Southern Catholic College in Dawsonville, founded four years ago to serve Georgia's growing Catholic population, plans to affiliate with a controversial conservative religious order. The Legionaries of Christ will have a controlling interest on the college board and be chaplains, said school President Jerry Ashcroft. The deal, announced April 20, could be completed by June.
The college, which has 221 students, will benefit from the order's U.S. network of feeder schools, such as the 900-student Pinecrest Academy in Cumming, he said. The college has always wanted to affiliate with a religious order. Jim Fair, the Legionaries spokesman, said the affiliation should strengthen the college's finances.
Ashcroft said concerns over negative reports about the order were alleviated when Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta, a college board member, affirmed the affiliation as a good move.
News came out this year that the order's founder, who died a year ago, fathered a child. Also, the Vatican ordered him to spend his last two years of life in prayer and penitence after its investigation of allegations he sexually abused young seminarians.
In 2000 in Atlanta, parents pulled one-third of students from a Catholic school in Sandy Springs, now called Holy Spirit Preparatory, after the Legionaries got control of it. Parents were concerned about administrative and ideological control.
Dioceses in the U.S. such as Baltimore and Columbus, Ohio, have banned the order from working in them because of concerns about secrecy, running a "parallel church" and high-pressure recruiting for the priesthood. The Vatican has ordered an investigation of the organization.
Jack Zupko, director of the Catholic Studies program at Emory University, was surprised by the affiliation but said the conservative nature of the order fit the college's orthodox reputation.
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