After years of accumulating complaints, Pope Francis has removed the leadership of the congregation, founded 40 years ago by a man convicted of sexual abuse
Marta Freixanet/Ferran Moreno (16/01/2025 – Updated 17/04/2025)
“The message didn’t say anything, just a location.” And yet, Adriana was clear: her sister had gotten into trouble. He did not hesitate and took the first flight to come and help him. He traveled from the United States to Manresa, a place he had never heard of. The surprise was even greater when he saw that the address was from the parish of La Merced de Manresa .
Searching on the internet, he discovered that the headquarters were in Bages, a religious congregation: the Institute of the Incarnate Word . “The first thing that came out was complaints and abuse,” Adriana recalls.
Once there, she knocked on the door and the man who opened the door told her that they knew nothing about her sister. After much insistence, the parish priest left. Behind him, Adriana’s sister came. When she tried to intervene, the priest prevented her from leaving and assaulted her. “He grabbed me by the arms and threw me to the ground,” explains Adriana.
Unable to free the sister, she immediately went to the hospital to be tested for injuries caused by the priest and other men in the parish. Then, in the early hours of the morning, he went to the Mossos d’Esquadra police station in Manresa to report the confrontation experienced in the church to the police. She regrets that it was very difficult for her to have the complaint accepted.
When he succeeded, he explained that the confrontation had been with Gustavo Lombardo, parish priest of the parish and priest of the Institute of the Incarnate Word.
Accused of forcing vocations
Known as the IVE, it is a very young congregation that was born in Argentina just 40 years ago. Its founder, Carlos Buela, was convicted of a dozen sexual abuses , but died before the sentence was final.
This news had an important impact in South America, but it has not prevented his disciples from spreading the congregation throughout Europe . Yamile Peralta, a former nun in the congregation, explains that “they are doing in Spain and Italy the same thing they did in Argentina.” They boast of being one of the congregations with the most vocations in the world and of having missions in countries of war where there are no more religious.
Its female branch are the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará, popularly known as the joyful nuns. They wear a very striking blue habit that makes them easily recognizable and are very socially active.
Despite this image, the Vatican has been accumulating complaints about this congregation for years, especially in terms of psychological manipulation. Many nuns say that they have not been allowed to leave when they have asked for it.
Blow on the Vatican table
After having investigated them, the Vatican has removed the leadership of the Institute of the Incarnate Word and its female branch . And he has decided to appoint pontifical delegates for the two religious families.
However, the most important measure that Pope Francis has taken is to close for a period of three years the novitiate they have in Segni, near Rome, where young women are preparing to be nuns.
Among the arguments pointed out by the Holy See, the lack of rigor of the congregation when it comes to detecting vocations stands out and reproaches it for continuing to idolize the founder by spreading his writings and making pilgrimages to his tomb. These elements fit perfectly with the victims’ story.
The Pope’s decree is no small thing: if the IVE continues as it has been until now, disobeying the Vatican, it may face expulsion from the Church.“If you have to escape from home, do it”
Valeria went to the parish from time to time when she and her group of friends were invited to participate in the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. They saw no problem and agreed.
“It was four days of opening up on the channel, as it usually happens, of general confessions, of opening up emotionally and constantly crying,” she explains. At the end of the exercises they told her that they saw her ready to enter the novitiate. He had never considered a religious life , but he was offered as an opportunity to “forgive his sins.”
Her parents did not want that fate for her, but they already warned her that this would happen “because some parents would hardly understand their daughter’s vocation”. He was only 17 years old and had to wait until he turned 18 to leave . The priest of his parish told him: “If you have to escape, do it.”
“We don’t know where he is or what he is doing”
It is the same thing that happened to another father: “I found a letter on the table that said he was leaving.” Her daughter left home the day after she reached the age of majority. He had also just done the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. She left the couple, changed the way she dressed, and her attitude became more aggressive.
Now the communication with her is very concise: “Good morning and good night on WhatsApp, and little else.”
“He has already lost his youth. She has had so much influence that she has stopped being her.”
She knows that sooner or later her daughter will return, but she fears that it will be too late : “We don’t know how she will get out or what she will live on.”
“You asked to go out and they always told you no”
It has taken Valeria 20 years to get out.
“I asked to leave the congregation and they told me no, that I had already said yes to God and that it would be a very great infidelity.”
She spent most of these years in the cathedral of Vic, medicated for her depression. He denounces that he was never allowed to go to a public health doctor and that he was forced to visit with whom his superiors imposed on him.
“He was a consecrated member of Opus Dei who helped them and not me,” he laments. He assures that he was never able to see his medical reports nor did he know what pills he prescribed and took.
“They did not look at whether or not there was a real vocation”
She recounts how she has participated in this unbridled recruitment of young people: “They were looking for numbers, it didn’t matter if the vocation was not real”. He had participated in spiritual retreats and talks in schools.
As happened to her, Valeria explains that most of the women who leave this congregation have not been able to access studies, generate economic savings, or contribute to Social Security.
Despite welcoming the measures imposed by the Vatican, The number of complaints from victims and relatives continues to rise.
No one from the congregation, nor the bishoprics of Vic and Girona, wanted to make statements.
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