Lima archbishop accused of mishandling nun abuse case

Critics of Cardinal Carlos Castillo Mattasogglio allege financial and administrative mismanagement in Peru's capital see

Amid ongoing criticism of Lima’s Cardinal Carlos Castillo Mattasogglio, the diocese faces new allegations of downplaying a claim of sexual abuse, alleged by a religious sister against a priest close to Castillo.

Cardinal Carlos Castillo Mattasogglio. Credit: Archdiocese of Lima.

The allegations come after Castillo, 75, has also been accused of administrative and financial mismanagement, and of fomenting a revolving door of judicial personnel in the archdiocese.

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The Pillar obtained a 2024 affidavit signed by a contemplative nun who alleges that Fr. Nilton Zárate Rengifo, a Lima priest, sexually harassed and manipulated her over the course of a relationship of spiritual direction and confession that began in 2018, which could potentially include the canonical crime of absolving an accomplice of a sin against the sixth commandment.

The nun says she disclosed to the priest that she suffered from borderline personality disorder before he agreed to serve as her spiritual director. According to the testimony, the priest quickly crossed personal boundaries.

“He asked me for a kiss and a hug in every spiritual direction, when I didn’t do it … he told me ‘not to punish him.’ He told me I had a lot of love to give, that he felt it. I sensed something strange, but out of respect for his priestly investiture, I didn’t say anything,” the sister said in the testimony.

The nun said that Zárate became increasingly intimate with her, to the point of solicitation of sexual favors, in addition to becoming controlling of her daily life.

“In private or on the phone, he called me ‘my child’ instead of sister. He held my hands during spiritual direction or confession. In November 2019, I [went on a trip] for a few days to see if it stopped, but he told me I should call him daily and tell him how I was. In March, we had our yearly spiritual exercises… and he never stopped calling me, two or three times a day, even in the early morning or during the night,” the testimony alleged.

“[On the phone] I heard him say, with fear and disgust, that he was masturbating. I honestly made him believe I was doing the same, because he explicitly requested me to do so … He asked for intimate pictures, which were increasingly degrading … During the [Covid-19] lockdown, he started asking me strange favors and things.”

According to the testimony, the priest pressured her not to disclose the situation nor go to confession with any priest other than him.

“He asked to embrace me before absolution. He insisted I shouldn’t talk to another priest about ‘us,’ and said it was better that no one else knew.”

According to the sister’s testimony, she eventually disclosed the situation to another priest, and made a formal complaint to the archdiocese, which sent the judicial vicar, Fr. Jorge Andrés López Vignand, and a priest, Fr. Edwin Limas, to investigate the situation in August 2020.

But according to her testimony, the process of investigation was traumatizing.

“It was torture to answer 18 questions to these two priests, who seemed like inquisitors,” she said.

The Pillar also obtained a written statement from a senior cleric who witnessed the archdiocesan investigation. That priest said the approach was “disrespectful, authoritarian, and lacked the most minimal human sensibility.”

“Fr. López was disparaging and authoritarian. Throughout the interrogation, Fr. López twisted, changing tendentiously the statements of the sister and dictating words and phrases to the secretary [Fr. Limas] that were of his own making, and were not the [words] of the sister,” the statement said.

The priest also claimed that the nun was forced to sign a statement regarding the matter despite the fact that it didn’t reflect her own words.

“The sister showed great hesitation in signing the documents because they didn’t faithfully reflect her statements. She did it because of the distress of the moment and for not contradicting the investigators of the archbishop, and not by free will or personal decision, that she finally signed the documents,” a statement from the cleric explained.

“I had the certainty that we were witnessing a clear cover-up of the accused priest and a revictimization [of the sister] for not giving credit to her statements.”

After she was interviewed by archdiocesan investigators, the sister alleged she was never contacted again by investigators and received no formal notification about the outcome of the case. Instead, she said she was informally told in November 2023 by her abbess, relaying a message from Auxiliary Bishop Juan José Salaverry, that the case had been closed.

“Bishop Salaverry told me once, in the name of the archbishop, that if I was elected in the convent’s chapter as abbess, I had to refuse to accept the post, because I knew there was a complaint in which I was involved… It sounded like a sanction, and I was elected and I couldn’t accept it.”

“In November [2023], the mother abbess told me on behalf of Bishop Salaverry, that my process had been filed. That’s the notification I have of the procedure, I never received a written notification,” the sister claimed.

After the Lima archdiocese sent a preliminary investigation to the Vatican, the nun’s canon lawyer complained that the case was investigated as a sexual abuse case, but that the priest was not investigated for the grave delicts — major canonical crimes — of absolving an accomplice in a sexual sin and of making sexual advances on the occasion of confession.

