“They are deceiving the Pope. Or, worse, they are acting against you.” This is the lament of a victim of the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, one of the institutions most linked to the ecclesiastical extreme right in Latin America, which calls into question the zero tolerance policy sponsored by Francisco against abuses and the institutions that They instigated and covered up.
The reflection comes because, in recent weeks, regret has begun to spread among those most responsible for the fight against pedophilia within the Church, who see how certain sectors of the Vatican Curia – linked to conservative movements such as Sodalicio itself or the Opus Dei – are once again exerting all their influence to delay, stop or put on hold some of the decisions most anticipated by survivors of abuse.
Attacks against Bertomeu
The most relevant case is that of Sodalicio. When on August 16, the Pope decreed the expulsion from the movement of its founder, Luis Fernando Figari, accused of sexual abuse and financial corruption, everyone assumed that the suppression of the organization founded by him in Peru would come in a few weeks.
However, and despite the fact that the investigation carried out by the Pope’s investigators, Charles J. Scicluna and the Spaniard Jordi Bertomeu, uncovered evidence of the corruption of its top officials, the truth is that, in recent times, there have been verified maneuvers that suggest that the Vatican could reverse or, at least, freeze any decision. This places the so-called anti-pedophile ‘Van Helsing’ in a difficult situation.
The last chapter occurred a few weeks ago, when two prominent members of the Sodalitium, to whom the Holy See had given a period of 48 hours to ask for forgiveness and compensate the victims under penalty of excommunication, managed to meet in a private meeting (not included in the Vatican agenda) with Francis.
Both Giuliana Caccia and Sebastián Blanco accused priest Bertomeu before the Pope of revealing secret information from the investigation to journalists Paola Ugaz and Pedro Salinas, to obtain the conviction of the former members of the Sodalicio. Surprisingly, according to their version – not denied by the Holy See – Caccia and Blanco assured that the Pope signed the revocation (or suspension, depending on the versions) of their decree of excommunication, although Rome asked them to keep the meeting secret. A secret that they did not keep when explaining the content of their talk with Bergoglio in up to two videos. The two have taken Bertomeu (as those responsible for the Sodalicio did before with the journalists who uncovered the scandal) to the Peruvian courts for revealing secrets.
Torreciudad and Gaztelueta: Opus Dei, open case
The other major institution in trouble in recent years, the Opus Dei, has also seen how the strings of the Vatican bureaucracy have been conveniently pulled to delay, as much as possible, both the reform of its statutes and in two of the scandals that have shaken its foundations in recent times: the ownership of the Torreciudad sanctuary, and the canonical resolution of the ‘Gaztelueta case’.
In the first case, the Pope appointed a plenipotentiary pontifical commissioner for the complex created by Escrivá de Balaguer, the Spanish Alejandro Arellano. The emissary was scheduled to arrive in Barbastro in mid-November, but his entry into the sanctuary has been delayed without further explanation. The delay leaves the first step that had to be taken in the air: the appointment of a new rector for Torreciudad. Internal sources, however, indicate that Arellano will spend this entire weekend at the complex.
In the second, the canonical sentence against the pedophile has been delayed with different excuses. And the canonical investigation was completed in the summer. The investigation was commissioned by the Pope to the bishop of Teruel, José Antonio Satué, against the actions of the Work and the pedophile convicted in a civil sentence for abuse of a minor.
To date, neither the family nor their lawyers have had any news of when they will be able to close, at the canonical level, what the Supreme Court ruled years ago. That resolution should provide comprehensive reparation from Opus Dei, as well as an ecclesiastical condemnation for the abuser.
The victim’s father, Juan Cuatrecasas, tells elDiario.es that “we feel helpless, re-victimized and deeply disappointed.” And he adds: “What should be something great for the victims has become another demonstration that the victims do not have oxygen nor will they have it from the Church.” Cuatrecasas – today converted into one of the driving forces in Europe in the fight against child abuse – emphasizes that “justice, when it is so slow, is not justice.”
In the background of these plots, along with the movements of the ultra-conservative sectors in the face of what they consider a time of “end of pontificate”, are the difficulties arising from the deficit in the Vatican accounts. The economic situation has led the Holy See to turn off the tap of all the dicasteries and invite those responsible for the Curia to seek external financing.
A financing that, in the case of the Catholic Church, comes mostly from clearly conservative institutions and, in some cases, openly contrary to the papacy of Francis. Most of them come from the United States. The money comes, some sources claim, from the same groups that partly financed the campaign of the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump.
All information in www.religiondigital.org
#reactionary #bunker #Curia #stops #vital #decisions #Opus #Dei #Sodalitium #Vatican
