We reproduce here an article published by “Vida Nueva Digital” on the dissolution of the Sodalitiums of Christian Life.
Pope Francis has ordered the suppression of the Sodalitium of Christian Life due to the serious cases of abuse of all kinds committed by its founder and the top management, as well as the innumerable economic corruptions linked to this ecclesial platform. This Monday, January 20, the entity itself, present in 45 countries, publicly communicated the dissolution.
Vida Nueva reviews the main milestones of this Catholic organization, one of the most influential in Latin America in the last forty years, which is now facing its end.
1/ The birth of the organization (1971-1980)
On December 8, 1971, the Peruvian layman Luis Fernando Figari founded the Sodalitium of Christian Life, together with Sergio Tapia, Gerald Haby and students of the Marist School of San Isidro. Apparently he bases his ideas on Blessed Guillermo José Chaminade, several church fathers and relevant Spanish religious of the Modern Age, but the reality is that behind him hides the ideology of the Falange and a desire to transfer the being and doing of Primo de Rivera to Peru dressed in an ecclesial mantle. Its approach to governance is vertical in nature and falls to a superior general elected every six years by a general assembly. In 1978, after growing through the youth apostolate, he began the University Missions, today part of the Christian Life Movement for the spiritual collaboration of rural and marginal urban areas.
2/ Internationalization (1981-1990)
In 1981, the Archbishop of Arequipa ordained the organization’s first priest, Jaime Baertl. Only five years later, the cardinal and archbishop of Rio de Janeiro Eugênio de Araújo Sales invited the Sodalitium to start its first community outside Peru, in Brazil. The Sodalitium manages the parish of Nossa Senhora da Guía, in the favela area. At the end of the decade, the organization expanded to Colombia by taking over a parish at the request of the Archbishop of Medellín, Alfonso López Trujillo. A second community is also created in the city of Petrópolis, in Brazil, which collaborates with the youth apostolate and solidarity care.
3/ The zenith of the Sodalitium (1991-2000)
In 1992, the organization founded a community in the diocese of Santo Amaro, in the city of São Paulo in Brazil. It is the precedent to the first great milestone of the institution. On February 22, 1994, the Sodalitium was erected as a society of apostolic life of diocesan right by the cardinal and archbishop of Lima, Augusto Vargas. In December, the First Ordinary General Assembly of the entity is held. Two years later, the organization created its first region, Peru, which includes the jurisdictions of Lima, Callao, Chosica, Lurín and Arequipa. In December, following the creation of the Diocese of Chosica, the parish of Our Lady of the Cross was erected and entrusted to the Sodalitium. And, a year later, the Brazil region was created with communities in Rio de Janeiro, Santo Amaro (in São Paulo), and Petrópolis. On July 8, Pope John Paul II approved the institution as a society of lay apostolic life of pontifical right, dependent on the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. On October 28, the Sodalitium founded the center Nostra Signora dell’Evangelizzazione in Rome. It is the organization’s first community outside of the Americas. He also created the San Pablo Catholic University in Arequipa. In January 1999, the organization created the Nuestra Señora del Carmen community in Chile. A year later, the entity is denounced by the journalist and former member José Enrique Escardó in his weekly column of the magazine Gente for psychological and physical abuse during the time he lived in the communities of the Sodalitium.
4/ The first complaints (2001-2010)
In 2001, the Sodalitium created the Colombia region, comprising the jurisdictions of Medellín, Cali and Bogotá. A year later, there is an increase in the power of the organization. In addition to settling in Guayaquil, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani ordained José Antonio Eguren, the first member of the organization at the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, to be auxiliary bishop of Lima. In July 2006, Eguren was appointed archbishop of Piura, creating new communities for the Sodalitium in this city and in Ayaviri. In 2007, in Lima, the police found the sodalite Daniel Murguía in a hotel with an eleven-year-old boy whom he was going to photograph naked. He was expelled from society and imprisoned. Three years later, the accusations of abuses around the Sodalitium are intensifying. The Church suspends the beatification of Germán Doig, who had been vicar general of the organization, when several testimonies emerge that incriminate him in these practices. The organization removed all mention of this Peruvian layman, who died in 2001. In December 2010, Figari, the founder of Sodalitium, resigned from the position of superior general for ‘health reasons’.
5/ Sexual abuse and land trafficking (2011-2015)
In August 2011, a Lima newspaper reported allegations against Figari for sexual abuse. In 2015, journalists Pedro Salinas, a former member of the Sodalitium, and Paola Ugaz published the book Half Monks, Half Soldiers, in which they narrate the sexual, physical and psychological abuse carried out by Figari, Doig and other members of the leadership on several people in the organization. The founder acknowledged excesses in the training but denied sexual abuse. Regarding Eguren, the book indicated a plot of land trafficking in the city of Piura carried out by the criminal organization ‘La Gran Cruz’ in collusion with a Sodalitium company. On April 22, the Holy See appointed an apostolic visitor to investigate the allegations. The Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation in October to do the same. A month later, the Peruvian Episcopal Conference rejected any type of abuse and offered to collaborate with the Justice.
6/ The condemnation of the leaders (2015-2020)
The reporters who revealed the facts were denounced for serious defamation, within. On April 5, 2016, the superior general of the Sodalitium, Alessandro Moroni, declared Figari morally guilty of the accusations and declared him persona non grata for the institution. The Holy See, for its part, appointed the Cardinal Archbishop of Indianapolis, Joseph William Tobin, as delegate ad nutum of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life for the Sodalitium of Christian Life to support the superior general and the government of the entity, among other aspects, in the Figari case. In February 2017, Figari was exclaustrated from the properties of the Sodalitium by papal order accused of sexual abuse and repeated misdemeanours, arriving in Rome. The Sodalitium published a report with the abuses of various kinds committed by its founder from 1974 to 2010. At the end of that year, the judge asked for nine months of preventive detention for Figari and three other former members of the entity, related to sexual abuse. A month later, the Peruvian Association of Atheists asked the pope, during his visit to Lima, to allow the founder of the Sodalitium to return to Peru to answer for his charges.
7/ Dissolution and repair (2020-2025)
In 2021, the Peruvian newspaper La República reported on the sale of a mansion by Figari, through intermediary companies, where, apparently, part of the abuses took place. In 2023, a high-level pontifical commission, initialed by papal order and made up of bishops Charles Scicluna and Jordi Bertomeu, conducted an investigation into the case that ended on August 14, 2024. Faced with the conclusions, the pope decreed the expulsion of Figari from the Sodalitium for canonical crimes and damage to the good of the Church. On April 2, Eguren had requested his resignation from the bishopric in view of the seriousness of the accusations against him. On November 2, both this prelate and other members of the leadership of the entity were expelled from the organization. On January 18, 2025, the Sodalitium was dissolved by the Vatican in the face of complaints and irregularities found in the organization.
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