Vatican to suppress Sodalitium Christianae Vitae

A decree suppressing the order is expected to be released Monday

The Vatican is expected to formally suppress next week the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a Peruvian-based religious community, after a 2023 papally-ordered investigation into the community and several years of Vatican-ordered reform efforts.

Luis Figari, founder of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae. Pillar file photo.

According to sources close to the process, the community’s suppression will be announced early next week, while members of the community are gathered at a general assembly in Aparecida, Brazil, where they had been expected to approve new governing and formation documents and elect new leadership for the group.

Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, a Spanish priest involved in investigating the group, will be appointed to coordinate its wind-down, along with the disposition of the community’s assets, sources close to the process told The Pillar.

While it is expected that at least some financial assets of the community will be used to compensate victims of abusive members, it is not clear what status will be assigned to clerical members of the community, who are now incardinated in the Sodalitium. There are approximately 120 fully professed members of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, with 35 of them priests.

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Founded in Peru in 1971, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae began as a movement of consecrated laymen and priests whose mission claimed a broad project of evangelization.

The movement grew eventually to include a related association of women, and was in 1994 erected as a society of apostolic life, a canonical structure similar to a religious order, with the faculty to incardinate priests.

In 1997, Pope St. John Paul II conferred “pontifical right” status on the Sodalitium, putting it directly under the oversight of the Congregations for Institutes of Consecrated Life at the Holy See.

Criticism of the movement’s spirituality and ethos emerged in the early 2000s, with allegations that founder Luis Figari had committed sexual, physical, and psychological abuse within the community, and charges that Figari’s conduct had impacted the ethos of the community.

In 2011 and 2013, allegations that Figari had sexually abused minors and adults had been received by the Archdiocese of Lima. The publication of a 2015 book, “Half Monks, Half Soldiers” sparked broader criticism of the organization, with more allegations against Figari, and the claim that the group’s approach to formation and obedience was coercive, manipulative, or abusive.

In 2016, a commission found that several Sodalitium practices — many of them connected to a cult of personality surrounding Figari — were abusive. It counted multiple victims of that abuse, including several former members who say their formation was deeply scarring.

A 2017 report commissioned by the SCV documented more than 60 victims of abuse by Figari and others in the community. The group established a fund to offer compensation to victims.

After a Vatican-ordered investigation, Figari was in 2017 prohibited by the Vatican from having any contact with the members of the SCV, and from appearing in public.

At the same time, the Holy See began a series of moves aimed at reforming the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.

In May 2016, Cardinal Joseph Tobin was appointed a Vatican delegate to oversee reform of the institute’s governance, formation, apostolic work, finances, and governing documents.

In 2018, the Vatican appointed a Colombian prelate, Bishop Noel Antonio Londoño, to serve as “commissary” to the SCV, while Tobin remained involved in its reform, especially on the financial front. In early 2019, the institute elected new, younger leadership.

Later in 2019, papal advisor Fr. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, SJ, who is now a cardinal, was also tapped for involvement with the Sodalitium — the renowned canon lawyer and Francis confidante was appointed to oversee a reform of the constitutions, or governing documents of the institute, along with a revision to the plan of formation for aspirants to the SCV, based in part on a reform proposal approved by Pope Francis.

Along with Ghirlanda, Fr. Guillermo Rodríguez was appointed by the Vatican as a papal delegate, charged with overseeing reforms to the community.

In July 2023, the Vatican dispatched Archbishop Archbishop Charles Scicluna — head of the canonical disciplinary section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith — to investigate the community anew, reportedly over charges of alleged financial misconduct among leaders of the group.

In August 2024, the Vatican formally expelled Figari — by then long prohibited from contact with the community — in a move that some sources say the Sodalitium had requested several years prior.

Over the next two months, more than 10 additional members of the community were expelled, among them Archbishop Jose Antonio Eguren, the former archbishop of Piura and Tumbes in Peru. Decrees of expulsion were reportedly issued by the Vatican's Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, with the specific approval of Pope Francis.

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Members of the community were informed of the pending suppression during the Friday session of their assembly in Brazil, according to sources with knowledge of the process.

News of the suppression comes after long speculation that the community might eventually be dissolved, despite the Vatican’s appointment of high-ranking clerics to lead reform efforts for several years.

In 2020, Peru’s Cardinal Pedro Barreto told reporters that he believed the SCV should be dissolved, and that “the Holy See is on that road.”

Barreto said that other ranking ecclesiastical officials were in agreement with his assessment of the group, and that he believed the Vatican was already working toward suppression.

It is not clear whether the move will also impact the women’s community founded by Figari, the Marian Community of Reconciliation, which voted in 2022 to formally separate itself from the Sodalitium.

With numerous former members also alleging abuse, the women’s community issued an October 2024 statement asking "forgiveness for abuses and cover up,” and acknowledging that “many people have suffered abuse of authority, manipulation of conscience and other types of abuse within our communities and the various organizations associated with the SCV to which we were institutionally associated until 2022.”

“We apologize for the pain and suffering that was caused within our communities as a result of the unhealthy institutional culture in which we lived for years, and we sympathize with the indignation produced as a result of this abuse.”

According to its website, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae came to the United States in 2003, administering parishes in Denver and Philadelphia. The community says it “carries out its apostolic mission in nine countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, United States, Italy, and Peru.”

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During his papacy, Pope Francis has introduced several policies aimed at more scrutiny during the founding of new religious orders and communities.

In 2020, the pope decided that a bishop would not be permitted to erect a new religious community in his diocese without written permission from the relevant Vatican office.

In 2022, Pope Francis decreed that diocesan bishops must have the permission of the Vatican office overseeing religious life “before erecting – by decree – a public association of the faithful with a view to becoming an institute of consecrated Life or society of apostolic life of diocesan right.”

Those efforts have focused on concerns that some recently founded communities have been insufficiently screened during their foundations, allowing for the possibility of abuse or dysfunction within their ranks.

The pope recently appointed delegates to take over the leadership of two connected Argentine religious communities, the male Institute of the Incarnate Word and the female Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará, known as the Servidoras. Both communities were founded by Fr. Carlos Buela, an Argentine priest found guilty of sexually abusing seminarians. Former members allege spiritual and psychological manipulation of members and aspirants, with the communities continuing to promote Buela’s writings, without mentioning his crimes.

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Sources have told The Pillar that a decree of suppression for the Sodalitium is expected to be announced Monday.

Editors’ note: JD Flynn and Ed Condon, founders of The Pillar, worked previously for Catholic News Agency, whose executive director was Alejandro Bermudez, a formerly consecrated member of the SCV, who was dismissed from the community in September 2024. Since before The Pillar’s launch, Condon has not had contact with Bermudez, while Flynn had only incidental contact with Bermudez, at a September 2024 social gathering they both attended.