ROME – Pope Francis on Monday received in a private audience three journalists who have been reporting on scandals involving the Peru-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), and who have faced a swath of legal complaints and social media harassment related to their reporting.
Journalists Pedro Salinas, Paola Ugaz and Elise Ann Allen of Crux (the author of this article) were received by the pope at 9a.m. in the library of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, representing victims of the SCV and its various branches, as well as other journalists who have faced pressure from the group over their reporting.
The meeting came after the pope on Nov. 23 met with two individuals, Giuliana Caccia and Sebastian Blanco, who have accused SCV victims of harassment and who have filed both a criminal civil complaint and an ecclesial complaint in the Roman Rota against one of the Vatican officials investigating the group for an apparent breach of professional secrecy, which both he and others close to the process have denied.
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During his Dec. 9 meeting with Salinas, Ugaz and Allen, Pope Francis assured his support of them and the Vatican officials investigating the SCV, telling the journalists, “You can use this meeting to say publicly that I fully support the Special Mission and I do not support them [Caccia and Blanco].”
Founded in 1971 by Peruvian layman Luis Fernando Figari, the SCV has faced a swath of allegations for various abuses, including sexual abuse and financial corruption. Salinas and Ugaz were the first to publish scandals involving the group with their 2015 book, Half Monks, Half Soldiers.
Pope Francis last year ordered his top two investigators, Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, to travel to Lima on a Special Mission to investigate ongoing allegations of abuse and financial misconduct against the group, an investigation which so far has resulted in the expulsion of Figari and 14 other top-ranking members.
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Caccia and Blanco, after asking to be interviewed by the Special Mission while in Lima in July 2023, filed a criminal civil complaint against Bertomeu, and were threatened by the pope with excommunication if they did not retract it.
However, after their Nov. 23 meeting with the pope, their decree of excommunication was annulled and Caccia and Blanco, as well as former members of the SCV who were recently expelled, have said their civil and ecclesial complaint against Bertomeu was done with the support of the pope.
Pope Francis’s statement in his meeting with Salinas, Ugaz and Allen, however, contradicts that narrative.
After arriving, the journalists thanked the pope for his interest in the case, and for sending the Special Mission to investigate, saying victims have found both Scicluna and Bertomeu to be competent and reassuring.
The meeting comes after Ugaz’s Nov. 10, 2022, meeting with Pope Francis, during which she spoke to the pope about her findings in her nearly 10 years investigating the SCV, as well as the judicial persecution she said that she and Salinas have endured since the publication of their book in 2015 by individuals and organizations associated with the SCV.
Ugaz during Monday’s meeting provided Pope Francis details on their latest findings related to the SCV’s alleged financial crimes.
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The journalists also spoke of the physical, sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuses, as well as the abuses of power and conscience, that victims reported to the Special Mission, saying these complaints were just the tip of the iceberg, and conveying the belief among many that the SCV’s various reform efforts have failed.
“We’re going to finish it,” the pope told the journalists, speaking of the SCV. When asked by Salinas when, the pope said, “we have to finish it well.”
When Salinas again pressed for a timeline, the pope said, “now I’m going to talk about with who I need to.”
Salinas, Ugaz and Allen also told the pope that several members of the SCV, including those recently expelled, have said publicly that they are awaiting the death of Pope Francis, so that they can appeal to the next pope to reverse their expulsions once Francis dies.
Allen recounted that in a social media post overnight, Peruvian journalist and expelled SCV member Alejandro Bermudez said, “I’m just biding my time until the next Pope comes, and I can make my case and get back to where I belong – my community.”
Francis said in response, “they are not the only ones,” and jested that the bruise visible on his chin, which was obtained after hitting his chin on a bedside table, was from a bishop who wanted to be a cardinal but didn’t get the red had in Saturday’s consistory, during which 21 prelates were elevated.
Throughout the conversation Pope Francis appeared relaxed and demonstrated his usual casual sense of humor.
Allen in her comments also noted that many victims and former SCV members in the United States have not yet spoken to the Special Mission due to their fear of reprisals.
For this reason, she asked that the pope extend the Special Mission with a visit to Denver, where the SCV’s main US operations are based, to hear victims in the United States who have not yet been able to be heard.
The journalists told Francis that for victims, the suppression of the SCV and the other four communities and groups founded by Figari – the Marian Community of Reconciliation (MCR), the Servants of the Plan of God (SPD), and the Christian Life Movement (CLM) – is not enough, but they are asking for compensation.
Ugaz said that two investigatory commissions established in 2016 and in 2017 by the SCV to speak with victims and evaluate compensation were ineffective, and that the current SCV superior general, Jose David Correa, and other members have now begun to contact victims who have not been officially recognized, after rumors of the group’s suppression started to spread.
They called for an independent commission to be established that will offer just compensation to victims with the money that the SCV supposedly made through illicit means.
Referring to the pope’s Nov. 23 meeting with Caccia and Blanco, Salinas said SCV victims had felt “defrauded, hopeless and disappointed” by it, and that some had lost hope in the Church and its ability to obtain justice.
Salinas and Ugaz said that Caccia and Blanco had lied about their version of events from the beginning and that for attempting to tell the truth, they have been labelled by the couple and the SCV as “media activists.”
In response, Pope Francis assured them that, “the process will end well.”
Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen
Allen is a former member of the Marian Community of Reconciliation and a former employee of Bermúdez.
