The Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ (; abbreviated L.C.), formerly the Apostolic Missionary Mission of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, is a Catholic religious congregation of pontifical right founded in 1941 by the Mexican Catholic priest Marcial Maciel. It belongs constitutively to the spiritual family of Regnum Christi together with the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi and the Lay Consecrated Men of Regnum Christi.
Maciel led the congregation until 2005, when controversies began to emerge over cult-like tendencies within the larger Regnum Christi federation. In 2006, Maciel was investigated by the Holy See and suspended from his ministry, initially over breaches of celibacy, and following public revelations later confirmed as sustained, over sexual abuse of minors. After Maciel's death, and following more revelations, Pope Benedict XVI ordered an apostolic visitation of the Legionaries 2009.
The investigation and reform of the Legionaries of Christ led to a reevaluation of the statutes of Regnum Christi that were written in 2004, and a deep reflection on the nature of Regnum Christi as a whole. Members from all states in life participated in that reflection, as individuals and in groups, under the guidance of officials from the Holy See. The new statutes of the Regnum Christi Federation were approved by the Holy See on May 31, 2019.
History
Foundation On January 3, 1941, the Apostolic Missionary Mission of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was founded in Mexico City as a separate section of the Diocesan Seminary of Cuernavaca. This initiative was promoted by seminarian Marcial Maciel, marking the beginning of what would later become the Legionaries of Christ. The creation of this new entity had the approval of Bishop Francisco González Arias, Bishop of Cuernavaca, and Archbishop Luis María Martínez, Archbishop of Mexico City. The "missionary work", as it was called at the beginning, was composed of a group of seminarians with the purpose of forming a new religious congregation. This objective was recorded in the diary of the founding community, where the seminarians referred to themselves as "future congregated".
On March 25, 1946, a significant step was taken with the establishment of the first novitiate house, in what is called a "foundation in fact", since the congregation did not yet have formal recognition by the Catholic Church in Rome.
Founder
Marcial Maciel was born in Cotija, Michoacán on March 10, 1920, into a devout Catholic family—four of his uncles were bishops—during a time in which the Mexican government was fiercely anticlerical. He became a priest after a troubled youth. Maciel was expelled from two seminaries for reasons that have never been explained, and became a priest only after one of his bishop uncles ordained him after private studies.
Maciel was ordained a priest on November 26, 1944, in Mexico City, but had already founded the congregation in 1941, with the support of Francisco González Arias, Bishop of Cuernavaca. Two years later in 1946, he presented a donation to the Vatican for $10,000, "a huge sum in a city reeling from the war."
Pope John Paul II praised him in lavish ceremonies and called him an "efficacious guide to youth". In general, the Holy See held Maciel "up as a model of sainthood for the faithful" in large part "because he brought in money and vocations to the priesthood."
In the Legionaries of Christ, Maciel was called "nuestro padre". Members of the congregation were taught "the Legion message"—that Maciel "had his enemies, but that he was a living saint for his leadership as an evangelist, drawing the church back from liberal abuses of the Second Vatican Council and attracting young men to a strict religious life."
Maciel abuses
One of the first English language public reports of abuse came in 1997 exposing abuse that happened in the 1950s. Juan Vaca and seven other early victims of Maciel "gave graphic accounts" in the Hartford Courant of how they watched Maciel inject himself with a morphine painkiller in Spain and Rome in the 1950s and finally had to be hospitalized. Cardinal Valerio Valeri received reports "from an older seminarian in Mexico City" and the head of the one Legionaries high school at the time (Cumbres Institute), who were concerned about Maciel's drug use and "overly affectionate behavior with boys". Valeri suspended Maciel but in 1959 he was reinstated by Clemente Micara, the interim vicar of Rome.
In 1998, nine men lodged formal charges at the Vatican that Maciel had abused them as youths and young men while studying under him; Maciel was initially investigated by the Holy See and suspended from his ministry in 2006. In 2009, an apostolic visitation was ordered by Pope Benedict XVI and shortly after Cardinal Velasio De Paolis was delegated to impose "structural changes".
For a long time, the Vatican dismissed accusations by seminarians that Maciel had abused them sexually, some when they were as young as 12. After years of denial by the Congregation and the Regnum Christi movement and dismissal of accusations made by many former members, an investigation prompted by the Vatican concluded that allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Maciel were true. On 1 May 2010, the Holy See issued a communique on its year-long investigation of the Legionaries, condemning "system of power" created by Marcial Maciel, that hid "true crimes" and a private life "without scruples or authentic religious sentiment." The communique called for the Legionaries to follow a "path of purification", including a "sincere encounter" with Maciel's abuse victims.
