Peru women’s group announces formal suppression by Vatican

ROME – After news of its suppression was informally announced earlier this year by a Vatican envoy, the Peru-based Marian Community of Reconciliation has said that the process has now been formalized, and a period of liquidation has begun.

In an April 2 statement, the Marian Community of Reconciliation (MCR) announced that a day prior, on April 1, Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) and papal commissioner for the liquidation of the MCR, had “issued a decree of suppression” of the group.

It was signed along with the Superior General of the MCR, Luciane Vieira Urban, who was accompanied by the group’s treasurer, Florencia Silva Cabrera.

The decree suppressing the group had previously been signed Feb. 14 by Italian Sister Simona Brambilla, Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and approved in forma specifica by Pope Francis on the same day.

It marks the first of four such decrees that will eventually be “intimated,” or officialized, and published suppressing the four branches of the Sodalitium Christiane Vitae (SCV), a Peru-based Society of Apostolic Life that has been marred in scandal for the past decade.

“The suppression of the Society, together with the other three institutes founded by the layman Luis Fernando Figari Rodrigo, is due to a lack of a divinely-derived charisma in the founder, as well as the abuses and improper and abusive behavior of Figari and many of his collaborators,” the MCR said in their statement Wednesday.

Efforts to reform were made within each of the communities, and this “was taken into account in the act of suppression,” the MCR said, noting that despite their own a renewal process, ongoing since 2011, they as an institution have “not been immune to psychological abuse and abuse of conscience within its midst.”

Founded in 1991 by Peruvian layman Luis Fernando Figari, the MCR, known in Spanish as the Fraternidad Mariana de la Reconciliacion (FMR), is considered part of the broader “Sodalit” spiritual family, consisting of the SCV, the Christian Life Movement (CLM), and a community of nuns called the Servants of the Plan of God (SPD).

For over a decade the SCV has been shrouded in scandals surrounding Figari and other top-ranking members, 14 of whom were expelled from the group last fall, before the decision was made to suppress.

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Last fall some 30 former members of the MCR recounted to Crux similar experiences of abuse and mistreatment with their institution, as well as abuses they said they endured by members of the SCV, including the sexual abuse of at least five women in the MCR.

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The MCR received its formal canonical approval in 2011, the same year that they reported the sexual abuse of members by men belonging to the SCV, and after many had already begun to question their methods an internal culture, with some at that point believing they were part of a sect.

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In a previous Feb. 4 communique, the MCR expressed “it’s compassion and solidarity with the pain of all those who have been affected over the years by the sectarian system and abusive practices that have been produced within our community.”

“We offer our willingness to cooperate with the process of reparation and justice for all victims, as directed, and we commit to remembering each and every one of them in our daily prayers,” they said.

The MCR said that despite the pain caused by the decision to suppress their community, the women belonging to the group “have accepted it with docility and filial obedience, and have expressed their availability and collaboration throughout the process of suppression and liquidation of assets.”

They said two meetings with Bertomeu were held in February, and that during those conversations he offered assurances that the women belonging to the MCR can continue their consecrated lives if they wish “in the various ways provided for by canon law, whether as individuals or in an association.”

In a letter addressed to each of the members, they said, Bertomeu insisted that “the church infinitely values the consecration of each one of you and wishes you to safeguard it in the best way possible.”

Bertomeu, they said, also told them that “the Holy See, through my service which is closely linked to your acceptance of it, is ready to help and accompany you in beginning in each of you a new experience that will gather all the good that has come in these years, purifying and modifying whatever is necessary.”

They said that Urban has been named as Bertomeu’s Assistant Delegate for the personal accompaniment of the MCR members, while Silva is Assistant Delegate for administrative matters and for project transitions, “as long as they are both willing to do so. “

They closed their statement assuring of their prayers for Bertomeu, who they said assured them of his, “that the Lord may enlighten and strengthen you on the path you undertake, and I ask that you pray for me, so that I may carry out this task with charity and justice.”

Bertomeu had previously announced the suppression of all branches of the SCV while celebrating Mass at the SCV’s primary parish in Lima in February.

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Pope Francis’s decision to suppress the entire SCV family comes after a papal-ordered Vatican inquiry into the SCV that began in July 2023, when the pope sent his top investigating duo, Bertomeu and Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, on a “Special Mission” to investigate ongoing allegations of abuse and financial corruption within the organization.

While not necessarily unprecedented in the Catholic Church, the decision to suppress all branches of a spiritual family that share one founder and adhere to one ‘charisma’ is extremely rare, and potentially marks a new precedent for handling similar cases when there is an allegation against the founder.

Given the MCR’s statement, it is likely that the announcements of suppression of the other branches of the SCV will be made in the coming days.

Editor’s Note: Elise Ann Allen is a former member of the Marian Community of Reconciliation.

Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen