Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani is engaging at a public reproach crossing with the Peruvian Episcopal Conference and with his successor, the archbishop of Lima, Carlos Castilloin which he denounces a “campaign of attempted harassment and destruction of my dignity and my honor.” Also supporters and detractors of who during 20 years led the Peruvian ChurchThey use complaints against purple to consolidate their position into a conflict that ideologically divides conservative and liberal Catholics in this country.
This weekend he jumped to light that in January 2019 the Pope would have accepted the rapid retirement of Cipriani, member of Opus Dei, because of complaints for an alleged case of abuses committed in 1983 against a child between 16 and 17 years old. According to Cipriani although the accusations are false, in December 2019 the Holy See imposed a series of penalties without his version being heard. He says that shortly after, in February 2020, the Pope would have raised those sanctions.
However, this Sunday the Vatican spokesman confirmed that LAsncias “are still in force” and that they are motivated by “accusations”, insinuating that there are other cases. The Vatican explained that a “criminal precept” had been imposed, in reference to a sanction after an administrative process, which included “certain disciplinary measures related to their public activity, a place of residence and use of badges.”
After the confirmation by the Vatican, the archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Carlos Castillo, published a letter of solidarity with all the victims of abuse and thanks to the Pope. In the letter, Castillo thanked Francisco for the task of “preventing, investigating and sanctioning the crimes of abuse of spiritual, sexual and power consciousness within the Church” and reiterated his “full confidence in criminal canonical procedures and instruments that the Holy Headquarters has used, uses and applies, which have been evolving and improving.
Sodalicio case
In addition to referring to the sanctions that the Vatican has imposed on Cipriani, it seemed to also mention the pressure and harassment campaign that the Spanish priest Jordi Bertomeu is suffering, sent by the Pope to investigate the abuses within a Peruvian Catholic institution of conservative cut, the “sodalicio of Christian life”, and recently with the mission of suppressing it. In August, the Pope chose to expel this “Laical Pontifical Law of Pontifical Law” to its founder, Luis Fernando Figari (already in the past declared “person not pleasant” by the same sodalicio) and other fourteen members and senior charges , by different types of abuse, including sexual, authority or psychological. Recently Francisco has concluded that LTo spirituality of this organization is committedand that the most prudent is to suppress it to give freedom to its members. One of those expelled from the Sodalicio, the journalist Alejandro Bermúdez, has requested to obey the Pope but “resist” and “not accept the conditions” posed by his envoy, the priest Jordi Bertomeu.
Francisco’s decision, taken after years of collection of testimonies confirmed by psychological, authority and even sexual abuses in this institution, has been answered by some sectors in Latin America as if it were a measure against the conservative sector of the Church, and has Divided even more to Catholics in Peru. The truth is that suppression has nothing to do with the socio -political orientation of this organization but with abuse.
Although the sanctions of the Holy See against Cipriani date back to six years, 2019, those same sectors are presenting them as part of this same process of “punishment” to the conservative sector.
“Enter reason”
Therefore, the Archbishop of Lima, Carlos Castillo refers to Sodalicio and Cardinal Cipriani when he writes that «since in recent months, after serious and precise investigations, there are people and institutions that refuse to recognize the truth of the facts And the decisions taken by the Holy See, we summon everyone to reason through a conversion path that involves abandon . Only this will lead us to effectively overcome the tragedy that our Church lives, especially the victims, even the perpetrators.
Castillo, training theologian and for years professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, is a disciple of the Dominican priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, one of the founders of liberation theology.
The interpretation of the sanctions against Cipriani is taking such dimensions that the dome of the Episcopal Conference of Peru also made a statement to support the Pope and the victims. «We feel sorry for knowing the recent news about Cardinal Cipriani. We regret the pain suffered by the victims of abuse and the ecclesial community and ask all the people of God to respect the will of the victim to remain in anonymity, ”recites the text. They also request sentences by Cardinal Cipriani and qualify as “Wise” the “decision of the Holy Fatherby joining justice and mercy, of accepting that he ceased to be Archbishop of Lima when he turned 75 and impose some ministerial limitations ».
This Wednesday, Cipriani has responded from his residence in Madrid to these two missives with another public letter, in which he assures that when reading them he has reacted with «surprise and pain for the injustice with which they give by the ways a facts not proven about my person ». In the text he announces that he accepted the sanctions by writing that he did not recognize the accusations. «I am forced to specify that when the nuncio in Peru transmitted me the precept with which the congregation (for the doctrine of faith) limited me to some faculties, I signed it declaring in writing in the same act, that the accusation was Absolutely false and that would obey those provisions, as I have done, ”he writes.
Cipriani also recognizes the work of Pope Francisand ensures that “for the love of the Church and by communion with the Roman Pontiff I accepted preventive measures before the accusation received until the truth was clarified, although they have their origin in a false accusation of which I have not been able to defend”. «In all these years I have acted in communion with the Holy Father, with whom in addition to the obedience that he taxed him, he has joined personal knowledge and affection for many years. My faithful love to the Church remains unchanged, ”he adds.
He says goodbye recognizing the support of “brothers in the faith and thousands of compatriots” who “have not been confused in this campaign to attempt harass and destruction of my dignity and my honor.”
It does not seem to be the last word of this story, although the crossing of cards does not seem to help reconcile these two sectors.
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