Pope dissolves Peru-based Catholic movement with Colorado ties after abuses uncovered by Vatican

ROME — Pope Francis has taken the outstanding step of dissolving a Peruvian-based Catholic motion, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, after years of makes an attempt at reform and a Vatican investigation. The probe uncovered sexual abuses by its founder, monetary mismanagement by its leaders and non secular abuses by its high members.

The Sodalitium — which had lengthy primarily based its U.S. presence in Colorado — on Monday confirmed the dissolution, which was conveyed to an meeting of its members in Aparecida, Brazil, this weekend by Francis’ high authorized adviser Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda. In revealing the dissolution in an announcement, the group lamented that information of Francis’ choice had been leaked by two members attending the meeting, who had been “definitively expelled.”

It offered no particulars, saying solely that the “central info” concerning the dissolution that was reported by Spanish-language web site Infovaticana “was true however it contained a number of inaccuracies.” It didn’t say what the inaccuracies had been.

How a secretive Catholic society admonished by Pope Francis established itself in Colorado

The Vatican has not responded to a number of requests for remark. Dissolution, or suppression, of a pontifically acknowledged non secular motion is a serious endeavor for a pope, all of the extra so for a Jesuit pope given the Jesuit non secular order was itself suppressed within the 1700s.

The SCV dissolution, which had been rumored, marks a ultimate finish to what has amounted to a gradual demise of the motion, which was based in 1971 as one among a number of Catholic societies born as a conservative response to the left-leaning liberation theology motion that swept by Latin America within the Sixties.

At its peak, the group counted about 20,000 members throughout South America and the US. It was enormously influential in Peru and has its U.S. base in Denver.

However former members complained to the Lima archdiocese in 2011 about abuses by its founder, Luis Figari, and different claims date to 2000. However neither the native church nor the Holy See took concrete motion till one of many victims, Pedro Salinas, wrote a e book together with journalist Paola Ugaz detailing the twisted practices of the Sodalitium in 2015, entitled “Half Monks, Half Troopers.”

In 2017, a report commissioned by the group’s management decided that Figari sodomized his recruits and subjected them to humiliating psychological and different sexual abuses.

After an try at reform, Francis despatched his two most trusted investigators, Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, to look into the Sodalitium abuses. Their report uncovered “sadistic” sect-like abuses of energy, authority and spirituality, financial abuses in administering church cash and even journalistic abuses of harassing critics.

Their report resulted within the expulsions final 12 months of Figari and 10 high members, together with Daniel Cardó, a Denver-area priest, and two others with Colorado ties, in addition to an archbishop who had sued Salinas and Ugaz for his or her reporting and was compelled to retire early.

Over the previous 25 years, the Sodalitium has established a powerful presence in Colorado, the place the Archdiocese of Denver entrusted it with a metro-area parish, and the place the group has moved a number of high-ranking leaders together with a few of its monetary operations.

Regardless of the expulsion from the Sodalitium, Cardó stays a member of the Catholic Church and the pastor on the Holy Title Catholic Church in Sheridan.

Salinas, who has lengthy referred to as for the SCV to be suppressed, mentioned phrase of Francis’ decree was “extraordinary” albeit belated because the first denunciations date from 25 years in the past. He praised Scicluna and Bertomeu, in addition to the brand new prefect of the Vatican’s workplace for non secular orders, Sister Simona Brambilla, since she is finally liable for the SCV.

“And naturally with out the private dedication of Pope Francis on this lengthy historical past of impunity, nothing would have occurred,” Salinas mentioned, figuring out complicit Peruvian establishments and bishops who “most well-liked to look the opposite manner as a substitute of accompanying the Argentine pontiff in his wrestle for a Catholic Church with out abuse.”

It stays unknown what is going to change into of the property of the Sodalitium, which victims wish to be used as compensation for his or her trauma. In line with the code of canon legislation, solely the Holy See can suppress an institute such because the SCV and “a choice concerning the temporal items of the institute can be reserved to the Apostolic See.”

Renzo Orbegozo of Grapevine, Texas, a sufferer of the motion, welcomed the dissolution of the group to which he belonged from 1995-2008 and mentioned he hoped present members will notice the deception they’ve been dwelling with.

“The Sodalitium is known as a social scourge disguised as a Catholic affiliation,” he mentioned. “With time the present Sodalits will perceive this, they are going to notice that they had been solely a quantity and never an actual concern of the sect.”