Vatican City - The Vatican said it had ordered a fact-finding mission to the abbey where the Austrian cleric, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who faces allegations of sexually abusing a boy 20 years ago, was last posted.
The chief Vatican spokesman, Mr Joaquin Navarro-Valls, said in a statement that the Vatican had asked Abbot Marcel Rooney, chief abbot of the World Benedictine Confederation, "to lead an internal visit to the abbey of Gottweig".
Fresh allegations of sex abuse forced Cardinal Groer (78) to resign last month as prior of the Benedictine monastery of Maria Roggendorf, which is under the authority of the Gottweig abbey and where the primate had been living since 1996. Cardinal Groer was archbishop of Vienna for nine years until 1995 when he was driven into retirement after a former student accused him of sexually abusing him at a Catholic boys' school 22 years ago.