A top Vatican investigator has been appointed to examine claims of sexual misconduct involving clergy in the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh.
The former archbishop in Edinburgh, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, resigned amid scandal last year.
Maltese auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna has been asked to listen to and report the testimony of past and present clergy in the archdiocese.
Bishop Scicluna served as the promoter of justice at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith until 2012, when he was made auxiliary bishop in Malta.
At the Vatican post, he was known for reviewing hundreds of case files of priests who were eventually dismissed from ministry for sexual abuse.
Bishop Scicluna is most known for being asked by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2005 to collect testimony regarding the serial sexual abuser and founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Fr Marcial Maciel.
Cardinal O’Brien resigned last February after being accused of sexual misconduct dating back 30 years.
The accusations came from five men, three of them priests and one a former priest.
Cardinal O’Brien later admitted that his sexual conduct had fallen short of that expected of priest, archbishop and cardinal.
Since then he has been ordered to undergo a period of prayer and penance and is living outside of the archdiocese.
Commentators believe this is the first time a pope has ordered an investigation into the alleged sexual misconduct of a cardinal.
Other cardinals and bishops have resigned following allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct.
The cardinal’s successor, Archbishop Leo Cushley, has conducted informal inquiries into the allegations and in February travelled to Rome to give his view.
The investigation was announced by the archbishop in two letters to his clergy on April 1.
Archbishop Cushley asked priests who wish to speak to Bishop Scicluna to “prepare their narrative in writing”.
Archbishop Cushley wrote that the Maltese bishop will “listen to and report the testimony offered by past and present members of the clergy . . . concerning any incidents of sexual misconduct committed against them by other members of the clergy whomsoever”.
Cardinal O’Brien was not named in Archbishop Cushley’s letters.
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