement. Spanish-language only.