The cardinal serving as papal
delegate for the Legionaries of Christ has set up a five-man commission
to listen to victims of the Legionaries' founder and present their
claims to the order.
Members of the "Outreach Commission" will "listen to the people who are
requesting a response from the Legionaries of Christ because of Father
Marcial Maciel (Degollado) or in relation to him," said a notice
published Feb. 1 on the Legionaries' website.
The commission will "deal only with cases having a direct relation to
the person of Father Maciel. It will not intervene in cases awaiting
decisions from civil or ecclesiastical courts," the notice said.
Pope Benedict XVI named Cardinal Velasio De Paolis papal delegate of the
Legionaries after it became clear that Father Maciel, who died in 2008,
had fathered children and sexually abused seminarians.
Under Pope Benedict's orders and Cardinal De Paolis' guidance, the
Legionaries of Christ have begun a process of reform and the rewriting
of their constitutions.
In October, Cardinal De Paolis said he was forming a commission to
rewrite the constitutions, another to handle financial matters and a
third "to approach those who in some way put forward claims against the
Legion."
According to the Feb. 1 statement, the Outreach Commission will be
chaired by Msgr. Mario Marchesi, vicar general of the Diocese of
Cremona, Italy, and will include two Legionary priests: Father Florencio
Sanchez, chaplain at the Legionaries' Francisco de Vitoria University
in Madrid, and Father Eduardo Robles-Gil, director of the Legionaries'
lay branch, Regnum Christi, in Mexico.
The other members of the commission are Father Silverio Nieto Nunez, a
priest of the Archdiocese of Madrid and former judge; and Jorge Adame
Goddard, a researcher at the UNAM Juridical Research Institute and a
professor of law at the Panamerican University in Mexico City.
The Legionaries' website -- www.legionariesofchrist.org -- lists a
postal address in Rome and an e-mail address for people who want to
contact the commission.
The members of the Outreach Commission are to write a detailed report on
each victim's statement and present the report to Cardinal De Paolis,
who will consult his advisers and "then make decisions about what the
Legion of Christ should do in each case."
Legionary Father Alvaro Corcuera, director general of the order, said
the commission's role is to help the order "continue facing with
seriousness and responsibility our recent history as regards Father
Marcial Maciel's conduct and the implications and consequences it has
had on some people."
"Insofar as it is humanly possible, we want to close this chapter in its
more painful aspects, seek reconciliation and allow justice and charity
to prevail," Father Corcuera said, according to the published
statement.