Vatican City - The Vatican said on Friday it had disciplined the aging Mexican founder of an influential Catholic religious order who has been accused of sexual abuse, instructing him to retire to a life of "prayer and penitence".
The censure of Father Marcial Maciel, 86-year-old founder of the Legionaries of Christ, is significant because he and his conservative order had found favor under the late Pope John Paul, making the decision by Pope Benedict even bolder.
The instruction was the new Pope's first major decision involving sexual abuse charges since his election last year. Before he was elected, Benedict decried the "filth" in the Church.
The sanctions against Maciel made him one of the most prominent persons to be disciplined for alleged sexual abuse and could be devastating for the priestly order and its lay branch, Regnum Christi, which claims tens of thousands of members.
Founded by Maciel in 1941, the order now has about 600 priests and 2,500 seminarians in more than 20 countries. It also runs a major Pontifical university in Rome.
Maciel, who lives in Mexico, has been accused by some former seminarians of sexual abuses dating back to the 1940s and 1950s, when they were boys as young as 10.
In Mexico, the Legionaires said in a statement that he had "accepted the instruction with faith, total calm, with a clear conscience knowing that it is a new cross which God, merciful father, has allowed him to suffer".
It said Maciel had already "affirmed his innocence".
The subject of on-and-off probes into abuse during his career, Maciel stepped down as leader of the conservative order in 2004 and has long denied the accusations.
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However, a Vatican statement said the decision affecting him was issued with the approval of Pope Benedict "after carefully studying the results of an investigation" by the Holy See's doctrinal department, headed by U.S. Cardinal William Levada.
Benedict ran the department until his election in 2005.
The statement said Maciel had been "invited" to withdraw to "a reserved life of prayer and penitence and not carry out his ministry in public".
It did not specify whether the Vatican concluded that the allegations were true but said that, because of Maciel's age and frail health, it had decided not to launch a full-scale Church trial.
The Vatican decision was welcomed by groups whose members say they were victims of widespread sexual abuse by priests, a scandal that rocked the U.S. Church in 2002.
"We are very gratified that Vatican officials have taken this wise and compassionate step," said David Clohessy, national director of the U.S.-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
"Today's news vindicates the courageous, long suffering and heroic men who have lived for decades with deep pain caused by Maciel's crimes," he said.
While the statement said the move against Maciel should be no reflection on his followers and supporters, Church experts said the move could be highly demoralizing for the group.
"For a religious order that is relatively young in Church terms, the position of the founder is absolutely crucial," said John Wilkins, a leading British Catholic writer. "This can be devastating. It is a dramatic development," he told Reuters.