Saturday, February 7, 2009

VATICAN CITY -- A conservative Catholic movement has acknowledged unspecified "inappropriate" actions by its founder but declined to address recent reports that he fathered at least one illegitimate child.

The reports, which have circulated around Rome and online for the last several days, concern the late Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ and its affiliated lay movement, Regnum Christi.

In 2006, two years before his death, Maciel was disciplined by Pope Benedict XVI amid charges that he had sexually abused teenaged boys.

"We have discovered facts about Father Maciel that surprise us and are difficult to understand," the Rev. Paolo Scarafoni, a spokesman at the movement's headquarters, said in Rome earlier this week. "We have received a great gift from our founder but we have also discovered that he had faults."

Scarafoni declined to discuss the revelations in detail, citing concern for the "privacy" of persons involved, and the difficulty of verifying decades-old accusations.

The Legion of Christ (or Legionaries of Christ), which enjoyed Vatican favor under Pope John Paul II, claims more than 700 priests and 2,500 seminarians in 40 countries, including at least 75 priests in the United States. Regnum Christi reportedly has about 60,000 lay members.

-- Religion News Service