Latest news with #SodalitiumChristianaeVitae
Los Angeles Times
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
As Pope Leo's record faces scrutiny, abuse victims say he helped when others didn't
VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV made plenty of enemies while helping dismantle a powerful Catholic movement whose leaders physically, sexually, spiritually and psychologically abused members. As Leo's record of handling clergy sexual abuse cases comes under scrutiny, victims of the now-disgraced group in Peru are stepping up to defend him. These survivors say that starting in 2018, the future pope, Bishop Robert Prevost, met with them. He took their claims seriously when others did not. He got the Vatican involved and worked to provide financial reparations for the harm they had endured. They credit him with helping arrange the key 2022 meeting with Pope Francis that triggered a Vatican investigation into the group, known as the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, that resulted in its suppression this year. 'What can I say about him? That he listened to me,' said José Rey de Castro, a teacher who spent 18 years in the Sodalitium as the personal cook for its leader, Luis Fernando Figari. 'It seems obvious for a priest. But that's not the case, because the Sodalitium was very powerful.' Figari founded the Sodalitium in Peru in 1971 as a lay community to recruit 'soldiers for God.' It was one of several Catholic societies born as a conservative reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America starting in the 1960s. At its height, the group counted about 1,000 core members and several times that in three other branches across South America and the United States. It was enormously influential in Peru and has its U.S. base in Denver. Starting in 2000, stories about Figari's practices began to filter out in Peru when a former member wrote a series of articles in the magazine Gente. A formal accusation was lodged with the Lima archdiocese in 2011, but neither the local church nor the Holy See took concrete action until former member Pedro Salinas and journalist Paola Ugaz exposed the practices of Sodalitium in their 2015 book 'Half Monks, Half Soldiers.' In 2017, a report commissioned by the group's new leadership determined that the charismatic Figari was 'narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist and obsessed with sexual issues and the sexual orientation of SCV members.' The report found that Figari sodomized his recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another, that he liked to watch them 'experience pain, discomfort and fear,' and humiliated them in front of others to enhance his control over them. Yet when members found the courage to escape and denounce the abuses they suffered, they say they often met a wall of silence and inaction from the Peruvian Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican. Both were slow to act against a movement that had been formally approved by St. John Paul II's Vatican, which had looked fondly on conservative, wealthy movements in Latin America, like the similarly disgraced Mexican-based Legion of Christ. But not Prevost, whom Francis made bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014 and later was elected vice president of the Peruvian bishops conference. He headed the bishops commission created to listen to victims of abuse, and became a crucial 'bridge' between victims and Sodalitium, the victims say. Rey de Castro, the former Figari cook who got out in 2014 and now teaches public policy to Peruvian police, turned to Prevost in 2021. He had been critical of a 2016 Sodalitium reparations program that, according to the group, provided some $6.5 million in academic, therapeutic and financial support to nearly 100 Sodalitium victims over the years. He and Prevost met in the offices of the Peruvian bishops conference and stayed in touch via text message up until Prevost's election as pope. From the start, Rey de Castro said, 'Prevost was very clear in saying, 'For me, Sodalitium doesn't have a charism,' ' the church term for the fundamental inspiration and reason for a religious movement to exist. After their 2021 meeting, Prevost helped arrange a confidential settlement with Sodalitium, he said. 'For Prevost to get the Sodalitium to do something just was exceptional, which was more or less what happened,' he said in an interview in Lima, the Peruvian capital. Salinas and Ugaz, for their part, say Prevost also stepped in when the Sodalitium started retaliating against them with legal action for their continued investigative reporting on the group. After the Sodalitium's archbishop of Piura, José Eguren, sued Salinas in 2018 for defamation, Prevost and the Vatican's ambassador to Peru helped craft a statement from the Peruvian bishops conference backing the journalists. 'It was the first time that anyone had done anything against the Sodalitium publicly,' Ugaz said. 'And not only did they make this declaration, but they communicated with Francis, told him what was happening, and Francis got mad.' Ugaz and Salinas provided years of emails, text messages and anecdotes dating back to 2018 to demonstrate how committed Prevost was to the cause of the Sodalitium accusers. While not all his initiatives succeeded, Prevost stepped in at critical junctions. 