[Editor’s note: The following article was written by Martin Scheuch, a survivor of the abuses of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), a religious institute based in Peru, from which its founder, the layman Luis Figari, and 10 other members — including Archbishop José Antonio Eguren, emeritus of Piura and Tumbes — were expelled last month. Scheuch’s article is a response to the claims of several of the expelled members that they were not presented with the charges against them, nor with the opportunity to defend themselves. Scheuch also responds to false claims made against the two Vatican officials — Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu — sent by Pope Francis to Peru on a ‘Special Mission’ to investigate SCV, including charges raised by two journalists who were recently excommunicated by Pope Francis for attempting to obstruct the Vatican investigation.

This article was originally published in Spanish at the website Religion Digital. The following is an unofficial English translation. The bold text in the article reflects the formatting in the original. —ML]

On October 2, 2024, Archbishop José Antonio Eguren, emeritus of Piura and Tumbes and one of the ten expelled from the Sodalitium, wrote in a letter addressed “to my brothers and friends in the Lord”:

“Many people have expressed to me, in their messages in recent days, their sorrow and mortification over the way in which our expulsion has been communicated, attributing to a group of ten brothers, all of us equally and without any clarification or precision, very serious acts. To have done so in this way, I am warned, constitutes an insult and damage to the reputation and good name of all those expelled, as well as to the justice and truth that have always guided the Church, even more so when one of them is a bishop. In my case, I can assure you that I have not gone through a due process.“

Here it is necessary to make not one, but many clarifications, always with respect to the truth. To begin with, the press release of the Apostolic Nunciature in Peru of September 25, 2024, through which the expulsion of the ten aforementioned members is communicated, is not a juridical document but merely informative, where the serious problems that caused the expulsions are listed in a general way, without going into greater detail.

The reasons for the decisions would be detailed specifically in each of the decrees of expulsion that were sent to the Superior General of the Sodalitium and to those affected, and which are not public documents. It is false, therefore, to say that the charges are attributed to all equally. Moreover, the Special Mission conducted by Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu in Peru, did not have a judicial function, but an investigative one. As those of us who asked were told, the Holy Father sent them to listen above all, after 24 years, to the victims. Their impartiality, which Archbishop Eguren’s lawyer, Percy Garcia Cavero, has questioned, was not a decisive element in this investigation. What was, however, was their fairness with everyone and empathy with the victims, which they did show during their visitation.

I myself asked why the Church did not act sooner. I was told: “many of the allegations regarding the behavior of these sodalits are not canonical crimes and those that are canonical crimes have already passed the statute of limitations. The penal route is impracticable. The disciplinary route is not. Their behaviors against the evangelical counsels[1] that you have criticized and which provoke such a grave scandal are intolerable in consecrated persons.”

The task of the Special Mission

With these preconditions, the main task of the Special Mission consisted in collecting testimonies and documents on alleged abuses of all kinds in the Sodalitium, the veracity of which had to be verified. How did they do that? By comparing different testimonies, documenting the differences, and analyzing the statements of both the alleged abusers and the victims.

All this leads to the problem of the right to defense. The assertions by some of our aggressors that they were unable to defend themselves is flatly false. I myself knew, because I asked at the time, for my personal testimony — taken virtually since I reside in Germany and supplemented by some of my writings published in recent years — to be presented to the perpetrators I had identified. They would be able to defend themselves and to present their defenses, which meant that we would be exposed a great deal. Despite this and because of the trust that Archbishop Scicluna and Monsignor Bertomeu inspired in us, we accepted.

All the accused were able to defend themselves and those of us who testified knew that what we said would be analyzed and then presented to the aggressors for their defense.

The process, followed by the ‘Special Mission’, therefore, did not include criminal aspects but was purely investigative. I insist, in case it has not been sufficiently clear: all the accused were able to defend themselves and those of us who testified knew that what we said would be analyzed and then presented to the accused for their defense.

For this reason, I consider absurd the claim of ultraconservative activists Giuliana Caccia and Sebastián Blanco that their testimonies should have been kept confidential and not presented to the other protagonists of the Sodalicio case.

It should also be made clear that Abp. Scicluna and Msgr. Bertomeu, even though they could have done so, never revealed their names to the other accusers. This conclusion is easily reached if one reads carefully everything published in the last few days. All the declarants were offered the normal confidentiality of any investigation. If any of them requested special confidentiality — as Mrs. X, one of those who testified against Alejandro Bermudez, apparently did — that confidentiality was respected.

False accusations

In addition, it was Archbishop Scicluna who questioned the journalists. Monsignor Bertomeu, who served as the notary, already denied the false accusations against him in an initial WhatsApp message and presented a coherent explanation of the facts, something that Mr. Blanco and Mr. Caccia have never done. Nor did he confess what he could not have done, as they have maliciously invented. The three implicated have also denied the false accusations against Bertomeu and have coherently explained what happened.

Therefore, anyone should understand that threatening to go to the civil courts when a matter can be resolved by canonical means is a clear attempt to obstruct ecclesiastical justice. Those who do so know that the worst tribunal is that of public opinion — in this case manipulated and stimulated with falsehoods that will fall sooner or later — even if for the moment they succeed in damaging the good reputation of people of integrity such as Archbishop Scicluna and Monsignor Bertomeu.

