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Lima, Peru, Feb 14, 2017 / 03:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A two-part report made public on Tuesday detail sexual, physical and psychological abuses committed by members of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, both those who have left the community and those who remain in it.

In addition to the movement’s founder, Luis Fernando Figari, four other Sodalits were reported to have sexually abused minors. The report named the other offenders, none of whom are still part of the community.

Seven of the Sodalits “who were identified as having physically or psychologically abused” another member or a person in formation are still in the community and performing external ministry. They have had administrative actions taken against them and are receiving training. The report did not give their names.

The Sodalitium Christianae Vitae is a society of apostolic life which was founded in 1971 in Peru, and granted pontifical recognition in 1997. CNA's executive director, Alejandro Bermúdez, and its global director of operations, Ryan Thomas, are both members of the community.

The first report released Tuesday detailed the acts of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse reported to have been committed by Figari, as well as reported sexual abuse by four former Sodalits. No current members of the Sodalitium except for Figari, who has been barred from community life and contact with other members, have been reported to have committed sexual abuse of minors.

The second report discussed other kinds of abuse perpetrated by Sodalits, the harm done, the community's responses to the allegations, accountability measures and its ongoing work to prevent future abuse. It also described some of the causes of the abuse, the difficulties in reporting it, and the past and present culture of the Sodalitium.

“We again ask forgiveness from each person that has been hurt by a member or a former member of the Sodalitium,” said Superior General Alessandro Moroni Llabres upon the release of the report. “We are committed to a process of self-examination and of change.”

The reports were authored by Kathleen McChesney of Kinsale Management Consulting; Monica Applewhite of Confianza, LLC; and Ian Elliott of Ian Elliott Safeguarding.

“It is the professional opinion of the reviewers that the incidents of abuse described in this report occurred,” the text noted. “However, this opinion does not represent an investigatory conclusion, nor does it constitute the findings of a legal or canonical proceeding.”

Figari’s abuses

Figari, in addition to being the founder and long-time superior general of the Sodalits, was also spiritual director to many of the members. According to the report, he “used his leadership status to have authoritarian direction and control of most Sodalits,” and he was able “to abuse some young members and aspirants of the SCV community.”

“It is clear that Figari sexually abused at least one minor male, sexually abused or sexually manipulated several other young men, and physically or psychologically abused dozens of others, including those he sexually abused,” the report stated, adding that he knew of three other Sodalits who sexually abused minors.

In addition to sexual abuse, Figari sexually manipulated several young men – he used his authority to cause the victims to act in a sexual manner, but in a way that did not rise to the level of sexual abuse.

Figari's sexual abuse and manipulation at times “occurred under the auspices of Figari’s providing spiritual advice to the victims,” the report said, and he sometimes told the victims the acts “were part of his mystical powers.”

It began as early as 1975, when Figari molested a 15 year old boy, who “was afraid to report his abuse to the SCV or civil authorities because Figari, as the founder of the SCV, was the most powerful person in the SCV community.”

Figari also committed physical abuse; he has been widely described as “appearing to enjoy observing the younger aspirants and brothers experience pain, discomfort and fear.” He reportedly burned an individual with a candle, and menaced members with his dog, allowing it to bite them at times.

As superior general until 2010, Figari was also responsible for the formation of Sodalits, which was extremely physically demanding. “Numerous witnesses described the formation program that Figari developed as being modeled after military training techniques depicted in movies that he regularly watched,” read the report.

Formatees were thus “subjected to continuous, strenuous, unnecessary and, often, unrealistic physical requirements,” such as swimming in cold ocean waters for several hours at a time, running long distances in inclement weather, and performing difficult exercises for extended periods of time.

Physical abuse was also used as a disciplinary measure: those in formation were made to sleep on stairways for many nights at a time, to stay awake all night in chapel, or were denied food or water.

Furthermore, Figari committed psychological abuse, the report said – while some Sodalits regarded him as kind and paternal, he was also “frequently described by both former and current Sodalits as narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist, and obsessed with sexual issues” and sexual orientation.

He was also described “as an arrogant man who treated many of the Sodalits as his servants.” His closest aids “typically worked 12-14 hours each day,” and if they “did not anticipate or respond quickly to his requests, or if they made even the smallest mistake, Figari would criticize and berate them in front of each other.”

In addition to Figari, four other (now former) Sodalits committed reported sexual abuse of minors: Germán Doig Klinge, Virgilio Levaggi Vega, Jeffrey Daniels Valderrama, and Daniel Murguía Ward. This occurred between 1975 and 2007. Three of these offenders, including Figari, also sexually abused adults. No conspiracy among the alleged abusers was found.

Other types of abuse

The second report discussed abuse by Sodalits which was not sexual abuse of minors, but which victimized Sodalits, members of the Sodalitium family, and young people who participated in youth groups associated with the community.

