Pope names official to run Legionaries

(July 10, 2010) Pope Benedict XVI on Friday named a senior Vatican official to run the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ after an eight-month investigation of the religious order. A Vatican announcement said Archbishop Velasio De Paolis, an Italian who heads the Holy See's financial office, will serve as papal delegate for the Legionaries. The order, which its disgraced founder, Fr. Marciel Maciel, started in Mexico in 1941, has been scarred by revelations that the founder sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least three children. The Legionaries said on Friday that they welcomed the appointment with gratitude and said they would “put themselves completely at the disposal of Archbishop De Paolis.” In a statement, the order said the practical details of his mandate would be defined in the coming weeks. Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, said Archbishop De Paolis would soon meet the Legionaries' current leadership and would himself decide how to explain his mandate and that of a church commission to study the Legionaries' founding constitutions. The director-general of the Legionaries of Christ, Fr. Alvaro Corcuera, had met Pope Benedict on June 17. The Vatican ordered an investigation, known as apostolic visitation, in 2009 after the Legionaries acknowledged the scandal by their founder who died in 2008 at the age of 87.