Two key Vatican investigators on Tuesday began an audit in Peru’s capital of a secretive Roman Catholic society with chapters across South America and within the U.S. following allegations that its founder sexually molested young recruits.
Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, questioned the society’s spokespeople together with alleged abuse victims and journalists who’ve written on the case. The questioning took place within the Apostolic Nunciature in Lima.
The scandal on the Peru-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, or Sodalitium of Christian Life, has close parallels to other cases of charismatic Catholic leaders in Latin America being accused of sex abuse — in addition to the church dragging its feet on investigating claims and attempting to keep scandals quiet.
Founded in 1971, Sodalitium has a presence in schools and churches and runs retreat facilities with communities in Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Italy and the United States. Its members are mostly lay Catholics but in addition include clergy, including two bishops in Peru. The allegations date back to the Nineteen Nineties.
Before this latest investigation, Scicluna and Bertomeu in 2018 looked into a long time of sexual abuse by the Chilean Catholic Church, an investigation that led to the resignation of all Chilean bishops and the resignation of the Archbishop of Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, in 2019.
“Scicluna and Bertomeu are the Van Helsing of pedophiles throughout the Catholic Church, they’re monster hunters,” Pedro Salinas, a Peruvian journalist who authored the book “No News from God,” which was published last yr. He was the primary to testify on Tuesday.
Salinas has been publicly accusing society founder Luis Fernando Figari, now 76, since 2010 of physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
Upon leaving the questioning, the 60-year-old Salinas was emotional remembering that he was a member of the Sodalitium as a teen. He says he suffered physical and psychological abuse and an incident with sexual connotations. He added that dozens of people that suffered abuse see the investigators as their last likelihood to realize justice.
“It’s just like the last letter, the silver bullet, to see if this institution continues to exist or in the event that they dissolve it,” he said.
Another interviewee by the Vatican envoys was the Peruvian journalist Paola Ugaz, who met at the top of 2022 with Pope Francis within the Vatican. Ugaz co-authored a book on the society called “Half-Monks, Half Soldiers” in 2015.
Sodalitium said in an announcement last weekend that “they’ve been summoned to those meetings with the envoys of the Holy Father.” It added that it “will participate and collaborate in all the necessities which can be requested.”
In past statements, the society said that Figari, who is just not a priest and has stepped down as Sodaltium’s head, insists he’s innocent, though it notes he hasn’t said so publicly. It has called the allegations in “Half Monks, Half Soldiers” plausible.
Salinas told the AP on Tuesday that the Vatican investigation also involves the funds of the secular group that might exceed $1 billion in businesses including “agro-export firms, universities, schools, cemeteries, construction firms and others.”
Scicluna and Bertomeu left the Apostolic Nunciature in Lima alone Tuesday to walk for a moment through nearby streets. When asked for comment on their work in Lima by The Associated Press, they each replied that they might not.
The Peruvian Press Council, Reporters Without Borders and the Nobel Prize for Literature winner Mario Vargas Llosa have criticized the judicial harassment suffered by Ugaz and Salinas by people linked to the Sodalitium.
Another Peruvian journalist, Daniel Yovera, who has also investigated the society, was accused of defamation in 2019, however the case expired in June.