'I assure you I share your concern and we are looking for the best way to get the letter directly to the pope,' Prevost wrote to one accuser on Dec. 11, 2018, about getting a letter from Sodalitium victims to Francis. 'I will continue working so that there is justice for all those who suffered at the hands of Sodalitium,' Prevost wrote another accuser on Dec. 23, 2018. 'I ask forgiveness for the errors of the church.' After the Sodalitium criticism accelerated against Ugaz and Salinas, Prevost helped arrange for Ugaz to meet with Francis at the Vatican on Nov. 10, 2022, during which she laid out her findings and convinced Francis to send his top sex crimes investigators to Peru. Their 2023 investigation uncovered physical abuses 'including with sadism and violence, ' sect-like abuses of conscience, spiritual abuse, abuses of authority including the hacking of Ugaz's communications and economic abuses in administering church money. The inquiry also identified a publicity campaign some Sodalitium members had mounted against critics. The investigation resulted in Francis taking a series of initiatives, starting with the April 2024 resignation of Eguren, which Prevost handled. It continued with the expulsion of Figari, Eguren and nine others, and finally the formal dissolution of the Sodalitium in April this year, just before Francis died. The Sodalitium has accepted its dissolution, asked forgiveness for 'the mistreatment and abuse committed within our community' and for the pain caused the entire church. 'With sorrow and obedience, we accept this decision, specifically approved by Pope Francis, which brings our society to an end,' the group said in an April statement after the decree of dissolution was signed. There was no reply to an email sent to the group with specific questions about Prevost's role. Leo's record of handling sex abuse cases while he was an Augustinian superior and bishop in Peru has come under renewed scrutiny since his election May 8. And overall, one of the biggest challenges facing history's first American pope will be how he addresses the clergy abuse scandal, which has traumatized thousands of people around the world and devastated the Catholic hierarchy's credibility. The idea that Prevost might have enemies as a result of his tough line against the Sodalitium was crystallized in a recent podcast hosted by Salinas on Peru's La Mula streaming platform. Salinas dedicated most of the hourlong episode to reading aloud seven years of glowing correspondence between Sodalitium victims and Prevost. But he also said Prevost had become the target of a defamation campaign asserting he covered up for abusers. Salinas blamed the campaign on Sodalitium's supporters trying to discredit the new pope. One of the cases in question is Prevost's handling of abuse allegations made in 2022 by three sisters against one of his priests in Chiclayo. The diocese and Vatican say Prevost did everything he was supposed to do, including restricting the priest's ministry, sending a preliminary investigation to the Vatican's sex crimes office, offering psychological help to the accusers and suggesting they go to Peruvian authorities, who archived the case because it happened too long ago. Nine days after Peruvian authorities closed the case, Prevost was named to head the Vatican's office for bishops and left the diocese. The Vatican archived the case for lack of evidence, but it was reopened in 2023 after it gained traction in the media. Victims' groups are demanding an accounting from Leo. Salinas, Ugaz and even some in the Vatican believe Sodalitium supporters fueled publicity about the case and its reopening to discredit Prevost. They note that the accusers' lawyer is a former Augustinian antagonist of Prevost who has since been defrocked and barred from presenting himself as a canon lawyer in Peru. 'So, when I read about Prevost's 'alleged cover-ups,' something doesn't add up,' Salinas told AP. Rocío Figueroa, another Sodalitium accuser who now works as a researcher and theologian in New Zealand, concurred. 'It is very strange if someone is so strong and honest to do like that with victims of Sodalitium and not do it with other victims,' she said. Anne Barrett-Doyle, of the online abuse database said that even if the Chiclayo case is being exploited by Sodalitium supporters, 'it doesn't mean that he handled the case correctly.' 'Both things could be true: that then-Bishop Prevost acted valiantly on behalf of the victims of the Sodalitium and that he didn't do nearly enough to investigate the allegations in Chiclayo,' she said. Signing off his podcast, Salinas read aloud a WhatsApp message he had exchanged with Prevost on Oct. 16, 2024, when he warned him to beware of retaliation from the group. 'I have it very much on my mind,' Prevost wrote back. Winfield and Briceño write for the Associated Press and reported from Vatican City and Lima, respectively.
Washington Post
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Takeaways from AP report on abuse case handled by Pope Leo. Victims say he helped when others didn't
VATICAN CITY — As Pope Leo XIV's past record of handling clergy sexual abuse cases comes under scrutiny, his biggest defenders are the victims of a powerful Catholic movement he helped dismantle. The group, known as the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, was formally dissolved by Pope Francis this year after a Vatican investigation uncovered sect-like spiritual, physical and sexual abuses by its leaders against its members.
