In a letter addressed on September 23, 2026 to all the members of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) and the Servants of the Lord and of the Virgin of Matará (SSVM), the pontifical delegates Clara Echarte Oñate and José Antonio Satué Huerto call for a profound change in the attitude of both congregations towards the abuses committed by their founder, Carlos Miguel Buela.
(more…)Tag: Holy See
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Impossible Obedience: Bull, Constitutions, and the Inner Blockage of the IVE
There are phrases that, within a religious institution, say much more than they seem to say.
One of them appears in the document drawn up to establish the position of the Institute of the Incarnate Word and of the Servants of the Lord and of the Virgin of Matará on questions concerning its founder. There it is stated that the members accept and abide by the provisions that the Holy See legitimately adopts, “even if we personally do not share” their content.
Read out of context, the phrase might seem moderate. No one is obliged to immediately understand all the decisions of authority. Religious obedience does not require shutting down one’s intelligence or renouncing all personal opinions. A religious can go through a period of bewilderment, pain, or even incomprehension in the face of an ecclesial decision.
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IVE’s response to the Holy See: “Our position on questions concerning the Founder”
The Institute of the Incarnate Word has released this statement in response to the decision taken this week by the Holy See regarding the Institute, the Servants and the memory of its founder, Father Carlos Buela. We publish the full text below.
We absolutely reject all types of abuse
We, the Major Superiors of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, interpreting the common sentiment of the members of the Institute, profess and assume in its entirety the moral doctrine of the Church and, consequently, condemn and reject without any ambiguity all forms of abuse, sexual abuse, manipulation, violence, harassment or disorderly sexual conduct, especially when it is carried out by those who are constituted in authority and against persons entrusted to their care or who are in a situation of special vulnerability.
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The Institute of the Incarnate Word, “too big to fall”, in the light of thirty years of pontifical tutelage.
The IVE presents Rome’s measures as persecution. The chronology shows exactly the opposite: since 1995, the Church has invested authorities, specialists and external structures to sustain and reform an institution that has not been able to correct itself.
Some time ago we published an article on this blog entitled “Institute of the Incarnate Word: too big to fail?”. The expression, borrowed from the financial world, is applied to those institutions whose size is such that their collapse could cause even greater damage than that caused by their mismanagement. For this reason, although they are deeply deteriorated, the authorities are forced to intervene, inject resources and sustain them to avoid an uncontrolled collapse.
The question we posed then was whether the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) and the Servants of the Lord and of the Virgin of Matará (SSVM) had come to occupy a similar position within the Church: a religious family too large, too extended and too intertwined with dioceses, parishes, seminaries, schools and apostolic works for the Holy See to simply let it fall.
Recent events do not weaken that hypothesis. On the contrary, they seem to confirm it.
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Rome takes control of the IVE’s communications: an extraordinary measure
The pontifical intervention of the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) has just entered a particularly significant phase. The Pontifical Delegate, Msgr. José Antonio Satué, Bishop of Malaga, has decided to replace the official communication infrastructure of the Institute.
The old ive.org site is no longer the official website of the IVE. In its place, the Delegate has created verboencarnado.org, which becomes, in his own words, the “only official website” of the Institute.
At the same time, the old @ive.org accounts will be replaced by new @verboencarnado.org addresses, using Google technology (Gmail) and with the technical intervention of the computer scientist of the Diocese of Malaga.
We are not, therefore, facing a simple change of ownership.
The pontifical authority is creating a communications infrastructure that is no longer technically dependent on the internal structure of the IVE.
And the official explanation of why it has been necessary to do so is extraordinary.
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The Holy See establishes the new government of the Institute of the Incarnate Word
Two documents dated July and August 2026 provide insight into the governance structure established for the Institute of the Incarnate Word (IVE) under the authority of the pontifical delegate, Monsignor José Antonio Satué Huerto.
The first is a decree signed in Malaga on July 25, 2026. The second, dated August 18, presents the biographies and responsibilities of the members of the new team.
It is not about the ratification of a government elected by the members of the IVE. The new structure was born of the pontifical mandate entrusted to Archbishop Satué and of the appointments made by him with the agreement of the competent Dicastery.
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