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When the Pope has begun to do an investigation and has listened to the victims, the weakest, the most vulnerable and has intervened, all those who seemed to be the defenders and guarantors of the Gospel and of orthodoxy, are now grinding with hatred

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We reproduce here the article by IDEAL de Granada, published on February 5, 2025. The authors are Pilar García-Trevijano and M. Victoria Cobo.

GRENADE. The Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) is a religious order of Argentine origin, ultra-Catholic and critical of the current leadership of the Church that landed in Granada in 2010. The previous archbishop, Francisco Javier Martínez, authorized them to manage the parish of Santo Ángel Custodio del Zaidín and the adjoining parish house at a time when there is a lack of vocations to keep the temples open. His activity in the province had gone unnoticed by those outside the temple until a few months ago. Some parishioners have denounced the order and one of its priests to the Archbishopric for alleged abuses of power, improper handling of money, manipulation or the practice of esoteric rites and exorcisms without permission.

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One of the most disturbing practices observed in the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) and the Servants of the Lord and of the Virgin of Matará (SSVM) is the dynamic of “love bombing” during recruitment, followed by a total abandonment of those who decide to leave the institute. This strategy, typical of organizations with sectarian dynamics, illustrates how they emotionally manipulate people to ensure their loyalty, while dehumanizing those who choose to step aside.

Love bombing: the initial trap

In the recruitment process, both the IVE and the SSVM display intense emotional attention towards new applicants. This practice involves bombarding them with praise, affection, and promises, creating an atmosphere of unconditional acceptance. Aspirants are persuaded that they have been “chosen by God” and that their vocation is a unique and inalienable calling.

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Operation Paperclip

Operation Paperclip, carried out by the United States after World War II, consisted of recruiting German scientists who had worked for the Nazi regime and had been involved in war crimes or weapons developments for the Third Reich. The U.S. government decided to draft them rather than prosecute them, due to the urgent need to advance the technological race against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Although the U.S. government was aware of the troubled background of these scientists, it “turned a blind eye” because of the strategic advantages they offered.

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In turn, the priest Héctor Luna (IVE) is removed for serious immoral conduct.

Fr. Héctor Luna (IVE)

On July 19, 2024, the parishioners witnessed the sudden disappearance of parochial vicar Father Héctor Luna (IVE), who left abruptly and without making a sound. However, what the parishioners did not know was that Father Luna should immediately take refuge in a monastery or another distant place.

The reason for his flight was a letter he had received from the Institute for the Doctrine of the Faith, in which he was forbidden to have contact with lay people, administer the sacraments and warned that his situation exposed him to excommunication from the Catholic Church and reduced to the lay state.

Why did the Church act so harshly? What did this priest do? Why did his parish priest, Fr. José Luis Lochedino, and his superiors allow him to cause so much damage?

History

In 2010, the Archdiocese of Granada entrusted the Institute of the Incarnate Word with the care of the “Santo Ángel Custodio” Parish in the Zaidín neighborhood, Granada, Spain. The hope was that his presence would spiritually enrich the community, but it seems that it only served to enrich the Institute of the Incarnate Word and the SSVM financially.

Since 2013, Father Héctor Luna, IVE assumed the position of parochial vicar of this parish (he arrived from Ecuador, where he had already had some problems). Although he was noted for his activism and apostolate, he also showed a tendency to manipulate people to get what he wanted. His obsession with the devil and the dark led him to perform alleged exorcisms and prayers of liberation without permission from the diocese, according to the latter.

Through these practices, he contacted vulnerable victims, whom he had to “cleanse spiritually” and, according to testimonies, also physically. It has been discovered that he engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with some of them, even exchanging photos of high sexual content while they were in prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament. He even confessed to his own victims after having had relations with them.

The local Church took action on this and denounced everything to Rome, which is acting. In addition, the Diocese opened an investigation into this parish due to complaints of various kinds, such as:

• Mishandling of money: The Institute of the Incarnate Word has adopted the habit of asking for money for everything, beyond the salaries they receive from the diocese. As the money is sent to the congregation in Rome, everything that the religious need for their daily lives, such as food and clothing, must be donated. Both they and the SSVM, which also have convents of apostolic and contemplative life in these areas, are accustomed to constantly asking the community. The nuns ask for everything from beers and party favors for private parties to money for frequent trips, with the excuse that they belong to a very poor congregation.
• Breach of trust: Fr. Héctor Luna collected large sums of money and received donations of apartments and thousands of euros, which the congregation accepted despite knowing that the priest was facing problems that made them doubt his psychological state. Granada was a good source of income for the IVE, and therefore everything seemed to be allowed.

