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Luis Fernando Figari. (Photo: External source)
Lima, Novaya Diary. – The Vatican expelled Peruvian Luis Fernando Figari, founder of the religious community Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana (SVC), after an investigation found him guilty of abuse, the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference reported on Wednesday.
“The Peruvian Bishops’ Conference published the decree issued by the Congregation for Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life of the Holy See, which notifies Fernando Figari Rodrigo of the Societies of Apostolic Life of Mr. Luis of the Church, in accordance with canon 746 of the Code of Canon Law,” the body’s press office said in a statement.
Figari (1947), who founded the church in Peru 53 years ago, is being sued by members of the church and a press investigation into allegations of physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
In July 2023, Pope Francis sent two special investigators to the Andean country to “investigate, hear and submit a report” on the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana case.
The delegation consisted of Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Spanish priest Jordi Bertomeu, both members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and experts in abuse crimes.
The pope accepted the resignation of Archbishop José Antonio Eguren Anselmi of Piura in northern Peru on April 2 after he was accused of abuse and other violations by members of his church.
The archbishop has been at the center of a Peruvian journalistic investigation in which he has been accused of covering up abuse by Luis Fernando Figari.
The so-called “Sodalicio case” was exposed in 2015 by Peruvian journalists Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz, who published the book “Half Monk, Half Soldier,” which collected testimonies from victims of physical, psychological and sexual abuse allegedly committed by members of Sodalicio.
In January 2018, the Vatican announced its intervention against Sodalicio, a month after the Peruvian prosecutor’s office requested the preventive detention of several members and former members of the group, including its founder, Figari.
In light of these complaints, Sodalicio assured that the internal investigation team determined that the identified aggressors were Fegari, German Doig, now deceased, and Virgilio Levaggi and Jeffrey Daniels, who have been removed from the organization.
The report concluded that at least 36 people, 19 of them minors, were allegedly sexually abused by the group’s leaders between 1975 and 2002, despite the prosecutor’s office filing a complaint of sexual abuse because the statute of limitations had expired.
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