The Vatican expels four more members of the scandal-plagued Peruvian group

ROME – As part of its ongoing investigation into abuse and financial corruption within Peru’s Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), the Vatican has expelled four members accused of abuse and financial corruption, including exploiting a church-state deal to extract tax benefits. to acquire.

Among those expelled this week are top SCV members seen as the architects of a financial empire at its peak worth around $1 billion, through abuse of a 1980 “concordat” between the Holy See and Peru, which governs relations between the two and, among other things, grants tax exemptions to charities and mission-related causes.

It is believed that the SCV made most of its money from funeral and burial services offered at nine major cemeteries throughout Peru that were canonically designated as missions, and which were therefore exempt from taxes, and which were donated to dioceses, while the SCV retained partial ownership and exercised their control. administration.

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For years, the SCV was at the center of scandals surrounding allegations of sexual, physical and psychological accusations, abuse of power and conscience and financial corruption against its founder, Luis Fernando Figari, and other top members.

After several failed attempts at reform, Pope Francis last year sent his top researchers – Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, assistant secretary of the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), and Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the dicastery – to Lima to to conduct an in-depth investigation into the allegations.

As part of its investigation, the Vatican expelled SCV founder Luis Fernando Figari, who was previously sanctioned for sexual abuse of minors in 2017, from the group in August.

Last month, another ten top ranking members were expelled for a variety of crimes, including several novelties such as physical abuse, including “sadism and violence,” as well as abuse of conscience, mental abuse and abuse of power. authority, including “episodes of communications hacking and workplace harassment,” as well as the cover-up of crimes committed within the organization” and abuse of “the apostolate of journalism.”

Many of those displaced have ties to the SCV community center in Denver and its affiliated parish, Holy Name in Sheridan.

RELATED: Denver parish at the heart of scandals surrounding a Peru-based lay group

In an October 21 communiqué, the Vatican Embassy in Peru announced that in addition to Figari and the ten members expelled last month, there are two additional members, including Jose Ambrozic, former Vicar General of the SCV and former Superior of the House of Denver, who now survives. in their community in Philadelphia.

The other member expelled Monday was SCV priest Luis Antonio Ferroggiaro, who is from Arequipa and is accused of sexually abusing a minor.

According to the communiqué, they were expelled for “abuse of power and authority, especially in the form of abuse in the management of church property, as well as sexual abuse, in some cases also against minors.”

In this regard, the communiqué said that Ferroggiaro’s expulsion does not interfere with a previous investigation into his conduct by the DDF, which is being conducted simultaneously with the Vatican investigation into the SCV.

A day later, on October 22, the nunciature in Peru announced that Father Jaime Baertl, former spiritual assistant of the SCV and widely considered the group’s financial czar, and Juan Carlos Len, who was also accused of financial corruption, also expelled.

The decision was made, the communiqué said, “based on the scandal caused by the seriousness of the acts constituting corruptio minorum (corruption of minors), attributed to one of the suspects, and on the responsibility of both, committed to apostolic activities. in numerous irregularities and illegal acts committed by companies linked to the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae through inappropriate use of the 1980 Concordat between the Holy See and the Peruvian State.”

Citing the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, the communiqué said that on this basis some of the SCV’s “truly sinful” financial moves and investments exposed by Scicluna and Bertomeu “are not morally acceptable.”

“Such abuses in the exercise of office are particularly despicable because they represent an anti-testimony to the spirit of the Beatitudes which should guide the actions of all those dedicated to the apostolate, especially that spirit of poverty which in itself evangelizes ,” the report said. .

The communiqué emphasized that Pope Francis is saddened by the scandals surrounding the SCV and “asks forgiveness from the People of God and from civil society as a whole.”

It also offered assurances “that appropriate measures have been taken to correct the above-described reprehensible actions and prevent recurrence in the future,” and asked the SCV “to embark on a path of justice and reparation without further delay.”

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