Scicluna, Bertomeu, and the Pope

They also accuse the Special Mission of imposing unjust punishments. This is also false. Abp. Scicluna and Msgr. Bertomeu only collected evidence without judging anyone, to present later to the accused. The final decisions on the expulsions were made by the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life by mandate of Pope Francis.

The dicastery, for its part, did not impose canonical penalties, but purely administrative decisions. This was the outcome of a disciplinary process where no crimes are recognized, but — in this particular case — resulted from “the grave scandal caused by their culpable conduct,” one of the grounds established by canon 696 of the Code of Canon Law for the expulsion of a member of an institute of consecrated life. It is very similar to disciplinary decisions made in any corporation.

The responsibility for dealing with these serious faults, repeatedly denounced and widely known in recent years, actually belonged to the Superior General of the institute. Instead, it had to be taken up by Pope Francis in the face of the scandalous indolence shown by the Sodalitium authorities. I lived for a long time under the same roof with Archbishop Eguren when he was still a priest. And I cannot agree with his own judgments about his “integrity” and “uprightness.” On August 27, 2018, in a reply to a notarized letter he had sent me — where he threatened to sue me for defamation — I wrote the following:

”Regarding psychological and physical mistreatment — which for a long time we got used to seeing as normal due to the mental conditioning we all suffered in the Sodalitium — can you say that you saw nothing? Didn’t we both live in the same community in Nuestra Señora del Pilar, not only in Barranco but also when it temporarily functioned in La Aurora (Miraflores), and also in the community of San Aelred (Magdalena del Mar)? I saw punished community members sleeping in the stairway. Didn’t you see them? I saw several forced to eat only bread and water — or worse, lettuce and water — for days. Didn’t you see them too? In nightly meetings where you were also present, I also saw how community members were forced to reveal their innermost secrets, without any respect for their right to privacy, often being subjected to humiliation and to foul and offensive language. Have you forgotten? I have seen you contribute to punishing, with the ingestion of disgusting food mixtures (such as desserts mixed with salty and spicy condiments), sodalits who were on probation in the community of San Aelred, under the responsibility of Virgilio Levaggi. Is your memory failing you? When I was at St. Bartolo’s in 1988, you often visited the community to celebrate Mass and hear confessions. Afterwards you would stay for lunch and in conversations you would learn about the things that were going on at St. Bartolo’s. Have you not realized by now that many of those things were abuses and mistreatments? Did you not always agree that we, members of the community, should distance ourselves as much as possible from our fathers? Also, when you were superior in Barranco, I was not allowed to make phone calls or go out to the corner without your permission. Whoever left the house without permission was then severely punished. Wasn’t this a kind of coercion of our freedom?”

But this does not seem to have been the decisive factor in the expulsion of Archbishop Eguren from the Sodalitium. It appears that he also lied. He claimed that he learned of the abuses of the Sodalitium through the press, when there is evidence that someone linked to the institution, whom I know personally, informed him of these abuses as early as 1986.

This person would have later sent him an e-mail telling him that he should keep it confidential, and Archbishop Eguren — violating the secrecy to which he was bound, unlike the Special Mission, which was obligated to reveal everything said before it — passed this information on to his lawyer Percy García Cavero, who then published the message in his defamatory pamphlet “The Pedro Salinas Case.”

Unconvincing allegations

Be that as it may, all those expelled were confronted with the testimonies that implicated them and had the opportunity to defend themselves. It seems that their arguments were not as convincing as they hoped. But this does not authorize them — as Archbishop Eguren, Father Rafel Ismodes, Alejandro Bermudez, and Humberto del Castillo already have done — to present themselves as gentle doves who, in their innocence, claim not to know the reasons for their expulsion and to portray themselves as victims of injustice.

It is enough to have been part of the Sodalitium’s system of abuses, to have endorsed practices that violated basic human rights, and to have covered up for the abusers with their silence for the expulsions to be more than justified.

For all these reasons, I would tell them to stop stirring up emotions with falsehoods, inconsistencies, and vague accusations. Stop interfering with the ongoing process of justice and show respect for the Holy Father and his envoys, for the good of everyone.

We, the victims and survivors of the Sodalitium, have respected the rules of the game and, at the risk of re-victimizing ourselves, we have reopened our wounds to tell what was already well-known from published books and articles. Our abusers, on the other hand, only exhibit arrogance, closed-mindedness and pride. Nevertheless, I believe I can finally affirm that their game is over.

(Religion Digital Editor’s note: the Scicluna-Bertomeu special mission is the subject of an atrocious smear campaign. For example, a blog known for its furious attacks on the Pope, which, following the ‘best’ teachings of Joseph Goebbels, has called it ‘The Vatican Gestapo’.)

Martin Scheuch is a survivor of the Sodalitium, to which he was linked from 1978 to 2008. Born in Peru in 1963, he currently lives in Germany.

Note

[1] The evangelical counsels are the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which are taken by individuals in consecrated life.

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Image: Archbishop José Antonio Eguren, YouTube screenshot.