Should Cardinal Sodano resign for entanglement with Marcial Maciel?

Austen Invereigh argues in America, the Jesuit Catholic weekly, that corruption by Marcial Maciel Degollado requires the resignation of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, "the all-powerful secretary of state under John Paul II and now Dean of the College of Cardinals."

Analyzing Jason Berry's two-part [1, 2] investigation of Maciel - the womanizing, drug-abusing pedophile founder of the Legionaries of Christ (LC) - Invereigh concludes that Sodano's sponsorship and protection were bought by Maciel.

Berry's investigation certainly supports that conclusion. A key passage from Berry's longer, darkly fascinating account of Sodano's entanglement with Maciel:

Back to Rome in 1989, Sodano, in preparing to become secretary of state, took English lessons at a Legion center in Dublin, Ireland. He vacationed at a Legion villa in Southern Italy. An honored guest at Legion dinners and banquets, Sodano became Maciel's biggest supporter. Glenn Favreau, a Washington, D.C., attorney and former Legionary in Rome, said: "Sodano intervened with Italian officials to get zoning variances to build the university" on a wooded plateau of western Rome. Maciel hired Sodano's nephew, Andrea Sodano, as a building consultant. Pontificial Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum is the name of the complex.

But Legionaries overseeing the project complained to Maciel that Andrea Sodano's work was late and poorly done; they were reluctant to pay his invoices. To them, Maciel yelled: "Pay him! You pay him!"

Andrea Sodano was paid.

With the Apostolic Visitation of LC at an end, Invereigh argues, Sodano's "resignation would be the best way of repudiating the sordid manner in which Maciel was protected in Rome for so many years."