Maciel admission timed for SSPX controversy?

Many people have been asking what prompted the Legionaries to choose this time for publicly acknowledging the veracity of allegations against their founder Maciel.

Joan Desmond, a widely-published Catholic journalist, is hearing a consistent answer:

Contacts in Rome, who sought to protect their sources during this sensitive time and would not go on the record, report that the on-going controversy over Bishop Williamson - one of the four schismatic bishops whose excommunication was lifted by the pope, but who still denies the existence of the Holocaust ... continues unabated and has made it difficult to work out an intervention by the Vatican. Only the Americans in the Legion have broken ranks in a noticeable way, attracted the public support of prominent Catholics, and appear committed to commencing a thorough house cleaning of the Legion, followed, possibly, by the "re-forming" of the order with new superiors in place.

My contacts assert that the convergence of these two big news events--the outrage prompted by the Bishop Willliamson affair, followed shortly afterwards by the new revelations regarding Father Maciel's "double life" -- was no accident: the order's superiors and their ecclesial allies took advantage of the crisis surrounding Bishop Williamson to minimize the impact of the new disclosures regarding Maciel. The Mexican superiors, I'm told, believe the present tempest will blow over and the Legion will pull itself together and go on as before. (The Cathoholic - updated 3:30pm)

It certainly seems that amidst the hubbub surrounding the SSPX story, coverage of the Maciel scandal has been slim-to-none, except for the notable exceptions chronicled on these pages.

update: welcome, New Advent readers. Complete coverage of the Maciel scndal here.