“Physical and psychological abuse of aspirants and Sodalits was more prevalent than sexual abuse,” the report noted, and it occurred most often during “aspirance” or formation.

One testimony included in the report described an older Sodalit holding a small knife to a younger member’s throat, and forcing him to eat bowls of salt and ketchup until he became physically ill. Several others recalled members being instructed to hit one another.

Not every member experienced abuse, but many of those who did have suffered continuing psychological and spiritual harm, and some have suffered financially after leaving the community, failing to find steady employment because “their superiors prevented them from receiving a professional education.” Some even lost their belief in God.

The majority of Sodalits “were, and are, pious and of good, moral character, and attracted by the Gospel and the positive aspects of the SCV’s culture,” the report said, and “it was not the SCV’s culture that caused the offenders to commit acts of abuse,” although some authorities in the organization permitted or encouraged these abuses.  

But while the organization’s original goals were admirable, it said, many members “reported a significant measure of the organization’s focus and energies shifted from these goals to increasing its power and influence in the Catholic Church.”

This resulted in practices which “overemphasized vocations, cultivating relationships with influential members of the Catholic hierarchy and influential members of the communities they served, and protection of the SCV’s reputation.”

“Many former Sodalits felt pressured to join or stay in the SCV, not because they had a true vocation but, rather, to increase the size of the SCV and to impress the Catholic hierarchy in South America and the Holy See.”

The report described a culture of secrecy where “new members were directed to distance themselves from their families,” as well as promises of “total obedience,” by which “some Sodalits felt pressured to obey their superiors in all matters, even when they were directed to treat their brothers in ways that were destructive to their physical or mental well-being.”

In 1998, Figari demanded that formation become more rigorous, and a new superior installed at this time is the subject of most reports of severe physical and psychological abuse. Formators continued to make “unnecessary physical demands and put psychological pressures on the students” until 2010, according to the report.

The report attributed the lack of training and formal requirements for formators to be at the root of much of the physical and psychological abuse, noting that the superiors and formators “were mostly young, inexperienced and immature.”

Victims – often young adults – were afraid to come forward, the report said, “especially because their offenders were in more senior, powerful positions, or were their spiritual directors.”

“Until 2016, there was no formal, confidential, neutral process for addressing allegations and when victims did report abuse, the SCV’s lack of policies and protocols in these matters resulted in inconsistent responses from the authorities.”

It noted that “a few subordinates are still fearful of complaining to SCV authorities, even confidentially” and that there is currently “no formal complaint or conflict resolution process within the SCV to manage grievances and disagreements.”

“Until such a process is in place, personnel management problems are likely to disrupt some of the work of the SCV,” the report said.

In total, sexual abuse or manipulation against adults was committed by seven Sodalits, the report said: 14 men and three women were sexually abused, and 14 men were sexually manipulated. These acts occurred between 1975 and 2009. Only two remain in community life: one has been removed from all external ministry, and one performs restricted ministry.

Another Sodalit who has demonstrated inappropriate behavior with adults and minors is not allowed to have external ministry, is prohibited from being alone or working with minors, and is being monitored by persons of authority.

Physical and psychological abuse by Sodalits occurred between 1971 and 2010, the report said. At least 18 Sodalits and aspirants have reported they were physically and/or psychologically abused by 11 Sodalits – though this figure “does not include one brother who was reported to have verbally harassed several persons. This brother has acknowledged his anger issues and is being assisted and closely monitored by SCV authorities.”

Two of those who committed physical or psychological abuse have left the Sodalitium. Of the nine who remain in the community, four were superiors or formators but have been removed from those position; two of the nine do not currently perform external ministry.

Sodalit authorities “have taken administrative actions against them that are appropriate to their offenses with the goal of preventing future abuse and ensuring that the men are held responsible for their abusive behavior. Each offender has been, or will be provided with, specific training regarding the conduct expected of a Sodalit.”

While this abuse largely occurred in the 1980s and '90s, “there are a few current members who feel that some senior Sodalits still do not treat them with respect or have anger management problems,” the report said. The community’s superiors are addressing these matters.  

The Sodalitium’s response

Figari's sexual abuse was first reported to another Sodalit authority in 2002, and other victims first submitted formal complaints to ecclesial or civil authorities in 2011. The victim who reported his abuse in 2002 did not want to provide a written testimony or begin a formal canonical process against Figari, according to the report.

The allegation made in May 2011 was made to Lima's interdiocesan tribunal, which forwarded it to the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Two other allegations were forwarded to the congregation by September 2011.

The then-superior general of the Sodalits, Eduardo Regal Villa, heard of allegations and became concerned about Figari's behavior and actions. Regal directed Figari to withdraw from public life, but “the other members of the community did not know of these measures and thought that Figari retired because of health issues.”

