(PERU)
Crux [Denver CO]
January 20, 2025
By Elise Ann Allen
Sources attending an ongoing general assembly have said that after undergoing over a year of investigation by the Vatican, it was announced that the Peru-based, scandal-ridden Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV) will be dissolved.
No formal announcement has yet been made by the Vatican or the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference (CEP), however, participants attending the SCV’s Jan. 6-31 general assembly, being held in Aparecida, Brazil, have said an announcement of its dissolution has been made.
Several participants confirmed to Crux that a decree of dissolution, citing the immoral behavior of the founder and the lack of a founding charism, was read by Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda and Mexican Father Guillermo Rodríguez. Neither of them responded to a request for comments.
Ghirlanda, a revered canonist and close papal aide who has historic ties to the SCV, was tapped by the pope in 2019 to overhaul its formation process, while Rodríguez oversaw the group’s governance amid ongoing efforts at reform.
Questions remain about the fate of the other three branches of the SCV family: The Marian Community of Reconciliation (MCR); a community of women religious, the Servants of the Plan of God; and an ecclesial movement, called the “Christian Life Movement.”
This apparent decision by the pope comes after a papal-ordered Vatican inquiry into the SCV that began in July 2023, when Pope Francis sent his top investigating duo, Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, on a “Special Mission” to investigate ongoing allegations of abuse and financial corruption within the organization.
Scicluna is the Archbishop of Malta and adjunct secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), where Bertomeu is also an official, and which, among other things, is tasked with handling allegations of clerical abuse. Scicluna is also president of a review board for abuse cases within the dicastery.
The investigation began solely as an inquiry into allegations within the SCV, however, during the process, which last year resulted in the expulsion of 15 top-ranking members of the group, including its founder, complaints were made by former members of each of the other branches, leaving their future uncertain.
While not necessarily unprecedented in the Catholic Church, the decision to suppress a community such as the SCV is rare.
It potentially sets a new standard for future Vatican intervention, as a decision of this magnitude has not been made with other groups accused of similar forms of misconduct, including the Legionaries of Christ after allegations surfaced against their founder, Mexican Father Marcial Maciel Degollado.
Observers claim the reason for this is not only the allegations, past and recent, of sexual abuse and coverup against various members, but also the accusations of broad financial corruption and mafia-esque tactics of attacking and attempting to discredit critics, victims, and journalists reporting on the scandals, as well as one of the Vatican investigators.
Problems at the roots
A Society of Apostolic Life and the largest ecclesial lay movement in Peru, the SCV was founded by Peruvian layman Luis Fernando Figari in 1971.
Born in Lima in 1947, Figari is the founder of a men’s lay community, the SCV; a women’s lay community, the Marian Community of Reconciliation (MCR), in 1991; a community of women religious, the Servants of the Plan of God, in 1998; and an ecclesial movement, called the “Christian Life Movement,” in 1985; all of which shared the same “Sodalit” spirituality.
A charismatic group with a knack for engaging youth, the SCV branches attracted a swath of vocations from those drawn to its emphasis on a life of strict asceticism, intellectual formation and spiritual combat, believing their call was to fight as elite soldiers in God’s army.
Figari stepped down as superior general of the SCV, one of the most influential ecclesial groups in South America, for alleged health reasons in 2010, though by then scandals involving other members had emerged, and allegations of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse against Figari had already begun to surface in Peru.
A full investigation into the complaints against Figari was not opened until 2015, shortly after Peruvian journalists Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz published their blockbuster book Half Monks, Half Soldiers, named after one of Figari’s favorite mantras, chronicling years of alleged sexual, physical and psychological abuse by members of the SCV.
Salinas in a follow-up book published in 2022, Sin Noticias de Dios, “No News from God,” identified an individual claiming to have been sexually abused by Figari as a minor in the late 1960s, prior to the founding of the SCV, thrusting its founding charism, and that of the other branches, into question.
In addition to the SCV, the other entities Figari founded also have been shrouded in scandal.
For the past three years, similar allegations of abuse and mistreatment have emerged from the community of nuns Figari founded in 1998, the Servants of the Plan of God, with a swath of former members denouncing what they describe as widespread abuses of power and conscience.
In 2023, the Archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Carlos Castillo, appointed temporary leadership of the “Servants” as they seek to pursue internal reforms.
Last fall some 30 former members of the MCR recounted to Crux similar experiences of abuse and mistreatment with their institution, as well as abuses they said they endured by members of the SCV, including the sexual abuse of at least five women in the MCR.
Each of the women made complaints through a listening channel opened by the Archdiocese of Lima, as well as the Vatican’s Special Mission investigating the SCV.
Several former members of the MCR, the SCV and the SPD have said the abuse of conscience and psychological manipulation they endured began as teenagers while involved in the CLM.
