Rise of the Catholic Right.(Mexico's Legion of Christ)

For a sense of the new forces stirring inside Mexico today, consider the Legion of Christ. The once obscure religious order, founded 62 years ago in the basement of a Mexico City town house, ranks as the world's fastest-growing branch of Roman Catholicism. It attracts more recruits to the church's aging priesthood than any other Catholic congregation on the planet, per capita. The legion's ultra-orthodox doctrine mirrors that of Pope John Paul II, and its influence reaches into the highest echelons of Mexico's business and political elites.

The leader of this sect--the octogenarian priest Marcial Maciel, based in Rome--hasn't lived in his native land for more than a half century. Maciel was just 20 years old, not yet ordained, when he established the legion in 1941 as a Catholic army of soldiers in soutanes, battling to "establish the kingdom of Christ throughout the world." In practice, that has translated into the courtship of Latin leaders across the hemisphere--and the order has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. No other religious figure wields more influence in Mexico than Maciel--not the ranking Catholic prelate, Cardinal Primate Norberto Rivera Carrera, nor any of his 110 bishops. Close friends and associates include Lorenzo and Roberto Servitje, the head of Mexico's multinational food giant Bimbo, and the country's First Lady, Marta Sahagun de Fox.

The Legion of Christ is no ordinary religious order. Instead of running neighborhood parishes, its followers concentrate on missionary work and educating children of the faithful, the list of whom read like a Who's Who of the Mexican private sector. The legion owns an impressive network of 10 universities and 154 mostly upmarket private schools-- prompting some wags in the Mexico City press corps to dub the order the Millionaires of Christ. Its conservative teachings and strict discipline have struck a chord with millions of Latin American parents- -and not just affluent ones. The legion also runs 17 Mano Amiga (Spanish for "friendly hand") schools dedicated to the education of indigent kids--nearly 11,000 in total, scattered across Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador and Venezuela.

There is a darker, even somewhat medieval side to the Legion of Christ. Former members of the order say that young seminarians to this day are required to practice self-flagellation as a way of atoning for their sins; many wear an uncomfortable device around their thighs to discourage so-called impure thoughts. Legion officials have reportedly hired private detectives to snoop on some of their own priests. In a 1997 investigative report in a U.S newspaper, nine ex-legionnaires accused Maciel himself of sexual abuse, a charge he has indignantly denied. That same article revealed the Vatican had absolved Maciel of similar charges in an investigation in the 1950s.

None of this has dimmed the legion's influence. If anything, it looks set to grow under the country's center-right president, Vicente Fox. The former Coca-Cola executive's triumph in the 2000 election toppled the Institutional Revolutionary Party--and seemed to threaten many of the overtly anticlerical laws and policies adopted by the party during its 71-year reign. In Fox, the country's first openly devout Catholic president in nearly 100 years, many conser--vative Mexicans see their best hope yet for restoring the church to its rightful place of social authority.

Fox is by no means in thrall to the Catholic establishment. Only two weeks ago the government announced that five unnamed clerics could face steep fines for allegedly telling Catholics how to vote ...