Toronto Star
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Toronto Star
Takeaways from AP report on abuse case handled by Pope Leo. Victims say he helped when others didn't
VATICAN CITY (AP) — As Pope Leo XIV's past record of handling clergy sexual abuse cases comes under scrutiny, his biggest defenders are the victims of a powerful Catholic movement he helped dismantle. The group, known as the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, was formally dissolved by Pope Francis this year after a Vatican investigation uncovered sect-like spiritual, physical and sexual abuses by its leaders against its members.
CNN
18-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
How Pope Leo dealt with years of abuse allegations in a powerful Catholic society in Peru
As a missionary and bishop in Peru, the future Pope Leo came face-to-face with one of the most serious and far-reaching scandals in the church in Latin America. For years, there were allegations of abuse within the hugely influential Catholic society Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), which had deep ties to Peru's powerful and wealthy. The scandal came to a head in 2015, the year after Leo, then known as Robert Prevost, was appointed bishop in the northern city of Chiclayo. A book written by one of the victims, Pedro Salinas, with journalist Paola Ugaz, 'Half Monks, Half Soldiers,' described alleged beatings, humiliation and sexual assault in stark detail from 30 anonymous victims that enflamed the country. Several survivors in Peru, Ugaz and a Vatican source closely involved in the case told CNN that Leo's eventual intervention – after a key meeting in 2019 and a crucial promotion in Rome – is what finally kicked the Church into taking dramatic action. When Oscar Osterling formally joined SCV in 1992, he was instructed not to tell his parents about his loyalty oath – a secrecy that appealed to the then-teenager. He would go on to spend more than two decades with SCV, only breaking out in his mid-thirties as the first allegations began to surface. Founded in 1971 in Peru as a lay group, the Sodalitium was politically driven as a fight back against the rise of liberation theology in Latin America, a radical movement which began in the 1960s and focused on supporting the poor. The society controlled several communities and ran religious schools in the southern part of the country, its members and students mostly drawn from the country's elite. At one point, SCV had 20,000 members across South America and parts of the United States – and went on to develop strong ties with Denver and Colorado, including links with conservative Catholic media. Victims complained of abuses by founder Luis Fernando Figari to the archdiocese in Peru's capital city Lima as early as 2011, and possibly before. Figari has always maintained his innocence with his lawyer telling CNN in January that Figari has not been convicted in a court of law for the allegations. But hearing the others' accounts, Osterling says he realized the strangeness of his own experience; he alleges that Figari would film him and other young converts standing in their underpants in the middle of the night during a spiritual retreat. 'In my case it did not escalate to a full sexual assault,' he says. He now believes he and his cohort were being groomed. Another alleged victim told CNN that he was raped by Figari at least three times in the 1970s, when he turned 17. It was 'the only way to correctly see his aura,' he recalls the older man telling him. While dozens of young Peruvians have alleged they were victimized or bullied by Figari and other senior members of SVC, the topic remains taboo in ultra-Catholic Peru, and only a few have chosen to make details of their allegations public. Prevost, who lived in Peru as a missionary in the 1980s and the 1990s, would have heard about these accounts while serving as Bishop of Chiclayo starting in 2014, especially following the publication of Ugaz and Salinas' bombshell book. Ugaz and Salinas also accused José Antonio Eguren, an archbishop in the coastal diocese of Piura – where Prevost worked as a young priest and which neighbors his diocese of Chiclayo – of protecting the SCV despite knowing about alleged abuses within it. Eguren fought back with a defamation lawsuit alleging this was untrue and harmed his honor and reputation, though he later dropped the case. According to Ugaz, who has faced a long campaign of legal actions and death threats around her reporting on the Sodalitium case, she received a message of solidarity during this time from Prevost and two other bishops. In 2017, a probe ordered by SCV revealed stunning allegations. The group, which had already begun a series of internal disciplinary actions, found that Figari sodomized his recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another. He liked to watch them 'experience pain, discomfort and fear,' and humiliated them in front of others to enhance his control over them, the report alleged. The next year, more than a dozen alleged victims of the SCV from across Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica, held a meeting with five high ranking prelates at the Peruvian Episcopal Conference in Lima. Prevost was one of the meeting's organizers; according to Ugaz, he acted as a 'bridge' between the victims and the SCV and helped secure financial settlements. Renzo Orbegozo, another alleged SCV victim, had been trying to meet with church officials for weeks but found little traction before Prevost, he told CNN. Trying to overcome the impasse, Orbegozo started emailing Prevost and another official, the Vatican's representative to Peru. When the meeting finally took place, Orbegozo recalls, 'Prevost recognized me immediately. 