The Olympic torch has passed to London.

Hundreds of Greeks huddled beneath umbrellas and sat on the stone steps of the ancient stadium in Athens on Thursday to watch the ceremonial handover of the Olympic flame to the organizers of the 2012 London Olympics.

They cheered the Greek national anthem. They cheered 88 schoolchildren belting out "God save the Queen. But they really roared when they saw the fire.

"The flame belongs to the world," London Olympic chairman Sebastian Coe said. "The arrival of the flame in the host nation is a clarion call to the athletes and young people in more than 200 nations and territories preparing to gather for the London 2012 Games."

There were jokes about the pouring rain — more London than Athens — with London Mayor Boris Johnson joshing that everyone would just have to get used to it. But the clouds actually pushed back for a few short minutes, giving the robed dancers, the drummers and the decorative Greek guards a chance to parade around, pompom shoes bouncing.

The flame was passed. No soaked cauldron.

"Once the flame is lit, for all intents and purposes, the Games start," Coe told reporters in Athens.

The flame was lit last week at the Temple of Hera in Olympia, and has been making its way around Greece in a relay. Despite a political crisis, a financial debacle and the unusual weather, Greeks were heartened by their eternal link to the Olympics.

"I am Greek and I am proud to be Greek," said Konstantina Giannpoulos, 27, a drenched physical education teacher who clutched a plastic blue-and-white Greek flag. "I want to honor my country."

British soccer star David Beckham headlined the dignitaries attending the twilight ceremony, while Princess Anne took possession of the fire.

"The eyes of the world are swiveling to London," Johnson said with delight.

The handover also marked a poignant moment for Greece as well. Greeks like to point out that the Olympics — while terrific — were not the only enduring concept they dreamed up.

Dominique Molin, a 52-year-old former French teacher who ventured out to see Princess Anne tour a center where horses are used to help disabled children, noted that Europe absorbed many ideas championed by the ancient Greeks — like democracy — to say nothing of honoring its art and culture.

And even despite their economic hardships, the majority of Greeks in a recent poll say they want to stay in the 17-nation eurozone.

"We belong to Europe," Molin said. "We want to be part of it."

She thought the torch relay helped the country's battered image.

"It shows that there are things still working here," she said.

The flame will fly Friday — with its own seat and security agent — on British Airways Flight 2012, an Airbus painted gold at the nose. Shielded in a miner's lantern, the flame will first land at a naval air station in Cornwall, before the Royal Navy flies it to Land's End, the furthest point west in England.

Once in Britain, the flame heads off Saturday a 70-day relay — an Anglophile's dream tour that ventures through hill and dale to embrace everything from cool Britannia to Stonehenge. The journey ends at London's Olympic Stadium for the July 27 opening ceremony.

Some 8,000 torchbearers will carry the fire, mostly local people who have worked to better their communities. Olympic organizers hope that by giving the torch to community heroes, they will bring the spirit of the games to a country not necessarily willing to receive it.

The London Olympics has cost quite a bit — 9.3 billion pounds ($14.6 billion) — for a country grappling with economic austerity, and some in Britain worry about what happens when the games end Aug. 12. The future of the massive Olympic stadium, in particular, remains in doubt.

Coe acknowledges there are still many tasks to conquer and questions to resolve. He says the choice of the final torchbearer hasn't even been discussed yet.

But there is one person you can cross off that list. Coe, a former gold medalist, says it won't be him.

Pope Benedict XVI's ability to reform the troubled Legion of Christ has again been thrown into doubt following revelations that a half-dozen priests are under Vatican investigation for allegedly molesting children and that the order's leadership knew its most prominent priest had fathered a child yet did nothing to prevent him from teaching and preaching about morality.

The Vatican on Thursday expressed confidence in Benedict's delegate running the congregation but acknowledged that the process of reform is "certainly long and complex precisely because it aims to be profound."

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi rejected suggestions that the revelations proved that the reform process wasn't working or that the Legion was too flawed to be saved.

On the contrary, he told The Associated Press, the revelations showed that the Legion under papal delegate Cardinal Velasio De Paolis was doing the right thing by taking action once the revelations became known.

"Even the recent public communications about the Legion seem to be new and a positive sign of transparency," he said. "There is no reason then not to have confidence in the way Cardinal De Paolis is guiding this complex path of renewal."

