ROME — The papal delegate to the Legion of Christ ended a three-year period of reform Tuesday, declaring the congregation “reconciled with themselves, with their history, with the world and the Church.”

Closing the Legion’s Extraordinary General Chapter, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis said the congregation had “looked inside themselves with a new and purified glance” and examined their current situation “in order to single out potential traces of pollution left by the founder of the Legion in their identity and action, in their legislation and way of working.”

He added that in “renewing their vocations, their self-giving to Christ and to one another, they have been freed of the burden that weighed on their backs. They have gone out of themselves and have found their place within the whole Regnum Christi movement.”

In 2010, Benedict XVI appointed the Italian cardinal to help oversee reform of the congregation, after a Vatican investigation revealed widespread corruption and abuse by its founder, Father Marcial Maciel.

On Feb. 6, the Legionaries of Christ released a statement that condemned the actions of their founder, apologized to his victims and set a new course for the congregation’s future.

Cardinal De Paolis said the Legion had accomplished the two principal tasks of the Extraordinary General Chapter: to give the congregation a new central government and to revise its constitutions. The constitutions have now been sent to the Holy See for review.

Pope Francis must now decide whether to sign the new constitutions. The Vatican has already intervened in the elections of the Legion’s new governing body, choosing a deputy director and one of the general counselors.