Rhode Island judge on inner workings of Legion of Christ

Rhode Island judge releases documents revealing inner workings of Legion of Christ

by Jason Berry | Feb. 15, 2013

http://ncronline.org/node/45366

Documents released Friday by a Rhode Island judge provide a new window into the internal workings of the Legion of Christ, a religious order of priests whose founder was revealed to have sexually abused seminarians and fathered children by at least two women.
The release of the voluminous court records by Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein came within days of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, who ordered an investigation into allegations against Legion founder Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado when Benedict played a powerful role in the Vatican as a cardinal and again in the early years of his papacy.

Legion of Christ controls $28 million estate in Rhode Island by Jason Berry, Oct. 23, 2012

National Catholic Reporter

http://ncronline.org/node/37616

The Legion of Christ drew $2.19 million last year from a $28 million charitable trust that it controls, thanks to Gabrielle Mee, a wealthy widow who spent her final years as a consecrated woman in Regnum Christi, the order’s lay wing. An orthodox Catholic, she was unaware that Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the Legion, had out-of-wedlock children or that the Vatican had banished him from ministry.

THE LEGIONARIES OF CHRIST AS A CULT?

The Author Michael Ledden tells why the The Legion was important to research,

The Legion of Christ has had a presence in my family as long as I can remember. A mystical status was afforded in my childhood to family members who would only be seen once every few years. Visits by these family members were akin to a visit from Santa Claus when I was growing up. However, as I grew older, I began to notice the strangeness in the interactions, the rigidity and the separateness. When the scandals in the Order broke it was never talked about at home, only snippets of information got through to me. When the fuller picture became clear I read so much about the cult like characteristics of the Order that I knew I would have to research it. The notion of a cult and the behaviours that motivate people to join were always of great interest to me. The kind of cults I would have read about when I was younger felt so detached from my reality that I considered them something from another world. Combining my research with personal experience I am hoping, above all, to remain objective and to use this dissertation as a vehicle to better understand the processes family members went through, why they did so, and what can the future hold for them.  

The Legion of Christ and the Vatican meltdown By Jason Berry, Jun. 21, 2012

Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, is pictured in an undated handout image provided by the order in 2009.

(CNS photo)

http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/legion-christ-and-vatican-meltdown

A string of Vatican investigations and the arrest of the papal butler for allegedly leaking secret documents to the Italian press grabbed the big headlines out of Rome in May and June. The tales of palace intrigue, backbiting cardinals and new mysteries of the Vatican Bank overshadowed the latest jolts in the deepening saga of the Legionaries of Christ, the once high-flying order founded by Marcial Maciel Degollado.

Communion and Liberation and the Legionaries ~ Pondering the ‘what,’ not the ‘who,’ of Vatileaks

Pondering the ‘what,’ not the ‘who,’ of Vatileaks ~ Communion and Liberation and the Legionaries and the Bishop at the centre of the Magnificat Meal Movement debate.

Suit against Legion of Christ to proceed in Conn. By MICHAEL MELIA, Associated Press – 7,Sept. 2011

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A lawsuit filed by a man who claims he was molested for years by the founder of a once-powerful religious order will go forward in Connecticut, where a judge refused in a ruling released Wednesday to dismiss negligence claims against the Legionaries of Christ.