RHODE ISLAND
Catholic Culture

CWN – September 14, 2012

A Rhode Island judge has ruled that the niece of Gabrielle Mee does not have legal standing to challenge her late aunt’s will, which left $60 million to the Legion of Christ.

The niece, who according to the ruling “had seen or spoken to her aunt only once in the 46 years before her death,” did “not seek any personal recovery in this litigation.” Instead, she contended that her aunt would not have left the funds to the Legion had she known more about the scandal surrounding Father Marcial Maciel, the order’s founder.

Mee’s husband, a bank director, died in 1985, and four years later the widow came in contact with the Legion. In 1991, according to the ruling, Mee “became a consecrated woman with the Legion of Christ,” after “the Legion of Christ waived its usual consecration requirements to…