Pope Francis has defrocked the Chilean priest at the centre of the global sex abuse scandal rocking his papacy, invoking his "supreme" authority to stiffen a sentence originally handed down by a Vatican court in 2011.
The Vatican says Francis has laicised the 88-year-old Reverend Fernando Karadima, who was originally sanctioned to live a lifetime of "penance and prayer" for having sexually abused minors in the upscale Santiago parish he ran.
In its statement on Friday, the Vatican didn't say what new evidence, if any, prompted Francis to re-evaluate Karadima's sanction and impose what clergy consider to be the equivalent of a death sentence.
Pope Francis meets with Sebastian Pinera Echenique president of Chile at the Vatican on October 13, 2018. Source: AAP
It said Francis made the "exceptional decision" for the good of the church, and cited the church canon that lays out the pope's "supreme, full, immediate and universal power" to serve the church.
The statement said the decree, signed on Thursday, takes effect immediately and that Karadima was informed of it on Friday.
Earlier this year the Pope strongly defended one of Karadima's proteges, Bishop Juan Barros, against accusations he had witnessed Karadima's abuse and ignored it.
Francis later ordered a Vatican investigation that uncovered decades of abuse and cover-ups by the Chilean church leadership.
Francis apologised to the victims and set about making amends, including getting every active bishop in Chile to offer to resign.
To date, he has accepted seven of the more than 30 resignations offered, including that of Barros.
