ROME
National Catholic Reporter
John L. Allen Jr. | Dec. 23, 2013 NCR Today
Rome
If most Catholics were to compile a list of counter-intuitive things to do with one’s life these days, deciding to become a priest with the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ religious order probably would finish fairly close to the top.
The once-powerful group became a poster child for the church’s sexual abuse crisis after revelations of misconduct by its founder, the late Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, which were denied by the Legionaries until Pope Benedict XVI sentenced the Mexican priest to a life of “prayer and penance” in 2006.
Even then the Legion maintained public silence, and didn’t really start acknowledging Maciel’s double life, which included relationships with two women and fathering up to six children as well as charges of abuse of boys, until 2009.
Today, the order is still struggling to clean house. Just two weeks ago, it announced that an investigation had found “significant evidence of sexual abuse” by a priest who served as novice master at a Cheshire, Conn., seminary.
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