The Rev. Thomas Williams, an American moral theologian who was the public face of the Legion for years, admitted Tuesday he had had a relationship with a woman and had fathered a child "a number of years ago." He didn't identify the woman. The Legion said the child is being cared for.

The Legion subsequently admitted that Williams' superiors knew about the child but didn't remove him immediately from his prominent role as a professor of moral theology at the Legion's university in Rome and a popular television commentator, author and spokesman. The order has refused to say precisely when Williams' superiors knew, but former Legion priests say they suspect at least some in the leadership knew years ago.

Williams was only removed from his teaching position in February after a Spanish victims' group confronted the Legion with a letter outlining the allegations against Williams and other Legion priests accused of abusing children. The matter became public after the AP obtained a copy of the letter and last week requested comment from the Legion.

The revelations and apparent cover-up of the initial knowledge of Williams' child have raised questions about whether it's really possible to rehabilitate the Legion, which has been in disarray since admitting in 2009 that its founder had raped and molested seminarians and fathered three children with two women. The order, founded in 1941, became one of the fastest growing and most influential religious congregations because of its ability to attract money and seminarians to the priesthood.

Pope John Paul II held its leader, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, up as a model for the faithful despite allegations known to the Vatican dating back to the 1950s that Maciel was a drug addict and pedophile.

The facade, however, began to crumble in 1997, with public revelations of Maciel's abuse. It wasn't until 2006 that the Vatican sanctioned him to a lifetime of prayer and penance for his crimes. He died in 2008.

Benedict took a big risk when he assumed control of the Legion in May 2010 after a Vatican investigation determined that Maciel was a fraud who had created an order bent on silence and obedience to cater to his double life. The Vatican concluded that his order was beset by such problems it could only survive if it were thoroughly "purified."

Benedict could have shut the order down, and some critics of the cult-like movement say that remains the only possible solution.

American canon lawyer Edward Peters, the Vatican's expert witness in U.S. sex abuse lawsuits and an adviser to the Vatican's highest court, has concluded the Legion "needs to disappear."

But Benedict chose instead to name De Paolis to oversee a process of reform that includes rewriting the order's constitutions, correcting the abuses of power and defining the charisma, or the essential spirit of the order that makes it unique. The aim is to preserve whatever good that the order may still provide the church with its 800 priests and zealous lay members.

In his statement to the AP, Lombardi said such reforms take time and require a change not only of legal documents but "of mentality, lifestyle and government."

Two years in, the logistical process of rewriting the constitution is going ahead. And just this week — on the same day the Williams revelations made headlines — De Paolis announced he had named new leaders for the Legion's female branch to help shepherd it through a process of reform as well.

But in yet another indication that the process is anything but linear, none of the members selected by De Paolis are considered reformers, with most if not all of them strongly linked to the old guard leadership and with little experience in the field.

Former members of the so-called consecrated branch of the Legion say De Paolis' choices don't reflect the results of the voting undertaken by current members to choose their own leaders. They predicted a new exodus of members frustrated that their efforts to reform had again been rebuffed.

"I believe this will generate numerous and significant desertions," said Nelly Ramirez, a former consecrated woman who left in 2009 and has written a book about her experiences.

Since the revelations about Maciel were first disclosed in 2009, some 350 women out of more than 900, have abandoned the Legion's consecrated branch, where women live like nuns, fundraising, recruiting members and working in schools and youth programs. A group of 35 who left formed their own canonically approved group in February with the blessing of the pope.

De Paolis has warned current members not to mix with the members of Totus Tuus lay association, lest they be poached away.

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On the Web:

Legion of Christ is at www.legionariesofchrist.org

Totus Tuus lay association of ex-consecrated women is at https://www.facebook.com/ComunidadTotusTuus

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Greece on Thursday swore in 300 legislators for just one day before it dissolves Parliament and calls new elections, among them 21 lawmakers from Golden Dawn — arguably the most far-right party to be involved in a European national legislature since Nazi-era Germany.

Formerly a shadowy fringe group, Golden Dawn vehemently rejects the neo-Nazi label, insisting it is a nationalist patriotic party, but its meteoric rise from a largely marginalized outfit a few years ago to one that won nearly 7 percent in recent elections has alarmed many in Greece and in Europe.

In the traditional Parliamentary swearing-in ceremony, Golden Dawn legislators refused to stand as two Muslim deputies took their oaths on the Quran instead of the Bible.