Many recounted being forced to maintain a sectarian lifestyle in youth groups, only being allowed to wear certain types and colors of clothing, adhering to strict rules on what books they read, what movies they watched and what music they listened to, and enduring humiliating and abusive punishments when they failed to complete tasks assigned to them.
The Vatican’s intervention in the SCV has been marked by several reform efforts, including numerous rounds of papally-appointed leadership, which victims and former members said failed to produce meaningful change, with the Special Mission ultimately finding the group unreformable.
Allegations of financial corruption
Accusations of financial misconduct by the SCV largely surround the possible exploitation of a church-state agreement granting tax exemptions to Catholic charities and missions, which has now been put under a microscope as a result of the scandals.
Simply put, the SCV is accused of using its own companies to acquire nine cemeteries in dioceses and archdioceses throughout Peru and, with the help of top-ranking cardinals, structuring them as “missions” donated to the diocese, while maintaining administrative and financial control, meaning the dioceses received no direct profits.
Cardinal Lluís Martínez Sistach, archbishop emeritus of Barcelona and at the time archbishop of Tarragona, and Italian Jesuit Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, an expert canonist and close papal ally who in 2019 was tapped by Pope Francis to oversee the reform of SCV’s formation process, helped the SCV develop their mission-cemetery model in the early 2000s.
By structuring the cemeteries as “missions,” an unusual canonical designation for a cemetery that would have required permission from Rome, this legal status guaranteed they received tax exemptions for funeral and burial services, generating up to 30-40 percent more profit.
Public pressure after the publication of Ugaz and Salinas’s 2015 book eventually prompted the SCV to reverse the cemetery contracts, meaning ownership was returned from the diocese to the SCV companies that donated them, and they were no longer structured as “missions.”
Lawyers and spokesmen for the SCV and its organizations tied to the cemeteries have denied any wrongdoing, however, the accusations prompted inquiries from Peruvian prosecutors, and an investigation opened in 2023 into three SCV members for allegations of money laundering to offshore companies in Panama and the Virgin Islands is ongoing.
The SCV is also accused of sending the millions it made from the Peru cemeteries to offshore holding companies, first in Panama, and then in Denver, Colorado, in the United States.
Two different SCV-run holding companies containing millions are present in Denver, and have ties to Holy Name parish in Sheridan, which in 2010 was entrusted to the CLM and has an SCV community house attached to it.
The pastor is Father Daniel Cardó, who was among those expelled from the SCV by the Vatican last year – although he is still a priest in good standing – but despite his removal from the order maintains his role as pastor of Holy Name as well as a position in the Denver seminary’s liturgy department.
Additionally, the SCV has been accused of harassing a group of peasant farmers in Catacaos, Piura, Peru, in an apparent bid to run them off the land they inhabit and develop it for profit.
The Catacaos community say it has been threatened by criminal groups and is battling various legal suits by several SCV companies, including allegations of terrorism.
Until last year, the Archdiocese of Piura was run by SCV member Archbishop José Antonio Eguren, who was ousted amid the Vatican’s investigation and who was later expelled from the SCV over allegations of financial corruption and abuse coverup.
Harassment of victims and critics
In addition to the allegations of abuse, coverup and financial corruption, one notable characteristic of the SCV saga has been the legal harassment and online trolling of journalists, victims, and critics of the SCV who have spoken out by SCV members and allies, as well as one of the Vatican investigators.
In 2018, Eguren infamously slapped both Salinas and Ugaz with criminal defamation suits related to their reporting, as Peruvian criminal law allows private citizens to register a criminal complaint for defamation.
A year later, shortly after winning his case against Salinas, Eguren retracted his complaints against both journalists amid an avalanche of public, media, and ecclesial backlash, including a statement from the Peruvian bishops condemning his actions and in which they claimed to have the pope’s backing.
However, the legal harassment of both has continued: Salinas is currently battling an allegation of collusion by individuals close to the SCV that could land him seven years in prison, while Ugaz is facing numerous legal suits from people with ties to the SCV, including one for illicit enrichment in which she is appealing a judicial order to lift the secrecy of her communications, potentially putting her sources at risk.
Members of the Catacaos peasant community say they have also faced at least 30 legal suits from companies and organizations affiliated with the SCV, according to Carlos Rodriguez, a lawyer representing the community.
Lawyers representing the SCV companies have denied any wrongdoing in Catacaos, saying they acquired the land on which the peasants live legally, and the crimes they have accused the community members of are valid.
Last May, the Vatican ordered that a priest from Toledo, who until recently lived in Colorado and is close to the SCV, be barred from online activities after saying in a podcast that he wished Pope Francis were dead and for trolling SCV victims on social media.
