A Peruvian-based Catholic movement has publicly distanced itself from its founder and asked for Vatican intervention in the wake of accusations of sexual, psychological and physical abuse of members.
The Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (Fellowship of Christian Life) asked forgiveness from the alleged victims, those who had denounced the alleged abuse and were ignored, members of the organisation and others associated with it.
Alessandro Moroni Llabrés, the organisation’s superior general, said: “We consider Luis Fernando Figari guilty of the abuses of which he is accused and declare him persona non grata for our organisation, which totally deplores and condemns his behaviour.”
The Sodalitium had asked the Vatican to order Figari’s “immediate separation from our community and end his unsustainable spiritual retreat in our facilities”.
Figari resigned as head of the movement in 2010 and has been living in a Sodalitium house in Rome, although immigration records show that he has visited Peru regularly since then.
The statement came five months after two Peruvian journalists, Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz, published the book Mitad Monjes, Mitad Soldados (Half Monks, Half Soldiers), alleging abuse by Figari and other Sodalitium leaders. Salinas is a former member of the movement.
Mr Moroni said: “The recent months have been very difficult for the Sodalitium family … they have brought us face to face with an unfortunate past that returned to the present like an earthquake”. He added that the Sodalitium is cooperating with investigations by the Vatican and Peruvian prosecutors.
A former consultant to a pontifical commission has vehemently denied giving private documents regarding the Vatican’s financial reform to two journalists.
Francesca Chaouqui, a member of the former Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Economic-Administrative Structure of the Holy See, replied “absolutely not” when asked by a Vatican prosecutor if she gave documentation to Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi.
She also denied having had a sexual relationship with Spanish Mgr Lucio Vallejo Balda, the secretary of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See. He said he had given documents to two reporters because he felt threatened by her. He claimed that she had told him: “I will destroy you in all the newspapers and you know that I can do it.” Mgr Vallejo Balda told the court: “If that isn’t a concrete threat …”
Ms Chaouqui said she sent the message out of anger after a friend told her Mgr Vallejo Balda was speaking ill of her and not because she wished to “extort something” from him.
“What would I want to extort from him? If a mouse app-roached him, he would have given it the documents,” she said.
Bernie Sanders ‘to visit Vatican’
Senator Bernie Sanders was due to attend a Vatican conference this week, hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
The Democratic presidential hopeful said he was “delighted to have been invited by the Vatican to a meeting on restoring social justice and environmental sustainability to the world economy.”
Mr Sanders has said he has great respect for Francis, who has injected “a moral consequence into the economy”.
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