[Editor’s Note: On Sept. 20, Crux published an article by Elise Ann Allen on recent developments surrounding the Sodalitium of Christian Life, a movement based in Peru. In response, one of the individuals quoted in the piece, Peruvian laywoman Giuliana Caccia Arana, sent a detailed set of objections. In the interests of fairness, Crux is publishing her response in full, in our translation from the original Spanish.]

I hereby request that you correct false and distorted information that involves me that has been published in your media under the title, “Scandal-plagued Peruvian group pushes back against Vatican inquiry,” on September 20, 2024, whose author is Elise Ann Allen.

Before indicating the falsehoods and inaccuracies that the aforementioned article exposes, I must point out that on September 19, 2024, before the publication of the article in question, at and at the request of Mrs. Allen, I sent her via an internal message on the social network LinkenIn, a document with the details of what was exposed by Pedro Salinas in his video column entitled, “Rata por liebre,” dated September 11, 2024.

What is explained in the document sent to Mrs. Allen is not reflected in the article, “Scandal-plagued Peruvian group pushes back against Vatican inquiry,” since Mrs. Allen involves me in a story in which I have nothing to do. The document sent to Mrs. Allen is attached to this letter as proof of the above.

Therefore, I demand that, by virtue of my right to rectification recognized in Article 14 of the American Convention on Human Rights, in Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Political Constitution of Peru and developed in Law No. 26775, your media publish a rectification of everything that is not true and damages my name.

I will now list the falsehoods exposed in the article attributed to me:

  1. My audience with the Scicluna-Bertomeu mission took place in July 2023. The reasons for which I requested this meeting are strictly personal. I was not sent by anyone, nor at anyone’s request. Mrs. Allen’s article wants to involve me as part of a harassment strategy against one of the “main accusers” of the Sodalicio case, in an accusation against Cardinal Robert Prevost, in a case of a Peruvian priest (Coronado), among others. What does this personal visit have to do with what is happening with a bishop and other actors in the Catholic Church? It is clear that there is an intention to want to involve me in a story of which I am not a part. This becomes more evident when, under the subtitle, “Accusing SCV victims,” she goes on to narrate – with more than one lie – my meeting with the Scicluna-Bertomeu mission. The way in which Mrs. Allen presents the information in this article does not adhere to the minimum standards of journalism, since, first, she assumes false information to be true, and at the end of the article, she only provides my disclaimers. This is not rigorous. And rather it is not in line with the narrative of the facts that Pedro Salinas has made, which is extremely striking. Why does the “part of the story” of a single person prevail in a medium that seeks to be objective? Why is what Pedro Salinas says the “truth” of a story and the information that I sent is a “disclaimer?”
  2. Allen says that I belong to “an association of parents close to the SCV.” That is FALSE. I am the founder and director of the Origen Association, and within this association we have created an initiative called Padres Peruanos that was recently created (December 2023). It is not an association close to the SCV. It is a civil society platform in which thousands of citizens participate of their own free will and in defense of their parental authority. The Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana has nothing to do with it. What does that association have to do with the story they want to tell?
  3. Allen says that “according to the Peruvian journalist Raul Tola in an article published a few days after Scicluna and Bertomeu concluded their work, on the first day of the investigation, both Caccia and Blanco arrived at the Vatican nunciature in Lima, where the interviews with victims and members of the SCV were being conducted, asking to be interviewed.” This is doubly FALSE. First, because although Tola also distorts the facts, this is not what he says in his column either. And second, because I did not go to the Apostolic Nunciature asking to be interviewed. I requested the interview by telephone days before. I provided all this information in great detail to Mrs. Allen in the document I sent her via LinkedIn, precisely to avoid the false narrative of Mr. Tola and Mr. Salinas prevailing. And now I will state it again:
    • On Friday, July 23, 2023, when I learned through the media that the Holy Father was sending an investigative commission to the country, I called the Apostolic Nunciature to request an audience. Sister Fanny answered me and what I said on the call was, verbatim, that I wanted to give my testimony because I was the victim of systematic harassment by two former Sodalits. I never spoke of harassment by journalists or anything like that.
    • On Sunday, July 24, 2023, at 12:14, I received a WhatsApp message from Mons. Zummer, from the Apostolic Nunciature in Lima, from the telephone of the secretariat of said institution, asking to call my phone. I did not see the message immediately. He called at 12:16p.m. I did not hear the call. But shortly after I saw my phone and returned it to him a few minutes later. There he asked for my last name to be corrected because the Secretary, Sister Fanny, had written it down incorrectly. Monsignor Zummer gave me an appointment the following day, July 25, at 4:30p.m. On behalf of Monsignor Zummer the appointment was granted in the framework of the mission sent by the Holy Father.
    • I arrived at the meeting a few minutes before the scheduled time. I entered through the main door of the Nunciature. I waited in a room. And then Father Bertomeu received me. He told me that his visit was requested personally by the Holy Father and that no one would have any knowledge of what was discussed there, except the Pope. The meeting took place. And I left through the main door, to which Father Bertomeu accompanied me.
  4. Allen says that “Tola – who did not identify Caccia or Blanco by name, referring to them only as a man and a woman – said in his article that they claimed to be victims not of the SCV, but of the journalists who investigated the SCV, namely, Salinas and his fellow journalist Paola Ugaz.” This is doubly FALSE. First, Tola says that he “presented himself as a victim of the whistleblowers in the case.” At no point does Tola specify that I was referring to Salinas and Ugaz. This is a whimsical interpretation by Elise Ann Allen. Secondly, as I also explained in the document sent to Mrs. Allen, I did not go to denounce any journalist who reports to the Sodalitium. That is a lie. I went to give my testimony about two former Sodalits of whom I am a victim.
  5. Allen ends the article with this quote from Pedro Salinas: “We found out later that it was Caccia and Blanco, because the photographers waiting outside the nunciature asked us for help to identify the people who entered, and Caccia and Blanco were the only ones who came on Monday.” In response to this statement by Salinas, I asked Mrs. Allen to ask for proof of a photo of me taken that day.

Although Mrs. Allen puts my disclaimer at the end of the article, she does not put it in full, which, combined with the way and the order in which she decides to narrate the facts – many of them false and distorted – what the reader is left with, at the end of reading the article, is that I am part of a group that seeks to attack bishops or discredit the investigation of the Sodalitium. And that is totally FALSE and does not correspond to the facts.

As I stated in writing to Mrs. Allen, I had no – nor do I have – any intention of discrediting the Vatican Mission. And after this article that seeks to drag me into a case that I have nothing to do with, I also have nothing to do with the accusations of coverup that are directed at Cardinal Prevost. This is the first time that I have spoken out about the meeting I had with the Scicluna-Bertomeu Mission, and I am only doing so after your request and seeing that some journalists are spreading a distorted version of the facts. My intention was always to keep this a secret.

For the reasons stated above, and with the right granted to me by the American Convention on Human Rights and the Constitution, I demand the publication of this rectification immediately and completely, otherwise I will be forced to resort to the corresponding judicial authorities to defend my honor and good reputation.