
Legionaries of Christ © Wolfgang Radtke (KNA)
The Vatican has recognized two new statutes within the Catholic community Regnum Christi. Thus two branches within the community, the "consecrated women" and "consecrated men", are recognized under church law as "societies of apostolic life".
In addition, the Vatican approved the statutes of these two groups. As the community announced Thursday, at the recent General Assembly in Rome, the Archbishop of the Curia in charge, Jose Rodriguez Carballo, presented the relevant documents to.
Who is the community Regnum Christi?
According to its own information, the Regnum Christi community currently has a total of more than 1,000 members worldwide.500 Legionaries of Christ (priests, novices and religious), some 562 consecrated women and 63 consecrated men, and some 21.300 lay people. The new statutes are intended to prevent the re-emergence of a system of fraud and sexual abuse like that set up by the order's founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado (1920-2008).
Under the supervision of a papal assistant, four branches of the community have each drafted their own new statutes since 2013. The approval of the statutes of the entire Federation is still pending. After the double life of Degollado came to light in 2009 and subsequent inspection by the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI had. (2005-2013) replaced the entire religious leadership of the Legionaries of Christ.
What changes
In a homily, Archbishop Rodriguez, secretary of the Congregation for Religious, warned members of the community against any form of triumphalism. This does not correspond to the Gospel and to the Church, "which looks with shame at so many events that should never have happened".
The current canonical recognition also makes it possible for the consecrated laity, together with the religious community of the Legionaries of Christ, to form a federation in the Church, which the laity will then also join individually as members of the fourth branch in the Regnum Christi.