Scandal-plagued Peruvian group grows aggressive as Vatican investigates

SÃO PAULO, Brazil – As the Vatican takes new steps to punish members of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), the scandal-plagued society of apostolic life founded in Peru in the 1970s which is currently facing a wide inquiry led by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith, the organization seems to be increasingly aggressive against its critics.

Some of the accusers of the group’s alleged crimes over the past decades, which include sexual and psychological abuse and financial malpractice, described it as a “cornered beast” as it sees unprecedented measures being taken by the Church, especially the expelling of its founder, Luis Fernando Figari, in August.

While the SCV gained a reputation of always acting strongly against any critic or victim who decided to make an accusation, many observers think some of its members will become even more active in its moves against accusers now the probe conducted by Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta and Msgr. Jordi Bertomeu is advancing – and may result in harsh consequences.

One example of the aggressive reactions could be seen at the end of August, when Argentine-born Sister Lucía Caram, a Dominican nun who lives in Spain and is famous for her charitable work with immigrants and for her progressive views on same-sex marriage and contraception, posted a comment on X addressed to Alejandro Bermúdez.

A Peruvian journalist who has been one of the SCV’s public faces for decades, Bermúdez was one of the creators of ACI Prensa, which later became part of EWTN.

Caram, who has been a critic of the group for several years, tagged Bermúdez and said “to every pig there’s a Saint Martin at the end,” a Spanish idiom that means that every act is met with the appropriate response sooner or later, in a clear reference to Figari’s punishment. She accused him of having defamed, attacked, and destroyed and asked him if he would now deny his ties with the SCV.

Bermúdez’s reaction shocked many analysts and victims of the Sodalitium. He reposted the sister’s comment, saying: “Enjoy this heretic nun’s charitable gem,” and called her a “malignant and horrible woman.” Many of his followers went in the same direction and posted insults to Caram.

On Aug. 20, Bermúdez went even further and published an entire podcast against Lucía Caram, making more attacks on her.

He argued that the SCV itself had demanded Figari’s expulsion six years ago and a measure like that shouldn’t lead Caram to “rejoice in evil.” Bermúdez said most of the Sodalitium‘s critics are “people who have no faith,” whose real intention is to destroy the organization.

The SCV was desired by God, who called him to be a member of it, he added, so he will never cease to be one. Caram isn’t able to understand that, he argued, given that “she doesn’t have eyes for the supernatural.”

Bermúdez also said Caram doesn’t deserve to be called a “nun” or to receive any religious title, and she deserved each of his attacks on her. He said he will keep criticizing her every time that “she, with her heresies, provokes scandal” among simple or ignorant Catholics.

“He has brought in the heavy artillery, and that’s not the first time he did so. He has always done it systematically, with the same pattern,” Caram told Crux, adding that after Bermúdez’s attacks, many of his followers usually send private messages to insult her with the same language that he used, accusing her of not being a true Catholic and of harming the Church.

Caram first heard about the Sodalitium due to her contact with Spanish-born Bishop Juan Godayol of Ayaviri, Peru. Godayol became emeritus in 2006 and traveled to Cataluña for a health treatment.

A few days after arriving in Spain, he suffered a car accident and was hospitalized in critical condition. Caram was asked by a brother of Godayol to call the Prelature of Ayaviri and tell the news about his situation to the cook who worked with him there. The bishop was Kay Martin Schmalhausen, a Sodalitium member.

“A lay member of the Sodalitium answers the phone. I tell him about Godayol and he replies that he thinks it’s a divine punishment, that God punishes the evil of the heretics and modernists, that if Godayol has moments of lucidity he must reflect on his acts and on the evil he has done. I hung up the phone,” she said

She would be shocked by such aggressiveness on several occasions since then, especially after she gave a TV interview and Bermúdez decided to criticize her in an article for ACI Prensa. After that, she became a constant target.

Rocio Figueroa, a former member of the Sodalitium and an abuse survivor, told Crux while most members tend to be more diplomatic and some even fear the press, “Bermúdez shows the true face of the organization, a reflection of how they think and how they act that can be seen without filters.”

“He said that his enemies will rejoice when the Sodalitium is closed, as if it was a battle of winners and losers. But it’s not, it’s a human tragedy without winners. People and families were destroyed,” she said, adding that Vatican-imposed penalties against the Sodalitium – including its potential extinction – “will only bring some justice and dignity to the victims, but there will be no reason for a party.”