Regal visited Rome to meet with the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life in November 2011 and October 2012 to discuss the canonical case against Figari, and also pursued the issue with the archdiocese and tribunal of Lima.

Much of the Sodalits' handling of the allegations of Figari's sexual abuse has occurred under the leadership of Moroni, who was elected superior general in December 2012.

In 2015, an apostolic visitor was appointed to the community, and an ethics commission was created to investigate and offer proposals surrounding the accusations of abuse against Figari. The following year, Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark was appointed the Vatican's delegate to oversee ongoing reform of the Sodalits. Tobin had been secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life from August 2010 until Oct 2012.

In January the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae announced that 66 persons can be considered victims of abuse of mistreatment by members of the community, and that it has set aside more than $2.8 million in reparations and assistance for victims. Figari was also barred from contacting members of the community.

The report found that the Sodalitium had sometimes offered an “ineffective or non-existent response” to allegations, which allowed abuses to continue. The community lacked procedures for responding to allegations until 2016. Some Sodalits “would try to convince the victims that what they had experienced was not abuse, or they would accuse the victims of lying,” the report said, noting that some members believed the community’s response to be driven by a desire to protect its own reputation.

Moving forward

In 2016, a review team made 35 recommendations to promote a safer environment in the Sodalitium, all of which have been accepted by the community. Several have already been completed.

Ongoing recommendations including providing Sodalit authorities with training to respond to abuse allegations; better records and reports; screening of new members; reviewing the formation process; offering abuse awareness and prevention training; determining the role that leaders who failed to respond to reports of abuse have in the future of the congregation; enhancing communication and transparency; and allowing external reviews.

Recommendations whose implementation are pending are the establishment of a review board to evaluate abuse allegations; establishing a policy regarding social media, texting, and other communications with minors, aspirants, and formatees; establishing and publishing a code of conduct for members and consequences for misconduct; developing guidelines for suitability for ministry; designating an ombudsman to assist members in dealing with grievances; establishing a policy to communicate with various audiences regarding abuse reporting.

The Sodalits’ Superior Council has also accepted the review team’s 14 recommendations for current members who have harmed others in the past. Consistent with best practices and canonical guidelines, recommendations regarding specific individuals are confidential, the report said.

Turning to the future of the Sodalitium, the report said that most victims interviewed “hope to see the community fundamentally changed for the better and recognize that some constructive changes have taken place in the discernment and formation process,” though some would prefer to see the institution “suppressed or disbanded … they continue to distrust the community and seriously doubt that it has the ability to change.”

According to the report, the Sodalitium's culture “has evolved in positive ways in the past decade,” and that the militaristic emphasis and that on impressing the hierarchy “are no longer evident” in its daily works. Discernment is now a more free process. Candidates are encouraged to finish college before entering formation, and “today's formators and superiors treat the students with respect and dignity.”

 

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Vatican City, Feb 14, 2017 / 05:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The head of the Vatican office charged with interpreting Church law has said that divorced-and-remarried persons who want to change their situation but cannot, may be admitted to Communion without living in continence.

“The Church could admit to Penance and to the Eucharist faithful who find themselves in an illegitimate union when two essential conditions occur: they want to change the situation, but they are unable to fulfill their desire,” Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, 78, wrote in his booklet Chapter Eight of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhoration Amoris laetitia, published last week.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio is president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. His booklet, published by the Vatican Publishing House and presented Feb. 14 at a Vatican press confence, offers his own interpretation of Amoris laetitia. He said it is aimed at “grasping the rich doctrinal and pastoral message” of Pope Francis' 2016 apostolic exhortation.

Part of the reason for writing it, he said, is because the exhortation's eighth chapter has “been judged with either negativity or with a certain reservation.”

In the text, Cardinal Coccopalmerio extensively quotes Amoris laetitia, saying Chapter 8 illustrates both the clear doctrine of the Church on marriage, as well as the conditions in which, due to “serious” repercussions, couples living in irregular unions might be able to receive Communion.

He reaffirmed the Church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, and stressed that the Church must in no way “renounce to proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its greatness.”

“Any form of relativism, or an excessive respect in the moment of proposing it, would be a lack of fidelity to the Gospel and also a lack of love of the Church,” he said.

However, he noted that, as said in Amoris laetitia, there are many complex factors contributing to why marriages fail and irregular unions are so common, such as abandonment by a spouse, cultural stigmas, or other “mitigating factors.”

The cardinal pointed to paragraph 301 of Amoris laetitia, which reads: “it is can no longer simply be said that all those in any ‘irregular’ situation are living in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of sanctifying grace.”

By referring to “any irregular situation,” the exhortation, in his opinion, “intends to refer to all those who are married only civilly or only living in a de facto union or are bound by a previous canonical marriage,” the cardinal said.

