Suzanne – my long-time friend, fellow Canuck, and fire team partner in the trenches of Catholic pro-life activism in the Great White North – is coming under fire for having believed in Maciel’s innocence and disbelieved his victims (click here). I can understand. We go way back and I can corroborate her following reaction and description of herself:

It was a shocking level of duplicity. Very hard to digest. When you live your life to be honest and as simple as possible, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would be so two-faced.

Which is why I find it impossible to be angry with her, or to seek hidden motives for her reaction, despite our past disagreements over Maciel, or the movement he founded. There’s a small community of orthodox Catholics and pro-life activists in Canada. We’re about the same age, and we both became active around the same time, when our numbers were even fewer. Hence the temptation to believe that anyone who professed Catholic orthodoxy was our friend. Without my background in canon law and wide exposure to Catholicism in the U.S., I would likely find myself in her shoes.
So no hard feelings Suzanne. I may question LC higher-ups who claimed to known nothing of Maciel’s duplicity, but I don’t question Suzanne’s integrity for having believed them. For me this is another tragedy of this scandal. That such a kind, honest and devout young mother like Suzanne – that such a supportive friend and loyal ally in Canada’s culture war – was pitted against Aaron, Glenn Favreau, Paul Lennon and other honest men who I consider friends and allies in the Church’s internal struggle against Maciel’s methodology.
So no hard feelings, my friend.