"Beginning today Golden Dawn is officially in Parliament to speak the language of truth and to express all Greeks," said Ilias Kassidiaris, who was elected into Parliament and is also the party spokesman.

But the party, like all others, will be tested once more at the ballot box next month. The May 6 election left no party with enough votes to form a government after Greeks furious over the handling of the country's financial crisis deserted the two formerly dominant parties, the socialists and conservatives. They turned instead to smaller groups to the right and left of the political spectrum, including those on the extremes.

Coalition talks collapsed after nine days, leaving no other option but a repeat election. A caretaker government has been appointed, to be led by a senior judge, and the newly sworn-in Parliament is to be dissolved Friday so an election can officially be called, expected for June 17.

Golden Dawn gained from both a protest vote from people angered by increasing hardship ensuing from austerity measures imposed in return for billions of euros in international rescue loans, and from a backlash against an illegal immigration problem that has spiraled out of control.

"People say they are trouble, they might hit people and do other things, but there are some people that were helped by Golden Dawn," said Athens resident Mattheos, who would not give his surname. "They are not right about everything, about land mines on the border, but they are right about one thing - immigration."

Golden Dawn campaigned on an anti-immigration platform, promising to expel all illegal immigrants and clean up crime-ridden neighborhoods, while also delivering care packages of food and clothing to needy Greeks. It also advocated planting land mines along Greece's border with Turkey to stop any more illegal immigrants entering the country.

While rejecting the neo-Nazi label, some of its members have openly admired some of Hitler's policies, saying he worked to better the lot of his people. Party leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos caused a backlash in Greece earlier in the week when he claimed Nazi concentration camps did not use ovens and gas chambers to kill prisoners during the Holocaust.

Its members have also been blamed for violent racist attacks in the center of Athens and elsewhere.

"We are now in a world in which we should not be afraid. We will face the problem face to face. We will deal with it with democratic means, with dialogue," said Mike Matsas, head of the Jewish Youth of Athens. "I think people and society, with their sanity, will understand sooner or later what they (Golden Dawn) are and will take appropriate measures."

In the run-up to the last election, there was a backlash against the party in Greece and abroad. Since their strong showing at the polls, politicians and civil rights groups have criticized them as an extremist party with no place in Parliament.

"The Golden Dawn party is a dark stain on European politics. For the first time in over six decades a seemingly long hidden Nazi ideology returned to power," said Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress. "The Golden Dawn party is not a far-right wing party, it represents a neo-Nazi vision and ideology that many believed was isolated. Their political rise should have sent shock-waves through Europe and we expect politicians to openly reject this new-old danger."

The party has been sidelined by Greece's politicians.

Michaloliakos, who came to prominence a few years ago when he gave a fascist salute during his first appearance as a newly-elected member of the Athens City Council, was not invited to power-sharing talks in the aftermath of the May 6 vote.

None of the other parties sought out Golden Dawn's support, and Greek President Karolos Papoulias, who brokered the last efforts at breaking the political deadlock, didn't invite Michaloliakos to negotiations over a potential technocrat government. Michaloliakos then stayed away from the final meeting called to decide on a caretaker government, where constitutionally all parties with parliamentary representation must be invited.

"We haven't seen that brand of a far-right party entering a national parliament but I wouldn't divorce it from a broader trend," said Matthew Goodwin, an associate fellow at Chatham House, explaining that extremist right-wing groups have been on the rise since the 1980s, long before the current financial crisis, and don't just try to win seats in legislatures but have active cells, defense leagues and other grassroots activities.

Opinion polls in recent days have shown a distinct fall in support for Golden Dawn, although it might still gain above the 3 percent threshold needed to enter parliament.

"The party of Golden Dawn is small and will probably decline in its electoral influence," said political science professor Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos. "If it has an influence, this will not be in terms of affecting parliamentary politics of our country. It will be an influence on matters of foreign policy."

Greece's 16-member caretaker Cabinet, led by Council of State head Panagiotis Pikrammenos, a 67-year-old judge, was also sworn in Thursday to lead the country to next month's election.

Giorgos Zanias, a senior Finance Ministry official and top negotiator in the nation's huge debt write down deal concluded earlier this year, has been appointed caretaker finance minister. Veteran diplomat Petros Molyviatis was named foreign minister, a post he also held in 2004-06.

