Regnum Christi | English / Facebook
CV NEWS FEED // The apostolate Regnum Christi Foundation announced Feb. 5 that the Vatican “has definitively approved” the Foundation’s new statutes, which were approved on a temporary basis in 2019 after a Vatican-led abuse investigation in 2009 led to reform efforts.
The disgraced late Father Marcial Maciel founded Regnum Christi in 1959. He also founded the Legionaries of Christ, which is one of the Foundation’s four vocations. According to Regnum Christi, the other vocations in the Foundation are Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi, Lay Consecrated Men of Regnum Christi, and lay members.
The Feb. 5 announcement states that, in 2019, the Vatican Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life granted an ad experimentum approval of Regnum Christi’s new statutes, which “were the fruit of a process of renewal initiated in 2010 which sought to clearly express the unity of the charism shared by” the members across all four vocations.
According to the Catholic Review, the Vatican condemned Fr. Maciel “for having sexually abused boys in his seminaries and fathering children.” The BBC reported in 2019 that Pope Benedict XVI ordered Fr. Maciel in 2006 to retire into a life of penitence. According to the Catholic Review, in 2009, the Pope “appointed a papal delegate to oversee the groups as they underwent a Vatican-ordered reform of their communities and constitutions.”
In 2019, a Legionaries of Christ commission published a report, documenting the abuse of minors that took place from 1959 to 2019 in the Legionaries, “detailing the progress and challenges still to overcome.”
“We deplore and condemn the abuses committed in our history, as well as those institutional or personal practices that may have favored or encouraged any form of abuse or re-victimization,” the commission stated in the report’s epilogue. “We ask forgiveness of the victims, their families, the Church and society for the grave harm that members of our Congregation have caused. We acknowledge with honesty and shame the reality of the crimes of sexual abuse of minors in the Legion’s history, sincerely desiring a continued personal and institutional conversion.”
The Feb. 5 announcement states that the ad experimentum period since 2019 has been crucial for initiating the Federation’s structures and for supporting the apostolate’s unity and collaboration. The Vatican’s official definitive approval of the statutes “reaffirms the validity of the path traveled,” the statement explained, “and strengthens the commitment to live our charism with confidence and courage, in communion with the Church and at the service of the mission.”
