ROME
Crux
By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent November 1, 2014
ROME — The Vatican approved a new set of constitutions for the Legionaries of Christ on Saturday, a once-powerful Catholic religious order that fell from grace under Pope Benedict XVI after revelations that its founder had been guilty of a wide range of sexual abuse and misconduct.
The new rules do not specifically deal with sexual abuse, with the Legion asserting that its policies on that front are developed on a national level.
The constitutions, made available in Spanish by the Legionaries on Saturday, present the fundamental rules for the order founded by the late Rev. Marciel Maciel Degollado in Mexico in 1959. Every Catholic religious order has them, to define the order’s identity and to govern its activities.
The Rev. Eduardo Robles-Gil, general director of the order, defined the document “as the path that will guide us to holiness and apostolic fruitfulness in serving the Church and men and women.”
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.