Figueroa, who was abused by Father German Doig, the SCV’s vicar – and, after his death in 2001, a candidate for beatification – faced a wide defamation campaign when she decided to speak about the crimes in 2011. Articles against her were published by ACI Prensa.

“The whole community turned against me. They accepted the idea that it was my fault. There was an effort to discredit me and my denunciation,” she recalled.

Figueroa said she has never seen any brutal attack from Bermúdez on his colleagues who committed abuse and other crimes, only on people he disagrees with when it comes to ideology or doctrinal matters.

“They think that measures against them are being taken because they have enemies in the Church and in the press, not due to their faults. They’re unable to question themselves,” Figueroa added.

Those campaigns against abuse victims have been frequent in the Sodalitium. Oscar Osterling, who joined five other former members of the organization in 2016 and denounced the abuses that they suffered to the judiciary, still has to deal with the claim that he only wanted money from the group.

“Over the years, several people said that I received a great sum of money, as high as 1 million dollars. That’s a terrible way of discrediting an abuse victim,” he told Crux. None of the six accusers have received any form of compensation or indemnity until now.

“Those lies cause much anger. But they keep acting like this and they’re not questioned about it. And they keep releasing statements as if they haven’t committed any crime,” Osterling said.

Jose Enrique Escardó, the first abuse victim to publicly accuse the Sodalitium of crimes in 2000, is among the people who most suffered the consequences of denouncing the organization’s crimes. He not only had to deal with a whole community claiming that he “wanted to destroy the Church,” but also with death threats.

“In that same year, I received an anonymous email that said that I was going to be tortured in a square in Lima. In 2010, when my daughter was only 4, she was menaced through comments on my blog,” Escardó told Crux. Five years ago, “I answered the phone and heard that my daughter and I would be killed,” he added.

For two journalists who had the courage to investigate the Sodalitium‘s misdeeds, the consequences can still be felt. Pedro Salinas and Paula Ugaz, who authored articles and books about the organization, were accused of absurd crimes and are facing lawsuits. They say they firmly believe that the Sodalitium is behind the judicial measures.

“Since we began to write the book, we knew that the Sodalitium is vengeful and that we could suffer the consequences,” Ugaz told Crux.

She said that Salinas was fiercely attacked by Bermúdez in 2011, after he posted on social media that the group should be thoroughly investigated.

After their book about abuse was published in 2015, they didn’t feel any kind of persecution. But three years later, when Ugaz began to investigate the Sodalitium‘s awkward financial empire, a devastating reaction followed it.

“They have enormous political and corporate power. They felt we were threatening their finances and retaliated,” Ugaz said.

Part of her investigation focused on Piura, a diocese in northern Peru then led by Archbishop José Antonio Eguren, a member of the SCV. She discovered that companies owned by the organization took control of communal lands in the region. After she reported this, a disinformation campaign was launched against her. She was even accused of wanting the Sodalitium out of Piura in order to exploit uranium and plutonium in the area. Ugaz ended up being accused of illicit enrichment.

“They want to keep me with the status of an ‘investigated person,’ so they can discredit me,” she said.

Ugaz met with Pope Francis in 2022 and received his support. Eguren renounced earlier this year. But the lawsuit is not over yet, despite the absurdity of the charges.

Charges were also imputed to Pedro Salinas. He lost a defamation lawsuit filed against him by Eguren, but the archbishop ended up giving it up after the Vatican intervened. Another process for having allegedly been unduly benefited by a deal with the State is still going on.

Salinas argued that the accusation was completely made up – and has the Sodalitium‘s fingerprints.

“Operation Valkiria [which investigated the General Attorney’s actions in 2023] revealed that the Sodalitium had a lawyer infiltrated in the office who influenced it to launch inquiries against us,” he explained.

The lawyer, José Luis Hauyón, was for years an attorney for the SCV and defended many of its members.

The unfair charges imputed to Salinas and Ugaz were publicized by a network of right-wing media outlets controlled by allies of the Sodalitium. Even books against Salinas and journalist Daniel Yovera – who also wrote negatively about the group – were published as part of a smear campaign.

“Curiously, the lawsuits against members of the Sodalitium have progressed very slowly and kept their major leaders out of risk,” Salinas said.

Despite the general perception in Peru that the Sodalitium lost all its good reputation and may be nearing its final days, observers like Caram still fear the power the organization has – and the aggressive reaction it may demonstrate.

“I fear for Scicluna and Bertomeu. They are in the eye of the hurricane right now and must take care. The children of darkness are very unscrupulous,” she said.