VATICAN CITY
ABC News
VATICAN CITY January 7, 2014 (AP)
By NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
The troubled Legion of Christ religious order is electing new leadership for the first time since its founder was revealed to have been a pedophile and a fraud. The process starting Wednesday will formally end the Vatican’s three-year rehabilitation of the movement, a reform the Legion is touting as a success and critics have dismissed as a sham.
The Legion was once held up as a model by the Vatican, which turned a blind eye to the Rev. Marciel Maciel’s misdeeds as the order became one of the fastest-growing congregations in the Catholic Church and brought in millions in donations. After three years of Vatican-imposed reform though, questions still remain as to how the Legion can exist when its founder was a fraud and its core mission remains unclear.
The Legion’s hope is that following the monthlong meeting, Pope Francis will approve a new constitution that explains the order’s mission, hierarchy and rules and will allow the Legion to move on without any more Vatican oversight. The Legions top superiors and 42 priests elected as representatives — including many close to Maciel — will finalize the constitution and then elect new leadership.
But several former Legion priests have urged the pontiff not to fall for the order’s “supposed reform,” saying the rehabilitation process ignored its core dysfunction: financial duplicity, lack of an authentic religious identity and continued cover-up of the people who facilitated the founder’s crimes.
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