CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant
Editorial
At long last, the Roman Catholic Church is taking action to investigate allegations concerning priests from the Legion of Christ, whose U.S. headquarters is in Connecticut.
Although the Vatican assumed direct leadership of the scandal-plagued religious order two years ago, this is the first evidence that the church will actually do something about accusations that seven of its priests sexually abused minors.
The Legion (also known as Legionaries of Christ) runs a seminary in Cheshire. It has acknowledged that its founder, the Mexican-born Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, abused underage Legion seminary students over the years and fathered at least one child out of wedlock. But all along, despite complaints to the contrary, the order has insisted that any Legion-based crimes were isolated incidents committed by Father Maciel alone.
Now, to its credit, the Legion has referred the cases of seven priests accused of abusing minors to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which investigates sex crimes.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.