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	Legion - Holy See Orders Apostolic Visitation By the Cathoholic Joan Frawley Desmond March 31, 2009 http://www.thecathoholic.com/the_cathoholic/2009/03/legionholy-see-orders-apostolic-visitation.html Today, Regnum Christi posted an announcement confirming that the Holy See has ordered an Apostolic Visitation of the "institutions of the Legionaries of Christ" that is likely to commence after Easter. The announcement included two letters: one from Father Alvaro Corcuera, the Director General of the Legionaries of Christ, and a second from the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Notably, the letter from Cardinal Bertone is dated March 10, underscoring the fact that the Legion has taken time to absorb the Holy See's decision and establish a plan to communicate that decision to its members. Though many Catholics expected an updated annoucement from the order to include explicit information regarding the founder's misdeeds, neither letter confirms the substance of previous allegation against Father Maciel, nor do they provides any additional information regarding his past actions that placed the order's future into doubt. Father Corcuera states that he has "thanked the Holy Father from my heart for offering us this additional help to face our present vicissitudes related to the grave facts in our father founder’s life that already were the object of the investigations of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which were concluded in May of 2006, and those which have come to light more recently. We are deeply saddened and sorry, and we sincerely ask for forgiveness from God and from those who have been hurt through this." Both letters seek to underscore the Holy See's on-going support for the order. However, a number of critical questions remain unanswered. The letters do not identify who will direct the visitation and investigate the actions of any superiors who might have abetted the founder's misdeeds. Further, the letters do not identify who will guide the process from the Vatican , or whether the Legionaries will be governed by an apostolic delegate in the interim -- as some critics have suggested. Today, a Zenit news story on the issue noted that the Holy Father would appoint a "team of prelates" for the visitation, but did not identify specific cardinals. Last month, after the news about Father Maciel's double life surfaced in the media, George Weigel argued for a "full audit" of the order. Wrote Weigel: "[T]hat audit cannot be conducted by the Legion leadership, which is likely beset by a maelstrom of internal and external pressures. It must be mandated by the pope, and it must be conducted by someone responsible to the pope alone—not responsible to the relevant parts of the Vatican bureaucracy, not responsible to the cardinal secretary of state, but responsible to the pope alone. There is simply no other way open to an accounting that will be both scrupulously honest and publicly credible. "To take an image from corporate law, the Legion of Christ must be immediately put into receivership: A personal delegate, appointed by the pope, must be empowered to take over the governance of the Legion of Christ and to conduct the moral and institutional audit required. The papal delegate would be instructed to report his findings, both interim and final, to the pope alone, and he would be instructed to make recommendations (again, to the pope alone) addressing the possible futures, including dissolution or dissolution-and-reconstitution, of the Legion." But Austin Ruse was more cautious about prescribing such a plan in his commentary on the Legion's woes.
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