Vatican to Appoint Adviser for Legionaries of Christ

The congregation, recovering from the scandal surrounding its founder, concluded a general chapter in February.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi speaks with reporters.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi speaks with reporters. (photo: CNA/Daniel Ibáñez)

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican announced Wednesday that an adviser will be appointed to assist the Legionaries of Christ in the revision of their newly drafted constitutions.

Having received numerous questions from journalists regarding the state of the Legionaries in light of the congregation’s recently concluded general chapter, Father Federico Lombardi published the answers he received from speaking with Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz and Archbishop Jose Rodriguez Carballo, who are currently overseeing the process.

Cardinal Braz de Aviz serves as prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and Archbishop Rodriguez is the congregation’s secretary.

In the statement published June 25, Archbishop Rodriguez explained that the identity of the Vatican-appointed adviser has not yet been released, but that, as “a gesture of fraternal closeness,” he and Cardinal Braz de Aviz will meet with the Legionaries’ general director, Father Eduardo Robles Gil, July 3 to discuss the needed changes to their constitutions and to reveal who the adviser will be.

The role of the assistant “will be assumed by a consecrated person, as anticipated, who knows the Legionaries and will be able to be of help to the general council on legal and other themes, according to need,” the archbishop explained.

He also emphasized the autonomy of the Legionaries, stating that “this figure is an assistant, not a visitator, commissioner or delegate” and, as such, “has neither a voice nor a vote and is merely an assessor and was agreed upon before the general chapter.”

Archbishop Rodriguez also clarified that following their first general chapter earlier this spring, the Legionaries are no longer under the watch of the apostolic delegation investigating them, but have “returned to the competence of the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life.”

Regarding the various corrections to be made to the text of the Legionaries’ new constitutions, the archbishop observed that they are “very few in number.”

The new constitutions were drafted during the congregation’s first general chapter meeting, which began on Jan. 9 and was mandated by Benedict XVI in the wake of the revelation of the double life led by the congregation’s founder, Father Marcial Maciel, who died in 2008.