Pope Benedict XVI lamented that the Vatican acted "slowly and late"
in a scandal surrounding the Legionaries of Christ, and a Vatican
official called Tuesday for an investigation into who covered up for the
conservative order's disgraced founder.
The pope insisted,
however, that the order has done good and should not be dissolved
despite the double life of the late Rev. Marciel Maciel, who was
discovered to have abused seminarians and fathered at least three
children.
"Unfortunately we addressed these things very slowly and
late," Benedict said in a book released Tuesday. "Somehow they were
concealed very well, and only around the year 2000 did we have any
concrete clues."
Maciel founded the Legion in 1941 in Mexico and
it became one of the wealthiest and fastest growing orders in the Roman
Catholic Church.
Despite long-standing allegations that Maciel was a
pedophile, no action was taken until 2006, when the Vatican ordered him
to a lifetime of penance and prayer — though it did not say for what.
Only
after his death in 2008 did the order admit publicly that he had
fathered children and that the abuse allegations were true, spurring the
Vatican investigation.
Monsignor Rino Fisichella, who heads the
Vatican's evangelization office, said the Vatican would be wise to look
at who covered up for Maciel inside the Legion — "those who took his
appointments, those who kept his agenda, those who drove him around."
Fisichella
was responding to questions at a news conference in Rome about the
pope's comment that Maciel's crimes had been concealed, amid reports
that the reverend had high-ranking supporters in the Vatican who
protected him for decades.
Maciel is known to have been a favorite
of Pope John Paul II because of his orthodoxy and his ability to
recruit priests and raise money from wealthy patrons.
But
Fisichella said the Vatican suggested looking inside the Legion. "We
must be able to verify how well-covered up it was inside his
congregation, not outside it," he said.
Jim Fair, the Legion's communications director, said "the Legion agrees with the pope's comments in the new book."
The
order announced Tuesday that its powerful vicar general, the Rev. Luis
Garza, was giving up some of his duties. Garza has insisted he knew
nothing about Maciel's crimes until recently.
The Legion said in a
statement that Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, the Vatican official whom
Benedict appointed to profoundly reform the disgraced order, has also
expanded the group's governing general council and will appoint the two
new members himself.
In the book, Benedict said the order deserves to continue its work.
"Maciel
remains a mysterious figure. There is, on the one hand, a life that, as
we now know, was out of moral bounds — an adventurous, wasted, twisted
life. On the other hand, we see the dynamism and the strength with which
he built up the congregation of Legionaries," the pope said.
"Naturally
corrections must be made, but by and large the congregation is sound.
In it there are many young men who enthusiastically want to serve the
faith. This enthusiasm must not be destroyed. Many of them have been
called by a false figure to what is, in the end, right after all."
The
revelations have thrown the Legion into chaos, with several prominent
priests leaving the order over the past year, and dozens of consecrated
members of the Legion's lay branch, Regnum Christi, quitting.
In
October, the order suffered one of the biggest blows with the
resignation of the Rev. Santiago Oriol, who headed the Everest School in
Madrid and was a member of a wealthy Spanish family that for decades
helped the order raise money.
SIC: AFP/INT'L