Although such an investigation would normally be channeled through the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life, Weigel thinks that this would be unwise given the fact that the congregation showed a predisposition towards an ineffective solution, namely, allowing the Legionaries to internally reform themselves after the 2006 sexual abuse allegations involving Fr. Maciel.
Adding to its demonstrated hesitancy to investigate is the Curia’s recent bungling of the rehabilitation of Bishop Richard Williamson, who denied that Jews were killed in gas chambers during the Holocaust. This incompetence shows "just how dysfunctional the curia remains in terms of both crisis analysis and crisis management," Weigel claims.
"A curia in which no one in authority had the sense to Google "Richard Williamson," and no subordinate had the nerve or capacity to compel the superiors to pay attention to a potential landmine, is not a curia capable of getting to the roots of the Maciel betrayal. Nor, candidly, is it a curia capable of conducting an investigation that can command public credibility. It is regrettable that this is the case, for there are many honorable people working in the Roman curia."
George Weigel told CNA that he "would hope that, in the wake of the Williamson fiasco, the Holy See is paying much more attention to the Catholic cyber-world. There are multiple, interesting proposals out there for dealing with the Legion crisis, including suggestions by such unimpeachably orthodox scholars as Ed Peters and Germain Grisez, and they ought to be taken under advisement by the Holy Father, in my view."
The solution to the crisis, Weigel suggests, is for Pope Benedict to appoint a priest who is a vowed religious, who knows the dynamics of religious life, to take over governance of the Legionaries of Christ.
Weigel paints a detailed picture of the qualifications this papal legate should have: "experience in dealing with financial and sexual scandal in a forthright, courageous, and effective manner; ideally, he would have been involved in the reform of a religious house, seminary, or community that had suffered a fall from its professed ideals. He must have good Spanish, for much of the paper trail here will be in that language; he should also have good Italian and English, so that he can conduct his investigations and interviews in the principal languages of Legion life. He must know something of canon law, and he must know competent canon lawyers."
"Men with these qualifications exist," George Weigel says in closing. "One of them must be given this difficult, onerous, but essential task—and soon—if the good that remains among faithful Legionary priests and among the members of Regnum Christi is to find a path toward the future, for the sake of the entire Catholic Church."
The original story can be found here: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1311