The parish priest, Father José Luis Lochedino, IVE, collected money to change their vehicles, while asking people to collaborate with food. There were days when they said that the nuns did not have enough to eat, but on birthdays they gave smart watches and other luxury objects. These inconsistencies increased suspicions.

• Manipulation: Since his arrival, the IVE has been in charge of indoctrinating parishioners with biased information that is far from reality. For years, they exalted the holiness and goodness of their founder, Fr. Carlos Miguel Buela, despite the fact that there were allegations of sexual abuse against him.

The IVE presented itself as the savior of a progressive and corrupt church. Their strategy was to expand constantly, trying to gain control of schools and other works of the diocese. According to them, the only way to avoid the closure of these institutions was to found new convents everywhere, so that the bishops, in the absence of vocations, would support them and put pressure on the Vatican not to close the congregation.

Complicit and corrupt superiors

Father José Vicchi, provincial superior of these communities for years, not only knew about the situation, since the laity told him about it, but also has serious suspicions of manipulation of vocations and unseemly treatment of women. Currently, he replaces Father Héctor Luna.

“His treatment is arrogant, alluding to the fact that he comes from a family where there are three brothers (two priests and a nun), and that his older brother governed the IVE from the top, which makes him untouchable and arrogant in the eyes of other religious,” commented a witness from the community.

Current situation

Today, the community of Granada faces a divided parish. A parish priest forbids parishioners to ask or talk about Fr. Héctor Luna, without having asked for forgiveness or explained the truth. At the same time, he defends his congregation and its founder, claiming that any action taken by Rome is due to a “progressive church” that persecutes them.

Many victims of different abuses (economic, conscience, sexual, vocational, etc.) are coming to the diocese to give their testimony, trusting that the Church that Christ preached will take action in this regard.

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.

In the latest decree sent to the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) by the Dicastery for Consecrated Life, a shocking fact is mentioned: since its inception, the IVE has lost almost 40% of its priests. However, after an exhaustive collection of data, an even more alarming reality emerges: the real percentage of abandonment amounts to 50%, a figure that has been increasing in recent years.

Of the 265 priests ordained since the foundation of the institute until 2003, only 123 currently remain in the IVE. Of the rest, 139 have dropped out of high school. Of these, 73 left the priestly ministry completely, while 65 continue to exercise their vocation outside the IVE.

A deeper analysis

Among the 123 priests who remain inside the institute, a worrying situation is observed. Some face psychiatric treatment or alcoholism-related problems. Others are housed in monasteries or self-help homes due to serious moral problems. In addition, there are cases of allegations of abuse and situations in which the institute has assumed the maintenance of legitimate children born in hiding.

On the other hand, there is a small group of priests sincerely dedicated to the mission, who, despite their dedication, face great challenges. These missionaries work virtually alone, with loads of continuous stress due to the demands of their work. Many of them suffer from illnesses related to these conditions or take refuge in the narrative of “resisting the progressivism of the Church,” as they are instructed, without complaining or sharing their difficulties for fear of being considered “bad spirit” or as opponents of the charism of the institute.

For the interested reader: detailed statistics

For readers interested in corroborating this data, we offer a statistical breakdown by each year of ordinations and the current status of priests related to IVE. This information will be published soon in order to provide greater clarity on this problem and to encourage a critical analysis of the situation.

In order not to extend ourselves into endless lists, we avoid detailing the specific cases of those members who, despite maintaining judicial or ecclesiastical complaints, still remain in the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE). However, this reality is undeniable and generates deep concern.

The case of SSVM: a silent phenomenon

Even more worrying is the situation of the Servants of the Lord and of the Virgin of Matará (SSVM), who have experienced an even higher rate of abandonment. Due to the absence of direct ecclesiastical control in the dioceses where they operate, these cases go unnoticed. Many religious return home after 20 or 30 years of consecrated life, while young vocations who enter are also unable to persevere over time. After 35 years of its foundation, the institute has few older sisters, a fact that reflects the difficulties in vocational stability.

A call for reflection

The Church has shown remarkable patience in the face of this situation, allowing vocations, entrusted by God to the institute, to be seriously affected. While the IVE laments the closure of its novitiates, it seems to ignore the impact of the human and spiritual losses that have occurred during its history, as well as the state in which many of these people have left the institute.