The temporary government will not be able to take any internationally binding decisions, and its sole aim is to lead the country into the new elections.

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Karel Janicek in Prague, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw and Annita Mordechai in Athens contributed.

Cuban first daughter Mariela Castro has been granted a U.S. visa to attend events in San Francisco and New York, one of her associates confirmed Thursday. The travel permission sparked a firestorm of criticism from Cuban-American politicians who say she is an enemy of democracy and a shill for the Communist government her family has led for decades.

The trip, which kicks off next week when Castro is due to chair a panel on sexual diversity at a conference organized by the Latin American Studies Association is among several to the United States by prominent Cubans, some with close links to the government. Cuban academics, scientists and economists now frequently attend seminars in the United States, and Cuban artists and entertainers are also finding it easier to visit the U.S. due to an easing of travel restrictions by President Barack Obama's administration.

Castro, 50, is a noted advocate of gay rights and head of Cuba's National Center for Sex Education. She has pushed for the island to legalize gay marriage for years, so far without success. She recently praised Obama's stance in support of same sex marriage, and said her father, President Raul Castro, also favors such a measure, though he has not said so publically.

It will not be Mariela Castro's first visit to the United States. She was granted a visa to attend an event in Los Angeles in 2002, during the administration of Republican President George W. Bush, and also made stops in Virginia and Washington.

Analysts noted that prominent Americans have also been frequent visitors to Cuba. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter came last March, and a bi-partisan delegation led by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, was here in February, meeting with President Castro as well as an imprisoned American subcontractor.

Carmelo Mesa-Lago, the dean of Cuba economy-watchers and an expert at the University of Pittsburgh, said Cuba has long had a large presence at the LASA conference, without sparking much protest.

"Academic exchanges like these are not new, but what's different in this case is who she is," he said.

The LASA International Congress, which includes hundreds of sessions on academic topics, takes place May 23-26 in San Francisco, a city closely associated with the history of the gay rights movement. Cuba's state-run press said Castro will be one of 40 Cuban experts in attendance.

According to the website of the New York Public Library, Castro is also to take part in a May 29 talk with Rea Carey, director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, about international gay rights, as well as sexual identity and orientation in Cuba.

The trip was confirmed by an official at her institute, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to discuss the matter.

The U.S. State Department declined to comment, saying rules prohibit discussion of individual visa applications. A diplomat at the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba also had no comment. E-mails and phone calls to representatives of LASA were not immediately returned.

Other prominent Cubans who have received U.S. visas recently include Eusebio Leal, a historian who has spearheaded the renovation of Old Havana and sits on the powerful Communist Party Central Committee. He is currently on a visit to New York and Washington.

Mariela Castro, despite being the president's daughter and niece of retired revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, has no official link to the government, though her organization presumably receives state funding. It is not known whether she is a Communist Party member.

Cuban-American Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, slammed the visa decision on Wednesday, even before the visit was announced.

Menendez called Mariela Castro "a vociferous advocate of the regime and opponent of democracy." On Thursday, four other Cuban-American lawmakers added their voices to the outcry, noting that State Department guidelines prohibit visas to officers of the Communist Party or government of Cuba.

"The administration's appalling decision to allow regime agents into the U.S. directly contradicts Congressional intent and longstanding U.S. foreign policy," wrote Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and David Rivera of Florida, along with Albio Sires of New Jersey in a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"While the Cuban people struggle for freedom against increasing brutality at the hands of Castro's thugs, the Obama administration is greeting high-level agents of that murderous dictatorship with open arms," they wrote. "It is shameful that the Obama Administration would waive the common sense restrictions in place to appease the Castro dictatorship once again."

Others said the hardliners were stirring up controversy over something that has happened many times before.

"It's a very positive thing they give her the visa," said Wayne Smith, America's former top diplomat in Cuba and a long-time critic of the U.S. embargo on the island. "You have to consider the source, where the criticism is coming from. They don't want dialogue."

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Associated Press writers Paul Haven and Peter Orsi contributed to this report.

Confidence in Spain's banking sector was shaken Thursday after a newspaper reported that depositors were rushing to withdraw their money from Bankia, a bank that was recently nationalized.

