The Vatican has finished its investigation into the shamed Catholic order Legionaries of Christ, but is still months away from publishing its findings.
The conservative order once hailed by Rome fell into scandal after it revealed that its founder had fathered a child and had molested religious students.
The Vatican said today its five investigators are to report back to Rome this week about their study of the Legionaries 120 seminaries, schools and communities around the globe.
The Legionaries said the first phase of the inquiry was over and that a final report would still take several months for Rome to complete.
While the Vatican’s recommendations are unknown, analysts have speculated it might appoint a new leadership for the order and outline a series of reforms.
Its recommendations will be closely watched, given the current focus on the Vatican’s handling the growing sex abuse crisis convulsing the church in Europe.
The pope ordered the investigation last year after the Legionaries acknowledged its late founder, the Rev Marcial Maciel of Mexico, had fathered a daughter and had sexually abused seminarians.
Since then a Mexican woman has come forward saying she had a lengthy relationship with Maciel, that he fathered her two sons, adopted a third and sexually abused two of them.
The disclosure of Maciel’s double life has caused enormous turmoil inside the Legionaries and its lay affiliate, Regnum Christi, particularly because information initially released by the leadership was less than forthcoming. The order had essentially created a personality cult around Maciel, teaching that he was a hero whose life should be studied and emulated.
In the wake of the revelations, the order has taken down pictures of Maciel that used to adorn its institutes, edited its websites and reviewed editions of books that heavily quoted from Maciel’s writings, the Legionaries’ New York and Atlanta directors wrote in a letter to Regnum Christi members in September.
The Vatican investigation was extraordinary since it only launches a so-called “apostolic visitation” when it considers a group unable to correct a major problem on its own.
Five bishops appointed by Rome spent eight months visiting Legionaries communities to get first-hand knowledge of the order and its work.
Even after the revelations came out, questions remained about whether any current leaders covered up Maciel’s misdeeds and whether any donations were used to facilitate the misconduct or pay off victims.
The Legionaries was formed in 1941 and became one of the most influential and fastest-growing orders in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II championed the group, which became known for its orthodox theology, military-style discipline, fundraising prowess and success recruiting priests at a time when seminary enrolment was generally dismal.
The group says it now has some 800 priests and 2,600 seminarians worldwide, along with 75,000 Regnum Christi members.
The Vatican began investigating allegations against Maciel in the 1950s, and again in 1998 after nine former seminarians said he had abused them when they were boys or teenagers in Catholic seminaries in Spain and Italy from the 1940s through the 1960s. Later, others came forward.
But it was not until 2006, a year into the current papacy when the Vatican instructed Maciel to lead a “reserved life of prayer and penance” in response to the abuse allegations.
Maciel died in 2008 aged 87.
AP