'You are the guy from the email!' he told me.' 'He wanted to know everything about our correspondence …and showed real empathy,' Orbegozo said. Osterling and Ugaz recall that the bishops they met agreed to write a letter to the Vatican, pushing to investigate the alleged crimes and asking for the personal involvement of then-Pope Francis. But higher church officials declined to move the case forward. 'I remember that meeting very well,' Orbegozo, who now lives in Texas, told CNN. 'Back then we had the feeling nobody was listening to us.' Ugaz, who first met Prevost in 2018 and remained in contact with him, said the stalled outcome of the meeting caused Prevost 'great frustration' although she added 'his character is not one to burn down the house. He accepted what had happened, made his frustration clear.' Though that meeting initially seemed to lead to little, Orbegozo and Osterling believe it was the first crack in a wall destined to crumble. '(Prevost) knew — he knew about many things — but he couldn't act because he had people above him. So much so, that as soon as he could, he did — when they made him prefect,' says Osterling. Everything seemed to accelerate in early 2023 after Prevost was named prefect of the influential Dicastery of Bishops – a role that suddenly catapulted him into a much more powerful position than the archbishop next door in Piura. The job gave him a crucial role in the appointments and oversight of bishops, holding regular meetings with fellow cardinals and Pope Francis to discuss episcopal nominations. It's hard to say exactly what happened in the halls of the Vatican after Prevost moved to Rome. But the next year, two top investigators from the Vatican were finally sent to Lima to establish what had happened within SCV – a probe that led to the expulsion of 14 members of the society, including Figari. Archbishop Eguren also resigned in April 2024 at the age of 67 – several years before the normal retirement age of 75 – without specifying the reasons. A source close to the Vatican investigation told CNN that the future Pope Leo played a crucial role in removing Eguren. 'As prefect of the dicastery, (Prevost) was very efficient in evaluating the evidence and obtaining the resignation of Archbishop Eguren,' a source close to the investigation explained to CNN. Eguren has denied Prevost's involvement in his resignation, emphasizing that he offered his resignation directly to Pope Francis. After stepping down, the archbishop also said in a statement that he rejected Ugaz and Salinas' allegations, and had 'sought to fulfil the mission entrusted to me with justice, honesty, and fidelity to the teachings of the Church, with special concern for the well-being of the poorest and most needy.' Another expelled member was Alejandro Bermúdez, founder of the Denver-based Catholic News Agency, who was found by the Vatican investigation to have committed 'abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism.' Bermudez, known for a combative style on social media, has countered that he was kicked out for simply 'telling the truth.' More recently, he worked as a contractor with 'Catholic Vote,' an organization which sought to bolster support for US President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. (The group's president Brian Burch is President Trump's pick to be the next US Ambassador to the Holy See.) The Sodalitium still retained powerful supporters. Following the news of the expulsions, the Archdiocese of Denver said it was 'shocked and saddened' while an adviser to a former Archbishop of Denver wrote that 'something is deeply wrong' with the 'Rome's latest treatment of the SCV (Sodalitium).' Nevertheless, in early 2025, then-Pope Francis went even further, taking the very rare step of suppressing the society entirely. The move was formally decreed on April 14 – just a week before Francis died. Afterwards, the SCV released a statement asking 'forgiveness from the entire Church and society for the pain caused' and 'forgiveness for the mistreatment and abuse committed within our community.' Prevost has been accused of mishandling abuse allegations in two other cases, in Chicago and in Chiclayo, Peru. But in the case of the SCV, Ugaz says she is certain that Prevost 'took action' to help ensure the Sodalitium was dissolved. She and Salinas met with him in the Vatican in October 2024, and she says he arranged their meeting with Pope Francis two months later. After years of fighting to be heard, Osterling says he never lost his Catholic faith – but that Francis's eventual crackdown reinvigorated it. 'What we're talking about here is just the latest chapter. I have hope now because of what happened in the last two years. Had we had this conversation two years ago, I'd have told you I had no hope in the Church. Now, it's different,' he told CNN. As Francis' successor, Pope Leo seems to have left little doubt about his stance on the end of SCV. A few days after his election, Leo was photographed greeting Ugaz with a broad smile, as she handed him a box of chocolates and a Peruvian scarf from the country he called home for years.
