Legionaries ‘firmly condemn’ corrupt founder

The Legionaries of Christ, currently meeting to complete a new constitution to redefine the charism of their scandal-stained order, have “firmly condemned” and distanced themselves from the “reprehensible and objectively immoral behaviour” of their late founder, Fr Marcial Maciel (d. 2008), writes Robert Mickens.

And in the latest stage of their Vatican-led reform, they have chosen Fr Eduardo Robles Gil as their new general director. They elected the 61-year-old Mexican to a six-year term on 20 January at the Legion’s extraordinary chapter in Rome. The appointment was not made official until 6 February when Pope Francis gave his approval and personally appointed Fr Juan José Arrieta as vice director and Fr Juan Sabadell as an adviser. The chapter elected two other men to the general directorate.

“We want to express our deep sorrow for [Fr Maciel’s] abuse of minor seminarians, the immoral acts with men and women that were adults, the arbitrary use of his authority and material goods, the indiscriminate consumption of addictive medicines and the act of presenting writings published by third parties as his own,” the 61 chapter delegates said in a statement issued on 6 February and ratified by  Fr Robles Gil.

He later told the Rome Reports TV News Agency he and his confrères were “looking to close that painful chapter” of the order’s history. “We want things to go back to normal,” he said.
“Seventy-three years of fraud (1941-2014), contaminated by severe personality disorders of the founder, and imbued by institutionalised lying and duplicity, cannot be deleted by a general chapter and a communiqué,” said Professor Juan Vaca, a former Legionary official who left in 1976 and whose denunciations of Maciel were for years ignored by the Vatican.