ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Service
Dec. 23, 2019
By Cindy Wooden
Demonstrating a strong “chain of abuse,” the Legionaries of Christ said its founder, the late Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, sexually abused at least 60 minors and that at least another 51 youngsters were abused by Father Maciel’s victims or victims of his victims.
The Rome-based headquarters of the Legionaries released a report Dec. 21 looking at the “phenomenon of abuse of minors” by members of the order from its founding in 1941 through December 2019.
At the same time, the Legionaries of Christ in the United States released the names of four members who had been “active in ministry” in the United States and against whom there were “substantiated sexual abuse allegations.”
The commission that drafted the international report “identified 175 minors as victims of sexual abuse committed by 33 priests of the congregation” in the 78 years since the order’s founding, according to “available records.” The commission noted, however, that it “does not claim that its study could have discovered all cases” or that all victims have come forward.
“The vast majority of the victims were boys between the ages of 11 and 16,” the report said.
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