VATICAN CITY
New Zealand Herald
VATICAN CITY (AP) The Legion of Christ religious order has suffered another blow with the announcement Thursday that its training center for consecrated women in the U.S. is closing because of poor enrollment.
The Mater Ecclesiae College in Greenville, Rhode Island, had catered to women who were deciding whether they wanted to live like nuns within the Legion’s Regnum Christi lay movement.
The consecrated branch of the Legion was plagued by serious spiritual and psychological abuses, requiring a Vatican-mandated overhaul just as the Legion itself was taken over by Pope Benedict XVI after revelations that its late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, had fathered children and sexually abused his seminarians.
In a letter Thursday, the head of consecrated women in North America, Nancy Nohrden, said that the “difficulties and institutional changes” of the past few years had resulted in fewer vocations and lower college enrollment. She said the school would close at the end of the academic year.
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