The Vatican has appointed a Colombian bishop to assume control of a Peruvian group whose founder is alleged to have abused members. The Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), which started in Lima in 1971, said last year that Luis Fernando Figari, its founder, carried out sexual, physical and psychological abuse of its members, both children and adults. A Vatican statement said Pope Francis had followed the controversy with concern and was “particularly attentive to the gravity of the information regarding the [movement’s] internal regime, the formation” that members went through and the financial operations of the group. The statement, from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said Bishop Noel Londoño Buitrago of Jericho would assume control of the group. It said the move was partly provoked by a Peruvian court requesting that Figari be jailed on remand pending a criminal investigation into the allegations. Figari is currently living in Rome, having been barred from contact with the society’s members. The appointment came days before Pope Francis’s visit to Peru. The Pope had previously appointed Cardinal Joseph Tobin as papal delegate to the society. The Vatican said he would continue to be Rome’s point of contact with the group. A report made public by the Sodalitium’s new leadership last year alleged that Figari had “sexually abused at least one minor male, sexually abused or sexually manipulated several other young men, and physically or psychologically abused dozens of others, including those he sexually abused”. It said he “used his leadership status to have authoritarian direction and control” of the communities. Physical abuse was used as a way to discipline members, the report claimed. Those in formation could be denied food and water, made to sleep in stairwells, or forced to stay awake all night. Several members alleged that Figari appeared to enjoy other people’s pain, burning an individual with a candle or menacing members with his dog, which bit people several times. The Sodalitium acquired pontifical approval as a Society of Apostolic Life in 1997. It has members in Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Italy and the United States.