Pope grants wide authority to revamp Legion of Christ

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has handed the Vatican’s chief auditor “wide-ranging powers” as he sets about reforming the powerful but scandal-hit Legionaries of Christ. In a decree published Saturday (July 24) on the website of the ultra-conservative order, Archbishop Velasio De Paolis will have final say over all decisions taken by the commission […]

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI has handed the Vatican’s chief auditor “wide-ranging powers” as he sets about reforming the powerful but scandal-hit Legionaries of Christ.

In a decree published Saturday (July 24) on the website of the ultra-conservative order, Archbishop Velasio De Paolis will have final say over all decisions taken by the commission revising the Legionaries’ constitutions.

The 74-year-old Italian, who is president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs for the Holy See, must approve the choice of new priests, schools and seminaries, the disposal of the wealthy order’s assets and other “extraordinary” administrative matters. He will be assisted by four personal advisers.


The Legionaries extensive network comprises 900 priests and 3,000 seminarians operating in 20 countries.

The future of the Legionaries was thrown into doubt in April after an eight-month investigation concluded that its charismatic founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado, had led a “double life.” De Paolis wrote that the order had been “threatened to its roots” by the scandal.

The Mexican priest, who died in 2008 at age 87, had set himself up as an authoritarian leader and is alleged to have been a prolific sexual abuser, fathering several children while building a rigid structure of control.

Maciel’s hand-picked leaders in the movement, who had consistently denied the abuse allegations until the Vatican investigation, will retain their positions “unless it becomes necessary to provide otherwise,” the decree said. Appeals against De Paolis’ actions would be addressed by the pope himself.

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