The last Legionnaires' apostolic visitation and predicted March outcome [Updated: Plagiarism]

With Zenit reporting a conclusion of the Legionaries of Christ apostolic visitation will be in March, this is a good time to review the first one (1956-1959).

Cassandra Jones explains:

. . . it concluded obscurely and Father Maciel and the Legionaries were able to misrepresent it for fifty years afterward. But the visitation did occur and actually concluded that Maciel needed to be removed from office and that the Legionaries needed reform. The Legionaries defeated that first apostolic visitation with untruth, appetizing presentation, and the help of curial friends. This is something that anyone interested in the honest outcome of today’s visitation needs to be aware of.

Attending the article is an instucitive timeline.

Bishops taking part in the current Apostolic Visitation met at the Vatican for "their first evaluation" on Dec. 4. They denied having met in October, as was reported earlier.

The Legion will not be dissolved but head will roll, according to an article by Jesus Bastante at the Spanish site ReligionDigital.com. The article says in part [Spanish]:

• Visitators will submit in their reports in mid-March, 2010.
• The order will not be dissolved but reaction will be stern and dismissals are expected.
• Current Legion leaders "are trying to disengage completely from the figure of" Maciel because Benedict has declared "zero tolerance" for pedophiles:
  

  The Pope was visibly shaken by everything that he has learned about the life of the founder of the Legion of Christ, and the responsibility not only Maciel, but many of his colleagues, who are now trying to avoid its responsibility by ignorance and apologizing.

• The seminaries will be restructured.
• Many top leaders will be asked to resign, among them probably Alvaro Corcuera, the current General Director, whom many accuse of having "instigated" the silence around Maciel for many years.

[H/T: How to get a loved one out of the Legion of Christ & Regnum Christi]

Does all of that remind you of Ireland, where after decades of systematically concealed abuse is revealed in a stunning report, the pope is outraged and an Irish bishop's resignation is accepted but thus far no one is going to jail? Nor, it seems, is the pope going to visit Ireland to apologize.

Just make some changes in top management, tidy up the offices and move on.

Maciel's Plagiarism:

“El Salterio de mis días” (The Psalter of my Days), popular and long-venerated by members of the Legion of Christ as a work of Fr. Marcial Maciel's spirituality, was plagiarized from a book by Spanish Catholic politician, Luis Lucía.

According to the Catholic News Agency, the plagiarism was disclosed in a recent, internally circulated Legion of Christ memorandum whose purpose was to further distance current members of the Legion from its founder.

The original book was “El Salterio de mis horas” (The Psalter of my Hours).

CNA reports that in it Lucía, a Spanish Christian Democrat, "reflected on his experience of being persecuted both by the Communist government during Spain's civil war (1936-1939), and the Nationalist government of Francisco Franco, who condemned him to death, but later changed the sentence to life in prison."

According to a CNA source, Fr. Maciel's version reproduces "80% of the original book in content and style."