SHERBROOKE, QUEBEC — A Quebec Superior Court judge authorized a class action against a Catholic religious group once heralded for its ability to foster vocations. The decision opens the way for people who claim to have been physically, spiritually or psychologically abused within the organization to join the legal case.

Judge Alicia Soldevila decided in favor of class action involving Famille Marie-Jeunesse (Family of Mary’s Youth), which was founded in the 1980s.

Pascal Perron, a member of the group for 17 years, will represent those who join the class action. He left the religious community in 2014, at age 36, after having lived in the group’s community houses in Quebec and on Reunion Island, a French department in the Indian Ocean.

Perron blames the group and its leaders for putting in place rules that were “so strict and rigorous” that they had the effect of “destroying the identity of the individuals…