CNN
18-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
How Pope Leo dealt with years of abuse allegations in a powerful Catholic society in Peru
As a missionary and bishop in Peru, the future Pope Leo came face-to-face with one of the most serious and far-reaching scandals in the church in Latin America. For years, there were allegations of abuse within the hugely influential Catholic society Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), which had deep ties to Peru's powerful and wealthy. The scandal came to a head in 2015, the year after Leo, then known as Robert Prevost, was appointed bishop in the northern city of Chiclayo. A book written by one of the victims, Pedro Salinas, with journalist Paola Ugaz, 'Half Monks, Half Soldiers,' described alleged beatings, humiliation and sexual assault in stark detail from 30 anonymous victims that enflamed the country. Several survivors in Peru, Ugaz and a Vatican source closely involved in the case told CNN that Leo's eventual intervention – after a key meeting in 2019 and a crucial promotion in Rome – is what finally kicked the Church into taking dramatic action. When Oscar Osterling formally joined SCV in 1992, he was instructed not to tell his parents about his loyalty oath – a secrecy that appealed to the then-teenager. He would go on to spend more than two decades with SCV, only breaking out in his mid-thirties as the first allegations began to surface. Founded in 1971 in Peru as a lay group, the Sodalitium was politically driven as a fight back against the rise of liberation theology in Latin America, a radical movement which began in the 1960s and focused on supporting the poor. The society controlled several communities and ran religious schools in the southern part of the country, its members and students mostly drawn from the country's elite. At one point, SCV had 20,000 members across South America and parts of the United States – and went on to develop strong ties with Denver and Colorado, including links with conservative Catholic media. Victims complained of abuses by founder Luis Fernando Figari to the archdiocese in Peru's capital city Lima as early as 2011, and possibly before. Figari has always maintained his innocence with his lawyer telling CNN in January that Figari has not been convicted in a court of law for the allegations. But hearing the others' accounts, Osterling says he realized the strangeness of his own experience; he alleges that Figari would film him and other young converts standing in their underpants in the middle of the night during a spiritual retreat. 'In my case it did not escalate to a full sexual assault,' he says. He now believes he and his cohort were being groomed. Another alleged victim told CNN that he was raped by Figari at least three times in the 1970s, when he turned 17. It was 'the only way to correctly see his aura,' he recalls the older man telling him. While dozens of young Peruvians have alleged they were victimized or bullied by Figari and other senior members of SVC, the topic remains taboo in ultra-Catholic Peru, and only a few have chosen to make details of their allegations public. Prevost, who lived in Peru as a missionary in the 1980s and the 1990s, would have heard about these accounts while serving as Bishop of Chiclayo starting in 2014, especially following the publication of Ugaz and Salinas' bombshell book. Ugaz and Salinas also accused José Antonio Eguren, an archbishop in the coastal diocese of Piura – where Prevost worked as a young priest and which neighbors his diocese of Chiclayo – of protecting the SCV despite knowing about alleged abuses within it. Eguren fought back with a defamation lawsuit alleging this was untrue and harmed his honor and reputation, though he later dropped the case. According to Ugaz, who has faced a long campaign of legal actions and death threats around her reporting on the Sodalitium case, she received a message of solidarity during this time from Prevost and two other bishops. In 2017, a probe ordered by SCV revealed stunning allegations. The group, which had already begun a series of internal disciplinary actions, found that Figari sodomized his recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another. He liked to watch them 'experience pain, discomfort and fear,' and humiliated them in front of others to enhance his control over them, the report alleged. The next year, more than a dozen alleged victims of the SCV from across Peru, Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica, held a meeting with five high ranking prelates at the Peruvian Episcopal Conference in Lima. Prevost was one of the meeting's organizers; according to Ugaz, he acted as a 'bridge' between the victims and the SCV and helped secure financial settlements. Renzo Orbegozo, another alleged SCV victim, had been trying to meet with church officials for weeks but found little traction before Prevost, he told CNN. Trying to overcome the impasse, Orbegozo started emailing Prevost and another official, the Vatican's representative to Peru. When the meeting finally took place, Orbegozo recalls, 'Prevost recognized me immediately. 