The visit to Mexico was haunted by the specter of the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the Mexican founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a powerful and deeply conservative religious order with close ties to John Paul's papacy.
He belatedly reopened an investigation into the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a powerful religious order — and a protégé of John Paul's — and ultimately removed him from ministry.
The most prominent of these cases was that of Father Marcial Maciel, a favorite of Pope John Paul II and the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a powerful Mexican religious order that, at its pinnacle, included eight hundred priests, fifteen universities, and a hundred and fifty prep schools, as well as a lay movement with a reported seventy thousand followers.
Benedict met privately with victims of sexual abuse on a brief trip to Malta last month, and last week the Vatican took control of the Legionaries of Christ, a powerful religious order whose founder was found to have abused seminarians and fathered several children.
MILAN — Pope Benedict XVI appointed a senior Vatican official on Friday to take control of the Legionaries of Christ, the powerful worldwide religious order rocked by scandal after it emerged that its charismatic founder had molested underage seminarians and secretly fathered several children.
Page A4 VATICAN INQUEST ON ORDER The Legionaries of Christ, a powerful but troubled worldwide religious order whose late founder became enmeshed in a sex scandal years ago, said that the Vatican was investigating seven Legion priests over allegations of sexual abuse of minors.
In her senior year at powerful Christ the King, the 5-foot-9-inch Bird averaged 16.3 points, 7.3 assists, a remarkable 8.5 steals and 3.9 rebounds while leading her team to the New York State championship and being named the most valuable player in the state tournament.
