Last month it was announced that a Colombian bishop, whose term as the temporary leader of a scandal-plagued Peruvian lay group has come under scrutiny, had resigned several months prior to reaching the mandatory retirement age for Catholic prelates.
The announcement came as the bishop, Noel Londoño Buitrago of Jericó, Colombia, faces media pressure over public allegations of coverup and pressure to open diocesan archives on clerical abuse.
In a June 6 statement, the Diocese of Jericó announced that Pope Francis had accepted Londoño’s resignation as bishop of Jericó due to reasons of age, as he will turn 75 in August, but that he will remain in office “until his successor is appointed.”
In addition to leading his diocese, Londoño for a year – from January 2018 until January 2019 – served as “commissioner,” meaning temporary acting authority, of the Peru-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), a lay group born in Lima whose founder, Peruvian layman Luis Fernando Figari, has been accused of the sexual, physical, and psychological abuse of its members, including the sexual abuse of minors.
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