Most notoriously, two individuals close to the SCV – Giuliana Caccia and Sebastian Blanco, the wife and brother, respectively, of Figari’s longtime personal secretary Ignacio Blanco – last year filed a criminal complaint for breach of professional secrecy against Bertomeu.
The pair asked to give testimony while Scicluna and Bertomeu were conducting interviews in Lima in July 2023 as part of their Special Mission. Bertomeu ended up interviewing them alone, as Scicluna had missed his flight, and they later accused Bertomeu of leaking elements of their testimonies to the press when details of their conversations became public, assuming he must have disclosed the information.
However, participants in the process have said the identities of Caccia and Blanco were discovered by photographers outside the nunciature, and that the contents of their statements, but not their names, were relayed to other witnesses by Scicluna and Bertomeu in order to assess their veracity. As a result, these participants say, the information in question did not have to come from Bertomeu.
Caccia and Blanco, who is on the board of directors for a Peru-based NGO alongside Father Jaime Baertl, who was among those expelled from the SCV last year over allegations of sexual abuse and financial corruption, have also filed a complaint against Bertomeu in the Roman Rota, the Church’s highest court.
Baertl following his expulsion from the SCV last year sent a notarized letter to the Vatican’s nunciature in Lima accusing them of defamation over the communique they published announcing his expulsion – in which it was stated that he was expelled for sexual abuse and financial corruption – and asked that it be immediately retracted.
Many victims and former members of the SCV and its other branches have also accused the group of hacking their communications, while others have repeatedly expressed their fear to come forward or speak out due to potential attacks and legal threats from SCV members.
The decision to suppress the SCV could potentially set a new standard in terms of how the Vatican handles groups whose founders have been accused of sexual abuse and other forms of misconduct, the number of which is on the rise, especially in Latin America, making the Vatican’s actions on the SCV not only timely, but also relevant for the future.
For victims, a sad but necessary outcome
Speaking to Crux, Salinas said that it has become obvious in the Vatican’s intervention that “the Sodalitium has not changed. Nor will it.”
Salinas also noted that he uncovered allegations of the sexual abuse of minors by Figari prior to the SCV’s founding, thrusting the charism of the entire organization into question.
“The only solution in the Sodalitium case is liquidation, dissolution, suppression. Not only of the Sodalitium, but also of the Christian Life Movement (CLM), and its two female branches,” he said, calling this an act of justice for victims.
Similarly, Oscar Osterling, a former SCV member who belonged to the group for over 20 years, said he initially bought into the argument that since the SCV had received pontifical recognition in 1997, it was somehow desired by God, in spite of the scandals and abuses of many of its members.
However, as time went on, Osterling said he discovered that even in sworn testimony before the Peruvian prosecutors, SCV members “all lied in their statements.”
“With time new denunciations and new revelations made me see that the much talked about ‘pontifical approval’ had been a scam of monumental proportions,” he said, saying, “They falsified numbers, asked for reference letters from bishops who did not even know the Sodalitium.”
Worst of all was that “in the scrutiny and evaluation, they never revealed that by 1997 – the year of the approval – Figari, Doig, Levaggi, Garland, Gazzo, Daniels, Ferroggiaro and others had already sexually abused young people,” he said, referring to accused abusers within the SCV.
The suppression of the SCV, then, he said, “is nothing more than a correction: it is an act of truth, justice, and sincere charity…thousands of consciences are being enlightened so that they may encounter the truth and live according to it.”
Rocío Figueroa, a former member of the MCR who was sexually abused by a member of the SCV, stressed the importance of truth, justice and reparation in the healing process for survivors.
She lamented that when scandals broke in 2015, ecclesial authorities at the time did nothing, causing many to lose hope in the church.
When the pope personally sent Scicluna and Bertomeu to investigate, “survivors were listened to with empathy and believed,” she said, noting that this only happened 20 years after the first allegations of abuse went public in 2000.
She called the suppression an act of justice to victims, saying the group for years manipulated young people “without a real charism in its origins,” and as such, “had to be closed many years ago.”
“This delay of justice has brought suffering for all the victims, and it has also manifested the systemic factors in the church that have enabled abuse: cover ups, corruption from bishops and Cardinals and lack of effective action,” Figueroa said.
She stressed the importance of reparation, saying the suppression is “a sad end for all the ones that have been involved,” including those who genuinely sought to reform the SCV and follow God.
Figueroa said she believes the suppression marks “the first time that the Vatican is proportional in its measures of justice.”
“Many institutions must have been closed, and many must be closed in the future,” she said, saying clear measures must be taken to avoid similar problems in religious and lay communities in the future.
“I hope that the suppression of Sodalicio sets a precedent and becomes a paradigmatic model, making it clear that the Church cannot be used for corrupt purposes and the pursuit of power,” she said.
Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen