(PERU)
Los Ángeles Press [Ciudad de México, Mexico]
February 9, 2025
By Rodolfo Soriano-Núñez
From Peru to Argentina and from the United Kingdom or Thailand; Catholic or Anglican, clergy sexual abuse is a global phenomenon.
In Peru, there is a drive to suppress the Sodalitium, but in Argentina there is little evidence of even symbolic measures being taken against sexual abuse.
In the UK, the Church of England suffers as much as the Catholic which, in Thailand, dismisses the complaints and warnings from faithful trying to prevent clergy sexual abuse.
Last week, the clergy sexual abuse crisis had two major developments. One coming from the Roman Catholic Church has to do with the Peruvian Sodalitium of Christian Life. Other came from the Anglican Church with new revelations about John Smyth’s case and the resignation of yet another bishop in that denomination.
But also, Thailand offers a new example of how dismissive the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church is when warned about potential risks to their faithful, despite the experience accumulated in other countries, and the evidence of the damage done to the lives of the victims, and to the institution itself.
As far as the crisis at the Sodalitium, even if Spaniard monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, one of leaders of the probe issued back in Lima, the capital of Peru, some sort of warranty about the imminent end of the Sodalitium, reality keeps striking back at him and the Vatican at large.
On the one hand, former archbishop of Piura and former member of the Sodalitium, José Antonio Eguren Anselmi, played the same card as former archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne.
Although both admitted originally the terms offered by Pope Francis as far as the reasons behind their resignations as by-product of their roles in either the cover up (Eguren Anselmi) or the actual abuse of members of their Church (Cipriani Thorne), both clerics now claim to be the victims of either Pope Francis’s underlings or of Pope Francis himself.
As it has been the case over the last 20 years or so in the Sodalitium and for far longer in other orders and dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church and other religious organizations, it is all about some sort of conspiracy either against them as individuals, or against their churches, or religion at large or even against Western civilization.
In that respect it should be clear that both Eguren Anselmi and Cipriani Thorne are following the same playbook John Paul II used to use when confronted with testimonies and/or evidence of the many predators that denounced in the last decade of the 20th century.
Whenever possible, he as later would do Benedict XVI, would claim the role of leader of the martyrized Church, never acknowledging his own role in supporting and even hiding predators, as Marcial Maciel, or cover up “artists” as former archbishop of Boston, Bernard Law, who spent the last years of his life hiding in Rome to avoid possible prosecution for his role in the massive cover up of clergy sexual abuse in his former archdiocese.
Main difference now is that the accusations are not coming from journalists as Jason Berry in the United States or Paola Ugaz in Peru (see this interview where she goes over the harassment on her and other Peruvian journalists, available only in Spanish) from lower ranking clergymen as with Alberto Athié, a now former Roman Catholic priest from Mexico, who gave Joseph Ratzinger a full copy of Maciel’s file in the last years of John Paul II’s papacy.
Officers of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith probed the accusations against both Cipriani Thorne and Eguren Anselmi, who are not pulling punches as to avoid a confrontation with Pope Francis. Quite the opposite, both imply that Francis is part of the conspiracy against them.
It is almost impossible to figure out how far will they be willing to go with their gimmick, what is clear at this point is that what used to be standard operating procedure of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy to deny, dismiss, and denigrate the victims, their friends and allies, is getting old and it is getting costlier, as it now implies the existence of an ever growing conspiracy reaching the very top of the Catholic hierarchy.
Pope Francis does not help his own cause since he remains unwilling to issue some “punishment.” even if symbolic against clergymen perceived to be close to him. The most notable case comes from his native Argentina, where this last week an appeals court there ratified the charges and sentence against Gustavo Zanchetta, the ultimate “Pope Francis’s bishop,” as the Argentine Pontiff promoted him in the first weeks of his tenure in the Summer of 2013.
[PHOTO: Zanchetta, during his tenure as bishop of Orán, Argentina. From his former diocese social media.]
Now that an appeals court has ratified the sentence against Zanchetta would be a ripe moment to dismiss Zanchetta from the priesthood, as in his case he abused a couple of seminarians under his authority at what used to be his diocese, Orán, a small city in the Northernmost corner of Argentina, near the border with Bolivia and Chile.
And besides bishops as Zanchetta, there are also priests who have spent time in prison, with ratified sentences issued by the Argentine authorities that, for some weird reason remain as such.
That has been the case of Julio Grassi, an Argentine case that was part of a previous installment of this series, linked after, that for unknown reasons remains a priest, and even brags about his condition, attending the parole hearings at prison wearing clerical garments.
Seven stories of clergy sexual abuse
As that story stresses, even AICA, the Catholic news agency in Argentina published a piece after Grassi’s first sentencing using the three ways to address a Catholic priest in Spanish, as the image after this paragraph proves.
[PHOTO: The screenshot from the story on Grassi. AICA stresses there he remains a priest.]
In keeping as clerics convicted felons as Zanchetta and Grassi, Pope Francis and his closest advisor, Víctor Manuel Fernández, the former archbishop of La Plata, give an excuse for the endless stream of attacks on themselves, on Maltese archbishop Joseph Scicluna, and the Spaniard monsignor Bertomeu.
Far-right Spanish speaking outlets use the data on early resignations to mock Pope Francis, asking whether he has “exerted mercy” (misericordiado) when a bishop resigns before reaching the 75 years limit.
Fernández himself was the subject of another installment of this series, available only in Spanish after this paragraph, providing details of the role he played in the story of a priest who ultimately killed himself at the offices of Catholic Charities at La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Aires.
Con voz propia
Tucho Fernández y el cura argentino que se suicidó en 2019
And Fernández’s succession in that diocese is suspect, to say the least, of mismanagement by Rome, the leaders of the Argentine conference of Catholic bishops, and the nuncio to Argentina, and Polish archbishop Mirosław Adamczyk, as there are doubts regarding the sudden resignation of Gabriel Antonio Mestre, another “Pope Francis’s bishop” who barely was able to spent eight months as successor of now Cardinal Fernández. The story linked below goes into more details about what has happened at La Plata.
Sex-related blunders, the never ending story at the Catholic Church
More so since Mestre is going back to ministry as pastor of a parish at the diocese of Chascomús.
As such he retains the title of emeritus archbishop, and even if there is no accusation of abuse or cover up of abuse against him, the very silence and mystery around his sudden resignation leaves him and his superiors open to all kind of doubts and questions about the reasons for his resignation.
In that respect, what Rome seems to be missing is that there are many doubts as to the way the Vatican decides the already symbolic “punishments” on people like Zanchetta or Mestre in Argentina or Cipriani Thorne and Eguren Anselmi in Peru.
A few years ago, faithful Catholic would be willing to accept the rule of the Pope as ultimate authority within their Church, but the way some bishops remain as such, while others receive slaps on the wrists, with little or no actual consequences for their misdeeds, opens Francis and the Catholic Church to criticism.
The lack of clear criteria to deal with abuse fuel the distrust even when dealing with the role of the Catholic Church when supporting immigrants in the United States, as the story below told.
This situation ultimately benefits Cipriani Thorne and Eguren Anselmi in Peru, as they can always point to the other cases where civil courts rule against “Pope Francis’s bishops as Zanchetta” with no consequences for the guilty party.
In Peru, the situation is ever more complex since Eguren Anselmi led the charge against local journalists who are still under the gun of an erratic, irresponsible political elite and an equally erratic, unpredictable, judiciary that can turn against them any minute.
More so, since somebody in Aparecida, Brazil, decided to leak the news about the suppression of the Sodalitium before Rome was actually ready to proceed with such a complex task. What came out is the story summarized in the previous installment of this series, linked below.
Sodalitium, a suppression of sorts
On Thursday, February 6th, Peruvian news outlets confirmed the idea advanced in that installment of his series that suppressing the Sodalitium will not be easy task. That day, Hildebrandt offered details of the wealth accumulated by the Sodalitium.
Hildebrandt’s editors set it at 800 million USD the assets under control of the Sodalitium leadership. My guess, and it is only that, is that they are underestimating the value of some of the assets. Mostly because even if they go over a detailed account of the cemeteries, the water rights associated to those cemeteries, the Universidad de San Pablo (University of Saint Paul), and other Real Estate assets, there are properties in Spain, and Italy, not mentioned in Hildebrandt’s piece.
But even if Hildebrandt’s estimate is right at 800 million USD, there is the issue of the structure of property of that wealth. At this point it is important to stress that Sodalitium is a holding of religious organizations. Some of those groups operate as actual religious orders, some of them do under the guise of being a “lay movement,” some others used odd denominations, tailored by Luis Figari and Germán Doig, the founders of that predatory organization, to achieve two goals.
On the one hand, to build a brand similar but with different tag names than the Spaniard Opus Dei or the Mexican Legion of Christ. On the other, to avoid acknowledging any rights to the underlings in the organization, especially the females who, as it was the case of the Opus Dei in Argentina, or the Legion of Christ in Mexico were little more than handmaids, who are now seeking some recognition and compensation for their role in creating that wealth.
Then, there were other entities operating in the civil and financial fields in Peru. The most notable of them was the entity dealing with the everyday operation of the cemeteries, the so-called Saint John the Baptist Civil Association (Asociación Civil San Juan Bautista).
The leaders of that association claim to be independent from the Sodalitium, but Paola Ugaz and other journalists in Peru have published evidence on the contrary. It would be impossible to go over the details, suffice to say at this point that even if there is a formal distinction or separation between the Sodalitium and the association, they share resources, ideals, leaders, and members.
Ugaz herself published a story at Peruvian newspaper La República back on September 2nd, 2024. There she provides details of the ownership of the cemeteries (available here only in Spanish).
Her piece prompted a response from the association (available only in Spanish here), despite the fact that the Spanish-speaking website of the Sodalitium still has pages where they go over their own role in those cemeteries.
One of such pages is still available here, only in Spanish. Given the ongoing situation in that organization it is possible that the website will disappear soon. Some of its pages are available at the Internet Archive. That specific page dealing with the role of the Sodalitium in the cemeteries is available, only in Spanish, here.
Front page and page 6 of La República, a leading Peruvian newspaper, from Monday February 3rd, 2025.
In this respect, it is almost impossible to share monsignor Bertomeu’s enthusiastic attitude about a near end of the Sodalitium. Bertomeu’s enthusiasm got him the frontpage of La República back on February 3rd, as the image above proves, but that did not prevent Eguren Anselmi’s statement to a far-right Spanish news outlet, republished the next day by La Razón, a Peruvian far-right outlet that ran as its main news that day a story about how Donald Trump killed USAID, as the image after this paragraph proves.
[PHOTO: Front page of La Razón, a far-right newspaper in Peru, February 4th, 2025.]
Eguren Anselmi’s and Cipriani Thorne’s defense should not come as a surprise. They are as willing as they are to challenge whatever remains of the Pope’s authority on this issue given the Pontiff’s perceived weakness when dealing with clerics perceived as close to him as Zanchetta.
In this respect the Sodalitium behaves as a tumor, as a cancer. As any cancer would, it is fighting out its suppression by attacking the body that nurtured and allowed for its own development.
A morale stemming from this case and the many stories of abuse dismissed, condoned, and excused by John Paul II and Benedict XVI is that they raised the ravens plucking Francis’s eyes, as the book of Proverbs in the Bible tells.
Anglicans too
Abuse is not an issue exclusive to the Catholic Church. It is just that the sheer size and truly global, universal, nature of that organization leaves it open to more cases and more scrutiny.
Among the many religious organizations currently affected by clergy sexual abuse scandals is the Anglican Church. By the end of November of 2024, the Church of England suffered a major blow when the report on the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, a rather powerful lay person in that Church, emerged.
First, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and global leader of that Church resigned his post. As it happens in the Roman Catholic Church and other religious organizations it is unclear whether the resignation will solve the issues, but it provides some relief to the victims and signals a certain acknowledgment of the severity of the issues.
Now we know that behind Smyth’s influence in the Church of England there was a priest, Rev. David Fletcher, who as Smyth is now deceased. He was instrumental in facilitating Smyth’s abuse in England and more so in South Africa and Zambia, and he was also a predator.
The Anglican diocese of Oxford published on Wednesday a statement regarding Fletcher’s role there and what they expect to do now that British victims are coming forward, as the story from British broadcaster Channel 4 linked below proves.
Channel 4 newsclip at YouTube.
Unrelated to Smyth and Fletcher, by the end of January, almost at the same time Welby’s resignation went into effect, another Anglican bishop resigned his position.
On January 30th, bishop John Perumbalath, head of the diocese of Liverpool, resigned his office after the aforementioned Channel 4 published reports of two females accusing him of sexually assaulting them.
One of his accusers was bishop Beverley Anne Mason, the bishop of Warrington, a suffragan diocese of Liverpool, so Perumbalath exerted some authority over her.
These Anglican cases are relevant as they prove there is no easy solution to clergy sexual abuse. They prove, among other things, that the abolition of the celibacy rule in the Catholic Church is not an easy solution to the issue as that rule does not exist in the Anglican confession. What is evident, however, is that despite the damage to both Christian traditions, they seem to be unable to actually address clergy sexual abuse.
Back to Asia
It is in that regard that is relevant to see at what is happening at Thailand. There less than 1.5 percent of total population are Christians and only a bit over 400 thousand of them identify as Catholics. Only the city of Lima, in Peru, claims having almost six times that number of Catholics, a little less than the 2.8 million Catholics in the Archdiocese of New York.
One would expect that in such a setting, Rome would pay special attention to a country that the French Foreign Missions and other orders linked to the Dicastery for Evangelization of the Roman Curia see as “mission territory.”
The fact, however, is that one finds there the same dismissive attitudes among the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church there. This is more relevant because the nuncio to Thailand, a key figure in the Catholic Church when dealing with the appointment of new bishops in any territory under his jurisdiction is a U.S. citizen, originally born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Peter Bryan Wells.
Not only he comes from a country that has dealt with some of the most notorious cases. Several dioceses there are under the protection of the bankruptcy laws as a way to deal with the effects of the crisis, as the story about the Roman Catholic dioceses of California, linked after the next table, describes.
Wells has more than 20 years of service in the Holy See’s Secretary of State, so it would be hard to believe that he is unaware of the consequences of clergy sexual abuse and the need to prevent scandals from ever happening.
Wells has been nuncio to South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland and he is not only nuncio to the Kingdom of Thailand, but he also represents the Pope in the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos.
A new wave of bankruptcies shakes the Catholic Church in California
His resume includes an early appointment as assessor for General Affairs of the Holy See’s Secretary of State from 2009 to 2016, combined with his service (2013-4) as secretary of the Pontifical Commission responsible for investigating the Institute for the Works of Religion, while also being, from 2013 through 2016, the chair of the Holy See’s Financial Security Committee, the so-called CoSiFi.
How could Wells, the ultimate insider of the Roman Curia, not be aware of the need to avoid new scandals there?
His tenure at CoSiFi forced him to be a witness of what happened in 2017 when Australian Cardinal George Pell had to ask for a “leave of absence” to face a trial for his role in a cover up scandal in his country of origin.
Despite all that experience, last January archbishop Wells dismissed calls from Thai laypersons who asked him to prevent the appointment of a new bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse.
Thailand has been facing a sexual abuse crisis that goes far beyond the issues affecting the Roman Catholic Church. As other countries in the Global South, Thailand is a prime destination for sexual trade. Bangkok, Pattaya, and other cities in the country are frequent subjects of academic and journalistic reports dealing with the effects of sexual trade.
Despite that, Wells paid little attention to a letter delivered by a group advocating to prevent clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Thailand: We Are ANYA or Anya Group. Back on January 20th, this group issued the letter after this paragraph.
Anya Group’s letter to Nuncio Wells
January 20, 2025
Respectfully, bishop Joseph Chusak Sirisut,
Chair, Conference of Catholic Bishops of Thailand
Copy:
- The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith,
- Archbishop Peter Brian Wells, nuncio to the Kingdom of Thailand,
- Father Philip Adisak Phorn-Ngam (diocese of Chanthaburi),
- The Conference of Catholic Bishops of Thailand,
- The Federation of the Clergy in Thailand,
- The faithful and all media,
Subject: Objection to the appointment of Philip Adisak Phorn-Ngam as bishop of Chanthaburi because he collaborated in the cover up of sexual crimes against minors
Attachment: Letter of complaint from Anya Group to the diocese of Chanthaburi dated April 11th, 2024, regarding the failure to take appropriate action to protect and care for minors sexually abused by clergy
According to the letter of complaint from the Anya Group to the diocese of Chanthaburi dated April 11th, 2024, regarding the failure to take protect and care for minors sexually abused by father Siravich Marypattanakit, a priest of the diocese of Chanthaburi.
According to the details sent, the Anya group has been following up on the resolution of this case for a total of five years, both by requesting an official meeting with the former chair of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Thailand (content available in Thai, English, and Italian) and the apostolic nuncio to Thailand, both past and present, and by bringing the victim and their relatives to clarify the facts, but they were refused.
Therefore, we would like to submit this letter to oppose the appointment of father Philip Adisak Phorn-Ngam as the bishop of Chanthaburi, as he is not qualified to hold the position of bishop and is the main priest who collaborated with the advisory board and senior priests of that diocese, including Yod Senarak, Thammarat Ruengngam, Wisit Wisetthiyakun, Sutjan Fonruang, Luechai Chanpoh, Songwut Wongsiriroj, and Angkhan Charoensatsiri, to conceal the abuse and persuade the victim and her relatives not to receive psychiatric treatment, starting with the victim’s grandmother and older brother.
We filed a complaint with the former bishop Silvio Siripong Charatsri back in 2019. Details of the actions of the victim and relatives are as follows:
- In 2019, the victim’s grandmother and brother filed a complaint with then bishop Silvio Siripong Charatsri (now bishop of Ratchaburi), His Holiness Pope Francis appointed a group of priests to probe the issue, with Philip Adisak Phorn-Ngam, a senior priest as member of the committee to probe the sexual misconduct against the boy. The incident occurred at the Sacred Heart Junior Seminary (Dara Samut, Sriracha, Chonburi) and several hotels in Chonburi and Pattaya for several years. The investigation found that Sirawit Mary Pattanakit had indeed committed sexual misconduct.
- Instead of following the guidelines, the relevant clergy of the Chanthaburi diocese tried every means to cover up and hide the abuse, and to dismiss Rome’s guidelines. They were also worried that the matter would escalate, so they gave money to the victim’s grandmother to silence her and asked her not to report to the authorities as set by Thai law. Father Philip Adisak Phorn-Ngam also reported to the Conference of Bishops that he gave the money through the Anya Group, which is a lie.
The Anya group believes that, for the sake of the Catholic Church in Thailand, every mission and every group should join forces to address the sexual abuse by priests and other personnel in the Catholic Church, without the need for victims to file more complaints. Every mission should comply with the guidelines and regulations of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Thailand to address cases of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable persons within the Catholic Church in Thailand (as stated in the Protocol of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Thailand (CBCT) to Address the Sexual Abuse of Minors and Vulnerable Persons in the Church of Thailand) which was issued on May 12th, 2019, signed by Cardinal Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij (https://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bkrko.html), archbishop emeritus of Bangkok and Chair of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Thailand, by archbishop Francis Xavier Vira Arpornrat, then bishop of Chiang Mai, current archbishop of Bangkok, and current general secretary of the Conference.
Although the Catholic Church has issued clear regulations and guidelines for a long time, every missionary and religious order has not taken any action. Anya Group is ready to continue helping other victims. After this, Anya Group would like to ask for help and support from all Catholic brothers and sisters in Thailand, every church, and every missionary. to know this truth and ask for cooperation in supporting Anya Group (WeAreAnya อัญญา) and help protect the innocent victims together. Also, the Anya group asks for everyone’s prayers forever.
Finally, the Anya group would like to object to the appointment of Philip Adisak Phorn-Ngam as the bishop of the diocese of Chanthaburi (some of the content available in English), He is not qualified as he has dismissed the country’s laws and the rules and regulations of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Thailand for the treatment of cases of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable persons.
He has concealed and allowed the perpetrators to go free, he lacks moral courage, and is therefore not suitable to be a spiritual leader for the faithful. May God and the Virgin Mary please protect the Catholic Church of Thailand.
With deep respect
Petronan Warisnarat, Simon Tiwa Saengsiriwiwat, Joseph Sarawut Pratumrat, Alfonso Chaturapit Chomphunuch
Contact: Sarawut Pratumrat; Mobile 092-257-8104.
Come rain or come shine
Sadly, nuncio Wells dismissed the letter. On Saturday, February 8th, Silvio Siripong Charatsri, bishop of Ratchaburi consecrated Philip Adisak Phorn-Ngam as bishop.
Los Angeles Press has a copy of the 2024 letter and an additional document from 2022 dealing with a complaint from 43 out of 240 priests from the Archdiocese of Bangkok. If one changes the names of the people and places in Thailand, it is hard to find differences with what happens in Roman Catholic dioceses in Latin America and elsewhere in the world.
That document details the roots of distrust and dissatisfaction of the Thai Catholic priests towards their then archbishop. It is noteworthy that Rome granted their main request: a quick acceptance of the resignation of Cardinal Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovithavanij.
Kriengsak himself has been accused of covering up priests with credible accusations of abuse of minors at a community associated with one of the so-called new ecclesial movements, the Focolare Movement, an organization born out of the experience of second World War Italy, that is not an order and has been able to avoid the abuses, spiritual, sexual or otherwise, from founders and leaders such as those of the so-called Kikos, the Neocatechumenal Way, that destroyed the Catholic Church in the U.S. Asian territory of Guam.
It is not as if Kriengsak Kovithavanij was not close to Pope Francis. Francis elevated the Thai archbishop to Cardinal back in 2015, for Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s second consistory, the ceremony where the Pope’s meets with the new Cardinals.
At Philip Adisak Phorn-Ngam’s consecration as bishop, on February 8th, one of the co-consecrators was another bishop facing accusations of covering up clergy sexual abuse: Joseph Pibul Visitnondachai bishop emeritus of Nakhon Sawan.
Putting that issue aside, on the very day of Cardinal Kriengsak Kovithavanij’s 75th birthday, Pope Francis accepted the Cardinal’s resignation: faster than Francis’s accepted Norberto Rivera Carrera’s resignation to Mexico City or Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne’s to Lima, Peru.
Rivera Carrera had a six-month overtime period in the Mexican capital, while Pope Francis sent Cipriani Thorne into the “punishment” he allegedly accepted out of discipline, but not because he had sexually abused a male minor, a month after his 75th birthday.