Further quoting that paragraph, the cardinal said, “a subject may know full well the rule, yet have great difficulty in understanding ‘its inherent values,’ or be in a concrete situation which does not allow him or her to act differently and decide otherwise without further sin … factors may exist which limit the ability to make a decision.”

Offering an example of a situation in which a person might be fully aware of the irregularity of their situation yet faces great difficulty in changing it for fear of falling into greater sin, Cardinal Coccopalmerio pointed to couples in a new union who can’t separate due to “serious reasons” such as the education of their children.

He also used the example of a woman cohabiting with a man and his three children, after they had been abandoned by his first wife.

In the book, the cardinal said the woman had saved the man “from a state of deep despair, probably from the temptation of suicide.” The couple had been together for 10 years, adding another child to the mix, with the woman making considerable sacrifices to help raise the other three.

While the woman in the hypothetical situation “is fully aware of being in an irregular situation” and would “honestly like to change her life, but evidently, she can't,” the cardinal said, explaining that if she left, “the man would turn back to the previous situation and the children would be left without a mother.”

To leave, then, would mean the woman would fail to carry out her duties toward innocent people, namely, the children. Because of this, Cardinal Coccopalmerio said, “it's then evident that she couldn’t leave without new sin” occurring.

Speaking on the point of continence, the cardinal pointed to St. John Paul II’s 1981 apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio.

In the document, St. John Paul II taught that the divorced-and-remarried who for serious reasons cannot satisfy the obligation to separate may receive absolution which would open the way to Communion only if they take on the duty to live in complete continence – to live as brother and sister.

However, for Cardinal Coccopalmerio, while the couples who are able to do this should, for others the temptation of infidelity increases the longer a couple refrains from sexual intimacy, potentially causing greater harm to the children.

He referred to footnote 329 of Amoris laetitia. The footnote is a reference to the quoting of St. John Paul II's words in Familiaris consortio acknowledging that some of the divorced-and-remarried cannot, for serious reasons, separate. The footnote applies the words of Gaudium et spes that “where the intimacy of married life is broken off, its faithfulness can sometimes be imperiled and its quality of fruitfulness ruined” – in its context, speaking about married couples – to “the divorced who have entered a new union.”

Cardinal Coccopalmerio stressed that while for him the desire to change one’s situation despite the inability to do so is enough to receive Communion, the conditions must be “carefully and authoritatively discerned” on the part of ecclesial authority, which would typically be the couple’s parish priest, who knows the couple “more directly” and can therefore offer adequate guidance.

For the cardinal, the only instance in which a couple in an irregular situation could be barred from Communion is when, “knowing they are in grave sin and being able to change, they have no sincere desire” to do so.

He also suggested that a diocesan office charged with advising on difficult marital situations could be “necessary, or at least useful.”

Cardinal Coccopalmerio was absent from his book presentation, and it was presented instead by Orazio La Rocca; Fr. Maurizio Gronchi; Fr. Giuseppe Costa, SDB; and Alfonso Cuateruccio.

Cardinal Coccopalmerio is the latest prelate to speak out on the question of Amoris laetitia and admission to Communion for the divorced-and-remarried. The exhortation has been met with a varied reception and intepretation within the Church.

Several bishops, including the bishops' conferences of Germany and of Malta, have said the divorced-and-remarried may receive Communion.

Yet many have maintained the Church's traditional discipline, including recently Bishop Vitus Huonder of Chur and Bishop Stephen Lopes of the Ordinariate of St. Peter.

And Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has on multiple occasions maintained that Amoris laetitia is in continuity with Church teaching.

In an interview with Il Timone earlier this month, he said that Amoris laetitia “must clearly be interpreted in the light of the whole doctrine of the Church.” He said that St. John Paul II's teaching in Familiaris consortio “is not dispensable, because it is not only a positive law of John Paul II, but he expressed an essential element of Christian moral theology and the theology of the sacraments.”

Confusion on this point, he said, stems from a failure to accept St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis splendor.

Cardinal Müller suggested that in order to quell the confusion generated by the differing interpretations of Amoris laetitia, everyone ought to study the Church’s doctrine, beginning with Scripture, “which is very clear on marriage.”

“All of us must understand and accept the doctrine of Christ and of his Church, and at the same time be ready to help others to understand it and put it into practice even in difficult situations,” he stated.

Observing the difference between the statements of Cardinal Müller and Cardinal Coccopalmerio, Dr. Edward Peters, a professor of canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, wrote that “the Church’s arguably two highest-ranking cardinals in the areas of canonical interpretation and the protection of doctrine and morals are in public, plain, and diametric opposition with each other concerning a crucial canonico-sacramental practice. This division cannot stand.”

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