‘This stays in your soul’ - Allegations emerge against IVE priests and founder

After public allegation, sources say more cases were reported

A former minor seminarian of the Institute of the Incarnate Word claimed publicly this month that he was sexually abused by an institute priest, and that the group’s founder made “indecent proposals” to him when he was 13 years old.

A 2015 “Youth Festival” organized by the Institute of the Incarnate Word. Credit: Cbetheridge/wikimedia. CC BY SA 4.0

The allegation could shed light on the Vatican’s recent takeover orders for the religious community, and the measures imposed against its founder, Fr. Carlos Buela.

Sources close to the situation have told The Pillar that at least one other allegation that the order’s founder abused a minor was reported in the Church, but not investigated.

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On a Jan. 17 broadcast of the Argentine radio show Buen Día, a former seminarian of the IVE accused Fr. Luis Ceferino Flores IVE, then rector of the institute’s Argentine minor seminary. of sexually abusing him and other seminarians.

The allegations came just one week after the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life announced that Sr. Clara Echarte, F.I., and Bishop José Antonio Satué of Teruel y Albarracín, Spain, would serve as pontifical delegates of the IVE’s female and male branches, with full powers of governance.

The Vatican also imposed a three-year moratorium on accepting new members for the religious institutes.

On the Argentine radio show, allegations were made by a man using the pseudonym “Juan,” who did not provide his surname to protect his privacy.

But the alleged victim claimed that in January 1991, while he was a middle school student and a minor seminarian for the IVE, he stayed in the seminary for a week during the summer vacation to help with some maintenance tasks, during which Fr. Flores, rector of the seminary, allegedly abused him twice.

“He committed a crime of sexual abuse not only against me, but against five other minors, and he did it [to the others] for five more years,” the alleged victim claimed.

The man said that IVE priests directed him to stay quiet about the abuse.

“There was complicity,” he said. “I spoke with a former priest [of the IVE] ... and a now-deceased priest called Guillermo Constantini... they knew about the situation and convinced me, in my conscience, that I was the guilty one, that I had encouraged this sexual abuse.”

Soon after the abuse, the man said, he was notified that he would be dismissed as a minor seminarian.

“I remember that once after an abuse by Father Lucio Flores…they decided to make me leave the seminary while the other seminarians were playing sports, and took me home,” he alleged.

The alleged victim said he went to speak with Buela.

“I went to talk with Fr. Buela in the major seminary to ask for help, but I received propositions that did not correspond to a 13-year-old child,” he claimed

The interviewer asked if Buela had made a “dishonest proposal” toward him, to which he replied, “Yes, absolutely.”

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Sources close to the institute told The Pillar that there was at least one other allegation of child abuse made against Buela, which claimed an alleged abuse reportedly occurring in the early 2000s.

The then-Bishop of San Rafael was notified of that allegation in 2021 but resigned a few months later, and the case was reportedly not investigated. Buela died in 2023.

A source close to the case also explained to The Pillar the circumstances under which Buela was eventually cut off from contact with the institute he had led.

The source explained that in the early 2000s, Bishop Eduardo Taussig of San Rafael began investigating allegations against Buela, after years of hearing rumors about the priest.

“Around 2006 or 2007, Taussig noticed an abnormal number of requests for laicization from IVE priests, and many cited having been abused by Buela as seminarians,” the source explained.

“He started investigating these allegations and prepared a dossier, which he originally sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. After seeing that no minors were involved in the allegations, they sent the file to the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life,” the source added.

In January 2010, the dicastery published a decree ordering the “removal of Fr. Carlos Buela from the office of superior general of the Institute of the Incarnate Word.”

Buela was ordered to stay in a French monastery and prohibited from contacting members of the institute, which includes both a clerical society and a female branch known as the Servants of the Lord.

But according to sources close to the institute, the Vatican received in 2015 new abuse allegations against Buela, with the alleged abuses reportedly occurring after the 2010 Vatican decree. Sources told The Pillar that Buela and other IVE superiors ignored the decree, and that Buela was in constant contact with IVE priests and seminarians after it was forbidden.

In 2021, a canonical tribunal was constituted by Cardinal Santos Abril, then the Vatican-appointed commissary of the institute. The process determined that Buela had committed grave crimes against the sixth commandment using violence against five members and former members of the institute.

Buela appealed the decision, but died in April 2023, before a final decision could be issued.

For his part, the alleged victim who spoke on the radio interview claimed that after he was sexually abused and pushed out of the IVE, he was accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of San Rafael. But he claimed that priests of the IVE continued persecuting him, and eventually saw him dismissed from formation.

The alleged victim studied at the Santa María Madre de Dios diocesan seminary, where Buela and other IVE priests exercised significant influence.

“One day, I was playing ping-pong with another seminarian and Fr. Guillermo Constantini threatened me, and just a day later I was kicked out of the seminary,” he said.

“Within the IVE most priests are holy priests, I am aware there are many priests worthy of being religious, as are the sisters, but because of [an abusive] group of people, the congregation is in the situation it is today,” he added.

“It was my childhood. They killed my vocation, I’m not exaggerating. They destroyed a part of my innocence,” the man claimed. “They were able to make you feel guilty. They insulted you, even in confession, saying you were provoking [the abuse]. And this stays in the soul of a 12, 13-year-old. It does not matter how much time has passed, this stays in your soul,” he concluded.

According to social media posts, Flores serves in Taiwan as a priest. He could not be reached by The Pillar for comment, and the IVE has not issued a statement about the allegations against him.

The Vatican decree announcing the IVE’s intervention on Jan. 10 cited “severe deficits” in both the male and female branches of the community, “especially with regard to vocational discernment, the formation of the candidates, the great inexperience and excessively small number of the trainers, the lifestyle, [and] the service of government.”

That document also said members continued to view Fr. Buela “as a priest unjustly persecuted by the Holy See, and the victims are considered false and insincere.”

“The two institutes organize pilgrimages to his tomb, and his writings have been republished and disseminated,” it said.

Since its inception in 1984, the institute has had six different pontifical commissaries or delegates involved in its governance. In the United States, the institute operates a novitiate and seminary in the Archdiocese of Washington, a high school residential seminary in Minnesota, and administers parishes in 10 states.