c. 2006 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican is asking Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of a powerful movement of Roman Catholic priests, to refrain from public ministry as a result of accusations of sexual abuse made against him.

The decision marks the end of a drawn-out investigation into Maciel that appeared, at times, to test the Holy See’s willingness to reprimand a cleric favored by the late Pope John Paul II.

In a statement released Friday (May 19), the Vatican press office said Pope Benedict XVI approved a decision to request that Maciel, 86, limit himself to “life reserved to prayer and penitence, renouncing all public ministry.”

The statement also declared that Maciel would not face a canonical trial _ a proceeding that might have resulted in Maciel’s “laicization” or permanent removal from the priesthood.

The Holy See said American Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which oversees the Vatican’s response to sex abuse, acted with Pope Benedict XVI’s approval and decided not to formally sanction Maciel because of his age.

The Mexican-born Maciel founded the Legionaries of Christ (or Legion of Christ) in 1941. The conservative group of priests now claims about 600 priests and 2,500 seminarians worldwide, including at least 75 priests in the United States.

Maciel retired last year and lives in Rome.

The Legionaries posted a response to the Holy See’s statement on their Web site, indicating that Maciel had accepted the pontiff’s decision as a “new cross that God, the Father of Mercy, has allowed him to suffer and that will obtain many graces for the Legion of Christ.”

In 1997, nine former Legionaries accused Maciel of sexually abusing them decades ago when they were training to become priests in his order. The allegations sparked a Vatican investigation conducted by the office of the then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) in 1998 that ended late last year, after stalling in 1999.

The Vatican did not release any details from the investigation. It was also unclear from Friday’s statement if the Vatican had taken any formal action against Maciel to restrict his activity.

Alberto Melloni, a church historian with the University of Modena, said the Vatican’s actions against Maciel might appear too ambiguous to many of the church’s toughest critics on clergy sex abuse.

“It’s hard to say if this will be seen as a proper action or a way of looking for cover,” he said.

Maciel’s punishment appears to be lighter than if he had been an American priest. Under new policies adopted by U.S. bishops in 2002, accused priests are automatically _ and involuntarily _ removed from ministry. The bishops, however, allowed similar possibilities of lives spent in “prayer and penance” for older clerics.

David Clohessy, national director of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said the Maciel case illustrates the need for victims to persevere with their allegations, saying it took “decades (for victims) to finally be heard and get vindication.”

“The entire church owes an enormous debt of gratitude to the courageous, wounded and determined Maciel victims who, thank God, persevered in the face of vilification and rejection,” Clohessy said.

“What’s significant here is that the Vatican could have ignored this case and let it remain unresolved forever. And they didn’t. Would we have liked an even clearer and stronger sanction? Of course. But is this sanction positive and significant? Absolutely.”

_ Daniel Burke contributed to this report from Washington.

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