The superiors of the congregation did not officially inform the rest of the congregation until a year after his death, during which time, they continued to permit an internal culture of revering him as a saint. The Legionaries of Christ eventually acknowledged their founder's "reprehensible and objectively immoral behavior" as head of the congregation. As a result of the scandal, Pope Benedict XVI also removed the vow of charity, which required members to maintain secrecy, impermeability, and refrain from criticism of superiors. The "very serious and objectively immoral acts" of Maciel, which were "confirmed by incontrovertible testimonies", represented "true crimes and manifest a life without scruples or authentic religious sentiment", the Vatican said.
After the scandals of Maciel came to light, some priests and seminarians left the congregation. Several schools and centers of formation closed. According to the BBC, the 2019 report by the order found that Marcial Maciel had abused at least 60 children, and that another 33 priests of the order abused minors, bringing the total number of children abused by the order since its founding in 1941 to at least 175.
After Maciel's abuses came to light, Pope Benedict XVI sentenced him to a life of "prayer and penance" in 2006. Maciel died in Jacksonville, Florida, on January 30, 2008, aged 87, and was buried in his hometown of Cotija de la Paz, Michoacán, Mexico. Immediately following Maciel's death, the Legion's leaders proclaimed "his ascent to heaven". In 2010, the Vatican declared in an official communiqué that "the very grave and objectively immoral actions of Father Maciel, confirmed by incontrovertible testimonies, in some cases constitute real crimes and manifest a life devoid of scruples and authentic religious meaning."
Further abuses
In 2019, the organization admitted that Father Fernando Martínez Suarez had abused eight minors between 1990 and 1993. A month later, they admitted that members of the organization had sexually abused 175 children between 1941 and 2019. Sixty of those were abused by its founder, some of whom were his own children from several relations. Six of the priests had died, eight had left the priesthood, one left the Congregation, and 18 continued in their posts but had been removed from tasks where they interacted with the public or with children. +
The 2019 report by the Legionaries noted that 14 of the 33 priests who abused minors had been victims themselves when they were young, thus highlighting what it called "chains of abuse", where "a victim of a Legionnaire, over time, becomes in turn an aggressor". The Legionaries of Christ also singled out former Vatican Secretariat of State Angelo Sodano for leading efforts to cover up the reports of abuse. According to the report, an internal commission "verified the various accusations of sexual abuse of minors throughout the history of the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ. It collected the global statistics of cases of abuse by its priests between 1941 and 2019 and included an appendix with the steps taken to prevent future abuse and guarantee safe environments."
Renewal Following the revelations of abuse, the Legionaries underwent a visitation by the Vatican and a process of renewal through a series of discussions revolving around the charism of the movement, the relationship of the congregation to the lay movement, and the place of both within the Church.
In 2006, Maciel was investigated by the Holy See and suspended from his ministry, initially over breaches of celibacy. This followed public revelations that he had sexually abused minors, which were later confirmed. The Legion's additional vow of "charity" had been used to induce secrecy, promising not to criticize superiors. This was lifted by Pope Benedict XVI in December 2007.
Apostolic visitation In early 2009, the Vatican ordered an apostolic visitation of the institutions of the Legionaries of Christ following disclosures of sexual impropriety by Maciel. Vatican authorities named five bishops from five different countries, each one in charge of investigating the Legionaries in a particular part of the world: Ricardo Watty Urquidi, Bishop of Tepic, Mexico, in charge of Mexico and Central America, where the Legionaries have 44 houses, 250 priests and 115–120 religious seminarians;"Ricardo Watti Urquidi", Catholic Hierarchy Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, in charge of the United States and Canada, where the Legionaries have 24 houses, 130 priests and 260 religious seminarians; Giuseppe Versaldi, Bishop of Alessandria, in charge of Italy, Israel, the Philippines, and South Korea, where the Legionaries have 16 houses, 200 priests and 420 religious seminarians (in Italy 13, 168 and 418 respectively); Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, Archbishop of Concepción, Chile, in charge of Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil and Venezuela, where the Legionaries have 20 houses, 122 priests and 122 religious seminarians; Ricardo Blázquez Pérez, Bishop of Bilbao, Spain, in charge of Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Holland, Poland, Austria and Hungary, where the Legionaries have 20 houses, 105 priests, and 160 religious seminarians.
They met with the pope to report on the visitation in April 2010, and the Vatican issued a statement on 1 May 2010.
Revision of statutes, 2019 report and aftermath Cardinal Velasio De Paolis was delegated to examine the Legionaries' constitutions and conduct a visitation of its lay affiliate Regnum Christi in 2012. On October 19, 2012, De Paolis published a cover letter for a summary of the Regnum Christi's charism which he had approved as a working document.