Pope to appoint new head of disgraced Legionaries order

Pope Benedict XVI will appoint an interim leader of the ultra-conservative Legion of Christ, whose late founder Fr Marcial Maciel was disgraced after abuse scandals, the Vatican said yesterday.

The Church "has the firm resolve to accompany and help (the Roman Catholic order) on the way to the purification it needs," a statement said.

Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi said a new head would be named within weeks. "The Pope is taking this case very seriously," he added. A team of five bishops who carried out an inspection of the Legion between July 2009 and March met with the Pope last Friday and yesterday.

Fr Maciel's "very serious and objectively immoral actions confirmed by incontestable testimonies ...show a life without scruples nor authentic religious sentiments," the Vatican said.

For the Church, the order's "charisma must be redefined and its authority checked as it must be truthful" so as to preserve the faith and sense of mission of younger people, the statement said.

The Vatican said it would also help those who "inside or outside the order became victims of sexual abuse or of the power structure" established by Fr Maciel, who founded the Legion of Christ in 1941 and ran it with an iron fist.

Mexican-born Fr Maciel, who died in the US in January 2008 aged 87, was accused of molesting eight seminarians and secretly fathering children.

The Vatican said many members of the order had been unaware of Fr Maciel's misconduct as he "created around him a defence mechanism that shielded him for a long time".