The advocate charged that the accused priest, Fr. Zárate, was protected because of his friendship with the Cardenal Mattasoglio.

The canon lawyer says his letters to both the Vatican and Castillo have gone unanswered.

According to public archdiocesan records and social media posts, Fr. Zárate remained in public ministry as of March 2024.

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Senior sources in the Archdiocese of Lima told The Pillar that the case is not unique. Several figures within the archdiocese allege that Cardinal Castillo’s tenure has been marked by selective enforcement of canonical norms on a host of issues.

Several clerics in the archdiocese have alleged that priests close to Castillo have been protected — or promoted — after facing allegations of personal or financial misconduct.

“There are priests with allegations of sexual or financial wrongdoing, but nothing is done against them. Some are sent abroad to study while things ‘cool down,’ and some are even promoted to big parishes, appointed as cathedral canons, or high positions in the curia,” another priest told The Pillar.

Senior diocesan sources told The Pillar that the dysfunction in investigating abuse cases has led the judicial vicariate of Lima to become a revolving door.

“Castillo removed most judges appointed by his predecessor, stopping many investigations and a couple of months ago, he kicked out the judicial vicar, Fr. Jorge López. He appointed one of his auxiliary bishops, Bishop Salaverry, and he resigned two weeks ago, now the archdiocese announced that the vicariate will be closed for a whole month,” a Lima priest told The Pillar.

“Fr. López was already 82 years old, but there’s the feeling in the archdiocese that he was taking his job too seriously for the cardinal’s liking,” another priest told The Pillar.

According to several senior sources, part of the dysfunction lies in the fact that many priests have been left without pastoral assignments, despite not having any canonical penalty imposed against them.

Local clergy have told The Pillar that priests perceived as too “conservative” or close to Cardinal Cipriani, Castillo’s predecessor, have been left without pastoral assignments during Castillo’s tenure.

“There’s a small number of priests who have been left in this situation because of allegations against them, but the majority of them it’s just because Castillo doesn’t like them or has issues with them. They’re left without a parish, without a pastoral assignment, and have to see what they do by themselves,” a source close to the Lima chancery told The Pillar.

“Some are living with their parents, and some are in the ‘casa del clero,’ a house for diocesan clergy without a place to live or for priests from other dioceses passing through Lima. I’d say there are probably 20 priests in a situation like this.” the source added.

Another local priest told The Pillar that a few unassigned priests have been lucky enough to find a position as chaplains for religious communities or are called on occasion to cover in parishes.

“Most of these priests haven’t received any canonical penalty, so a few have found refuge as chaplains of religious communities, or are allowed to celebrate in some parishes every now and then, but Castillo hasn’t cared at all for their sustenance, he doesn’t care if they have money to eat or to pay for a health insurance. He doesn’t care about their right to work. If they live in the casa del clero, they need to pay a monthly rent. How can they eat and have a place to live if they don’t have a job? A lot of them are depending on the charity of former parishioners or family members,” the source added.

“The casa del clero became the Siberia of the Lima archdiocese,” a priest said.

Moreover, senior diocesan sources told The Pillar that the dysfunction goes beyond the judicial vicariate, and that the archdiocese is facing a serious fiscal crisis — in part because of spiraling personnel costs during Castillo’s tenure.

“When Cardinal Castillo arrived, there were around 50 employees in the archdiocese. Now there are over 200, what are these people doing? I don’t really know. There are 13 parish schools in the diocese, and now they’ve appointed their people to these schools. An average parish school principal earned $700 or $800 a month, but the ones they’ve appointed make over $4000 and now the schools are full of gender ideology materials,” a local priest added.

“Some schools in poor areas had free meals for the kids, and now that’s over. Some had dozens of students with scholarships, now there’s only a handful of them available, and they’ve increased the monthly fees of the schools, but the money isn’t going to the students or the schools,” he added.

The Pillar obtained a document detailing financial aid provided by the archdiocese to a group of diocesan schools from 2020 to 2025. But a former administrator at one school told The Pillar that the document was not accurate — that in 2020, the school received almost five times less aid than the amount reported by the archdiocese.

“When Castillo came to Lima, he ordered an audit on the diocesan accounts, trying to see if Cipriani or anyone close to him had done anything wrong with the money, but he didn’t find anything. In fact, he found that the diocesan accounts were in a very healthy situation, but no one knows what’s being done with that money or if it’s even there,” a senior diocesan source told The Pillar.

“I think there’s enough arguments to ask for an audit, and even an apostolic visitation to the diocese, because a lot of people are asking questions about where this money is going,” another senior archdiocesan priest told The Pillar.

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By most assessments, there has been tumult in the Archdiocese of Lima during Castillo’s tenure, with a stark division in the archdiocese between those aligned with the cardinal, and Catholics and clergy of a different theological persuasion.

