Pope Francis on Wednesday expelled ten high-ranking members of the ultra-conservative congregation Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana for “causes that are incompatible and unacceptable for a member of a Church institution.” Several of them are priests who consented to and legitimized a system of serious human rights violations. On August 15, the founder of Sodalicio, the consecrated layman Luis Fernando Figari, suffered the same fate.
The Holy See has given the thumbs down to Figari’s “praetorian guard,” who has been exiled in Rome for almost a decade. At the top of the list is Eduardo Antonio Regal Villa, a consecrated layman who in 2011, amid the scandals of sexual abuse committed in the Sodalitium’s training houses, where adolescents were sent during their school years, assumed the post of Superior General after Figari retired from public life. Regal has been accused of not properly investigating Figari and of using his influence to exonerate pedophiles, such as the ex-Sodalit Daniel Murguía, who was released in 2010 after being found in a hotel with an eleven-year-old boy.
There are also three long-standing trainers, such as the psychologist Humberto Carlos Del Castillo Drago, the Reverend Daniel Alfonso Cardó Soria and the theologian Óscar Adolfo Tokumura. The latter, of Japanese origin, was in charge of the training house in San Bartolo, a seaside resort south of Lima, between 1998 and 2004. Several testimonies recall that period with pain. “It is compared by many to the reign of terror of the French Revolution. For six years he committed physical, verbal, psychological and all kinds of abuse, like the Sodalite Robespierre of San Bartolo (…) There are stories that at least one committed suicide, many have sought an outlet in drugs and addictions, and many are still in need of therapy because these abuses occurred at the beginning of their lives,” some former Sodalites have recounted.
“It is impossible to believe that, as the Sodalitium suggests, Figari acted alone and that they only found out about the culture of abuse of power as an institution through journalistic reports,” said journalist Pedro Salinas in August, author of a series of books that, based on dozens of testimonies from former Sodalits, revealed the true spirit of the congregation. The most significant of them Half monks, half soldierspublished in 2015 in co-authorship with journalist Paola Ugaz. “The only thing left to do is wait for Figari’s Praetorian Guard to fall,” he said at the time.
Among those expelled by Francis is the emeritus archbishop of Piura, José Antonio Eguren Anselmi, who resigned early from his post in April at the age of 67. Eguren is implicated in alleged criminal activities, such as land trafficking. According to a report by journalist Daniel Yovera for the network Al JazeeraEguren met with criminals to offer them three million dollars in exchange for invading some land in the coastal region of Piura. According to the official accounts of the Sodalitium, Eguren met on August 23 with Pope Francis to “express the gratitude of the Sodalits for the support and paternal closeness that he gives us in times of renewal.”
However, His Holiness’s letter is categorical regarding the ten expelled members. It details that they committed “physical abuse with sadism and violence”; “abuse of conscience, with sectarian methods to break the will of subordinates”; “spiritual abuse with the instrumentalization in the external forum of information obtained in the internal forum, not sacramental or spiritual direction”; “abuse of office and authority, with episodes of hacking of communications and harassment in the workplace, as well as covering up crimes committed within this institution”; and abuse in the administration of ecclesiastical property.”
Completing the list of the removed leaders are priests Rafael Alberto Ismodes Cascón and Erwin Augusto Scheuch Pool, both former regional superiors; laymen Ricardo Adolfo Trenemann Young and Miguel Arturo Salazar Steiger; and journalist Alejandro Bermudez Rosell, former director of the Catholic Information Agency – ACI Prensa, conservative religious news outlet founded by members of the Sodalicio.
Request for forgiveness
“Pope Francis, together with the bishops of Peru and those places where the Sodalitium of Christian Life is present, saddened by what happened, ask forgiveness from the victims and share in their suffering. They also ask this Society of Apostolic Life to begin a path of justice and reparation,” emphasizes the statement from the Holy See sent to the Apostolic Nunciature in Peru. The expulsion of the leadership of this organization with a presence in 25 countries occurs one year after the papal mission, made up of the archbishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna and the Spanish priest Jordi Bertomeu, sent to Lima to verify the allegations.
Former Sodalite José Enrique Escardó, the first journalist to denounce the hell experienced in the Sodalitium’s training houses at the beginning of 2000, believes that the Pope’s decision is not enough to repair the damage. “Once again the message of the Catholic Church is: the Sodalitium is good, we protect it by expelling some bad apples to make people believe that we have done something, and we ‘beg’ them to be better. No, gentlemen. This continues to be cover-up and secondary victimization for me as a survivor. This is not justice, it is marketing to clean up the image of the Church and the Sodalitium,” he said.
Subscribe to the EL PAÍS América newsletter here and receive all the key information on current events in the region.
#Pope #Francis #expels #leadership #Sodalitium #congregation #Peru #abuse #forgiveness #victims