Father Maciel , who faces no criminal charges, will join more than 200
archbishops, cardinals and other Catholic leaders next month in an assembly
that will consider the future of evangelization in the Western Hemisphere.
The order he heads is one of the leading producers of new priests in the
world.

"They want to salvage this guy," said the Rev. Thomas Doyle, who once worked
in the Vatican Embassy in Washington and now serves as an expert witness for
clergy-abuse victims. "They get a lot of recruits."

Father Doyle, a chaplain at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, said the
appointment is an effort to dismiss the allegations without fully
investigating or even meeting with the accusers.

The Legionaries of Christ runs The Highlands School next door to the
University of Dallas, along with several dozen other schools and seminaries
in the United States, Latin America and Europe.

The Highlands School's president, the Rev. Steven Reilly, said he viewed the
pope's appointment of Father Maciel as a vote of confidence in light of the
abuse allegations.

"Obviously the truth prevailed," said Father Reilly. He said The Hartford
Courant story, which continues to circulate on the Internet, "didn't have
any significant effect on the school."

A photograph of the pope hugging Father Maciel hangs in the entryway of the
school, which was founded a decade ago and has about 440 students. It is not
operated by the Catholic Diocese of Dallas, but "we recognize the authority
of the bishop and anybody he delegates," Father Reilly said.


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