Castillo turned 75 in February and submitted his resignation to Pope Francis, but it is not clear when the cardinal’s resignation will be accepted, or who Pope Leo will slot into Peru’s top ecclesiastical position.

Some local priests think Castillo has been detrimental to the general clergy morale in Lima, partially because of his controversial and confusing statements, and his support for the archdiocese’s pontifical university, called by a diocesan source “the Peruvian’s progressive left think tank.”

In a 2019 interview, Castillo said that “abortion is the destruction of a life,” but added that “it was problematic” when Church authorities tried to stop political initiatives aimed at legally protecting abortion.

“I think people should reflect and decide freely,” on abortion, he said.

In a January 2020 lecture, the archbishop criticized Pope Francis, for saying he had converted by praying in front of the tabernacle.

“I’m sorry, but no one converts [through] the tabernacle. We convert through the encounter with people who questions us, and by human dramas through which we can encounter the Lord,” he said.

The Pillar received files sent by students to the officials of Vatican apostolic visitation ordered by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 and continued under Francis — with submitted documents suggesting that various courses, lectures, and conferences offered in the university’s faculties of law and social sciences seemed to endorse abortion, gender ideology, heterodox theological perspectives, while according to students’ testimonies, professors openly challenged and mocked Church teaching.

The university has held an “homosexuality week” and a “sexual diversity week” since 2008, the university has held workshops in which female students are instructed in how to use abortive pills, and abortion assistance lines are promoted, and has sponsored conferences about “reproductive rights.”

The testimonies and syllabus from courses on bioethics indicate a thinly-veiled support for abortion, contraception, and IVF.

The document also includes testimonies from the theology department that states that lectures ordinarily denied the existence of hell, claimed that the Church has no defined position with abortion, denied transubstantiation, the sacramental efficacy of baptism, and called the resurrection a “mere symbol.”

“If the university was like this under Cipriani, who tried to put it under control with the visitation, imagine what it is now under Castillo, it’s gotten even worse,” a diocesan source told The Pillar.

In fact, one of the most recent controversies surrounding the university directly involved Castillo.

In January, the Faculty of Scenic Arts of the university promoted a theater play called “María Maricón” (“F-ggot Mary”). The play’s poster showed a man with makeup dressed as the Virgin Mary and was promoted as a “testimonial work exploring the relationship between religion and gender through the deconstruction of various Catholic virgins and saints. It combines religious and popular texts with Peruvian folk songs and dances.”

The play caused a commotion in Peru, with the Ministry of Culture intervening to cancel the performance, and many Catholics, including politicians, criticizing the play for what they considered a blasphemous content and poster.

But the play found an unexpected defender in Castillo, who criticized the ministry’s intervention, saying it created “an air of censorship,” and said that “the university is a space of discernment, reflection, and critical vision.”

“The poster was a disfiguration of the face of the Virgin Mary, which is undoubtedly offensive … But the work itself seemingly has interesting elements to explore, the important thing here is to find solutions, promote the dialogue, and avoid extreme attitudes,” the cardinal said.

According to diocesan sources, Castillo worked behind the scenes to allow the play to eventually premiere.

“The university had decided not to allow the play to move forward, but he insisted that they should only postpone its premiere temporarily and then go forward with it with a different title,” a source close to the situation told The Pillar.

Local priests told The Pillar that the pope already knows some about the dysfunctions in the Lima archdiocese and expect a successor to be appointed in the near future.

“After the conclave, Castillo took pictures with the pope and fed the progressive press the idea that he was one of Leo’s kingmakers, but it’s all a lie. He never liked Bishop Prevost,” a Lima priest told The Pillar.

“In Peru we have an issue with foreigners, everything foreign smells fishy because the foreigner is coming to be over me, he’s coming to take my place. This mentality is very widespread in the Church. Castillo is like this. Many thought then-Bishop Prevost could become president of the bishops’ conference, but Castillo opposed him because a ‘yankee couldn’t become a president of the bishops’ conference’,” the priest added.

“Prevost didn’t vote for Castillo whenever he tried to become president of the conference or in any of the conference’s commissions. Prevost isn’t someone to hold grudges, but his preferences lie elsewhere. Castillo didn’t like him at all,” another priest told The Pillar.

In fact, some priests speculated that Castillo was behind some of the allegations made against Pope Leo during his time as Bishop of Chiclayo.

“He went to Rome to tell Pope Francis that Prevost was covering up abuse cases once it made the news; he didn’t like Prevost a single bit,” a Lima priest told The Pillar.

“Pope Leo knows who Castillo is and has an idea of what’s happening in Lima, so I don’t think it’ll take him long to find a successor for Castillo,” he added.

The Archdiocese of Lima did not respond to a request for comment.