'You are the guy from the email!' he told me.' 'He wanted to know everything about our correspondence …and showed real empathy,' Orbegozo said. Osterling and Ugaz recall that the bishops they met agreed to write a letter to the Vatican, pushing to investigate the alleged crimes and asking for the personal involvement of then-Pope Francis. But higher church officials declined to move the case forward. 'I remember that meeting very well,' Orbegozo, who now lives in Texas, told CNN. 'Back then we had the feeling nobody was listening to us.' Ugaz, who first met Prevost in 2018 and remained in contact with him, said the stalled outcome of the meeting caused Prevost 'great frustration' although she added 'his character is not one to burn down the house. He accepted what had happened, made his frustration clear.' Though that meeting initially seemed to lead to little, Orbegozo and Osterling believe it was the first crack in a wall destined to crumble. '(Prevost) knew — he knew about many things — but he couldn't act because he had people above him. So much so, that as soon as he could, he did — when they made him prefect,' says Osterling. Everything seemed to accelerate in early 2023 after Prevost was named prefect of the influential Dicastery of Bishops – a role that suddenly catapulted him into a much more powerful position than the archbishop next door in Piura. The job gave him a crucial role in the appointments and oversight of bishops, holding regular meetings with fellow cardinals and Pope Francis to discuss episcopal nominations. It's hard to say exactly what happened in the halls of the Vatican after Prevost moved to Rome. But the next year, two top investigators from the Vatican were finally sent to Lima to establish what had happened within SCV – a probe that led to the expulsion of 14 members of the society, including Figari. Archbishop Eguren also resigned in April 2024 at the age of 67 – several years before the normal retirement age of 75 – without specifying the reasons. A source close to the Vatican investigation told CNN that the future Pope Leo played a crucial role in removing Eguren. 'As prefect of the dicastery, (Prevost) was very efficient in evaluating the evidence and obtaining the resignation of Archbishop Eguren,' a source close to the investigation explained to CNN. Eguren has denied Prevost's involvement in his resignation, emphasizing that he offered his resignation directly to Pope Francis. After stepping down, the archbishop also said in a statement that he rejected Ugaz and Salinas' allegations, and had 'sought to fulfil the mission entrusted to me with justice, honesty, and fidelity to the teachings of the Church, with special concern for the well-being of the poorest and most needy.' Another expelled member was Alejandro Bermúdez, founder of the Denver-based Catholic News Agency, who was found by the Vatican investigation to have committed 'abuse in the exercise of the apostolate of journalism.' Bermudez, known for a combative style on social media, has countered that he was kicked out for simply 'telling the truth.' More recently, he worked as a contractor with 'Catholic Vote,' an organization which sought to bolster support for US President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. (The group's president Brian Burch is President Trump's pick to be the next US Ambassador to the Holy See.) The Sodalitium still retained powerful supporters. Following the news of the expulsions, the Archdiocese of Denver said it was 'shocked and saddened' while an adviser to a former Archbishop of Denver wrote that 'something is deeply wrong' with the 'Rome's latest treatment of the SCV (Sodalitium).' Nevertheless, in early 2025, then-Pope Francis went even further, taking the very rare step of suppressing the society entirely. The move was formally decreed on April 14 – just a week before Francis died. Afterwards, the SCV released a statement asking 'forgiveness from the entire Church and society for the pain caused' and 'forgiveness for the mistreatment and abuse committed within our community.' Prevost has been accused of mishandling abuse allegations in two other cases, in Chicago and in Chiclayo, Peru. But in the case of the SCV, Ugaz says she is certain that Prevost 'took action' to help ensure the Sodalitium was dissolved. She and Salinas met with him in the Vatican in October 2024, and she says he arranged their meeting with Pope Francis two months later. After years of fighting to be heard, Osterling says he never lost his Catholic faith – but that Francis's eventual crackdown reinvigorated it. 'What we're talking about here is just the latest chapter. I have hope now because of what happened in the last two years. Had we had this conversation two years ago, I'd have told you I had no hope in the Church. Now, it's different,' he told CNN. As Francis' successor, Pope Leo seems to have left little doubt about his stance on the end of SCV. A few days after his election, Leo was photographed greeting Ugaz with a broad smile, as she handed him a box of chocolates and a Peruvian scarf from the country he called home for years.
