Pope meets head of Legionaries of Christ

(June 18, 2010) Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday met in the Vatican the head of the Legionaries of Christ, a religious order in the Catholic Church that has been tainted by revelations that its founder sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least one child. A note by the Legionaries after the private meeting said their director-general, Fr. Alvaro Corcuera, thanked Pope Benedict XVI for his “fatherly care” and assured him of the “unconditional loyalty” of the Legionaries and its lay movement Regnum Christi. The Vatican announced May 1 that the pope had decided to appoint a delegate to take charge of the order after an eight-month investigation showed that the Legionaries needed to be profoundly re-evaluated and purified to survive, given the enormous influence the late founder had on it. The Vatican said the Legionaries founder, Fr. Marciel Maciel, had committed grave and “objectively immoral actions” and showed a “life devoid of scruples and authentic religious meaning.” In February 2009, the Legionaries acknowledged that Fr. Maciel, who died in 2008 at the age of 87, had fathered at least one child who is now in her 20s and lives in Spain, and in March, this year, it acknowledged that the priest had also sexually abused seminarians and that two men are claiming to be his sons.