The nervousness about Spain's banks comes as the eurozone financial crisis intensifies. Political turmoil in Greece has increased the likelihood that it could leave the 17-country monetary union, a move that could have ripple effects throughout Europe and the world's financial markets. Depositors have been pulling their funds out of Greek banks on worries that the country's financial sector might collapse if Greece left the eurozone and that their savings would become worthless if the country started using a substantially devalued new currency such as the drachma.

In Spain, however, there has been increasing concern over the stability of the country's banking sector which has been hit by a collapse in the country's property market and now faces tough funding rules that many analysts fear it can't afford.

Bankia, the country's fourth-largest lender which was nationalized last week, saw its shares fall as much as 27 percent during trading on the Spanish stock exchange Thursday on a report in the newspaper El Mundo that customers have withdrawn more than €1 billion ($1.27 billion) since the state took it over. The sums withdrawn are equivalent to the withdrawals made in the first three months of the year, the paper said.

Bankia insisted its depositors' money was safe, while the government denied there was a run on the bank. According to the company's latest earnings statement, total resident private sector deposits were €125 billion as of the end of the first quarter. The bank is heavily exposed to the country's collapsed property market, with €32 billion in problem loans.

Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri, chairman and chief executive of Bankia, moved to reassure investors.

"In these turbulent economic times, I must say that Bankia's activity over these past few days has been basically normal. It has been basically normal. I think it is important to point this out, just as I think it important to note that our customers should feel very confident and very sure because Bankia is a tremendously solid institution." Ignacio Goirigolzarri said.

In a further statement, the company said that when the government nationalized Bankia on May 9, it established that the bank was solvent and said its depositors had nothing to worry about.

Nonetheless, the newspaper report sparked a sell-off of Spanish bank shares, reflecting investor concern over the country's financial sector. Santander, Europe's biggest bank by assets, fell 1.3 percent while shares in BBVA, Spain's second-largest lender, had dropped 2.8 percent. By close in Madrid, Bankia shares had recovered somewhat to trade 11 percent lower at €1.47.

Investors worry that a messy Greek exit from the eurozone bloc could further destabilize Spain's financial sector, which has been already substantially weakened following the collapse of a property bubble in 2008. The concern is that the banks might not be able to meet tough new capital defense requirements and need bailouts if concerns about their stability worsen.

The government, meanwhile, risks requiring a bailout itself if it needs to rescue the banks. It is already struggling to meet deficit-reduction targets during a painful recession, with austerity measures draining money from the economy.

Concerns over banks' exposure to the eurozone's debt crisis have hit Europe's financial sector over the past week. The political vacuum in Greece following the inconclusive election result nearly two weeks ago has led to an increase in funds being drawn from the country's banks.

Greek president Karolos Papoulias warned party leaders during unsuccessful coalition talks that about €700 million ($898 million) in deposits have flown out of Greek banks since the May 6 elections, according to a report from Greece's central bank governor, George Provopoulos

"The situation in the banks is very difficult," Papoulias said according to a transcript of the meeting's minutes released by his office. "Mr. Provopoulos told me that of course there is no panic, but there is great fear which could turn into panic."

Fitch ratings agency on Thursday downgraded Greece by a notch to the lowest grade for a country that is not in default, citing the risk that the country may leave the eurozone if the next elections do not produce a government that supports the bailout.

Earlier this week, rival agency Moody's downgraded the debt ratings of 26 Italian lenders as they struggled with the effect of the country's weak economy and government austerity measures. The move means Moody's now ranks Italy's banks lower than most of their Western European peers.

Meanwhile Spain's Treasury on Thursday managed to sell three kinds of bonds, two maturing in 2015 and one in 2016, for a total of €2.5 billion ($3.18 billion). For the three-year note, the only one which was comparable to previous sales, Spain's borrowing rate — or yield — rose to 4.87 percent, from 4.04 percent in a similar auction on May 3.

On the secondary market, where issued bonds are traded freely, the interest rate on Spanish 10-year bonds stood at a worryingly high 6.29 percent. It has risen sharply from below 5 percent in March and is edging toward the 7 percent mark that is considered unsustainable in the longer term. Greece, Ireland and Portugal sought bailouts when their 10-year bond yields remained stuck above that level.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warned this week that the country risked being frozen out of capital markets because of the sky-high interest rates, or yields, it would have to pay to maintain its debt.

On Thursday evening, Moody's announced that it had downgraded the credit ratings of four of Spain's semiautonomous regions. It has been the debt run up by these regional governments that has added to the country's economic problems.