The Vatican’s doctrine office announced Monday that a panel of five judges has been nominated to decide the disciplinary case against Father Marko Rupnik, accused of the sexual and psychological abuse of consecrated women under his spiritual care.

The judges, appointed Oct. 9, do not hold any position in the Roman Curia — the Vatican’s governing body — to ensure their autonomy and independence in the penal judicial procedure, according to an Oct. 13 press release from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, the head of the DDF, told journalists in July that the judges for the Rupnik case had been selected. The panel of judges includes both women and clerics.

Fernández had said in an interview at the end of January that the dicastery had finished gathering information in the disciplinary case, had conducted a first review, and was working to put together an independent tribunal for the penal judicial procedure.

Rupnik — a well-known artist with mosaics and paintings in hundreds of Catholic shrines and churches around the world — is accused of having committed sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse against dozens of women religious in the 1980s and early 1990s.

In May 2019, the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith launched a criminal administrative process against Rupnik after the Society of Jesus reported credible complaints of abuse by the priest to the Vatican.

One year later, the Vatican declared Rupnik to be in a state of “latae sententiae” excommunication for absolving an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment. His excommunication was lifted by Pope Francis after two weeks.

The Society of Jesus subsequently expelled Rupnik from the religious congregation in June 2023 for his “stubborn refusal to observe the vow of obedience.”

The DDF began to investigate the abuse accusations against Rupnik in October 2023, after Pope Francis lifted the statute of limitations.

This article was originally published by CNA.