ROME – Amidst backlash over allegations of sexual abuse against a once-powerful Peruvian cardinal that went public earlier this week, both the prelate’s successor and the episcopal conference have voiced empathy with the alleged victim and support for Pope Francis.
On Saturday, Jan. 25, the influential Spanish newspaper El Pais published an article revealing that two separate allegations of sexual abuse had been made against Peruvian Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani.
The former archbishop of Lima, Cipriani, 81, was one the most influential prelates for the Catholic-right in Peru and throughout Latin America during his two decades leading the Lima archdiocese.
The El Pais article revealed that a complaint had been lodged against Cipriani in 2002 that apparently came to nothing, and that a second complaint was made in 2018 for the alleged sexual abuse of a teenage in the confessional in 1983, which led to his prompt retirement and limitations on his ministry.
These limitations were later confirmed by the Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni, who in a Jan. 26 statement confirmed that once the 2018 allegation was made, Cipriani signed a letter of resignation and agreed to a set of disciplinary measures restricting his public ministry, his travel to Peru, and the use of symbols associated with the cardinalate.
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After the allegation went public, Cipriani published a lengthy statement denying the charges but confirming restrictions on his ministry, accusing the pope of failing to follow due process, and implying that Vatican officials had leaked the information about the allegations against him.
He also compared himself to Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was imprisoned after being accused of sexually abusing minors only to be acquitted later by the High Court.
Several longtime friends and political and ideological allies of Cipriani, including prominent former members expelled from the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), a once powerful ecclesial group in Peru recently suppressed by Pope Francis, echoed these accusations, accusing the pope of failing to follow due process and accusing Vatican officials of leaking information.
Lima’s mayor Rafael López Aliaga, who on Jan. 7 handed Cipriani a prestigious award, in a press conference called for Cipriani’s accuser to come forward publicly, suggesting that refusing to do so implied the allegations were defamatory “gossip,” and he suggested the Vatican did not follow due process.
In a Jan 28 statement, Cipriani’s successor, Archbishop Carlos Castillo of Lima, acknowledging “immense pain and suffering” of abuse victims, saying, “That suffering tears our spirit apart, it challenges us deeply and it commits us to solidarity with them.”
Even if the victims are anonymous, he said, those injured and outraged by abuse are “a cry from God for us to make personal and ecclesiastical efforts to welcome and accompany, as well as to stop and punish the attacks, using the appropriate and just means, and to commit ourselves to their protection, defense, restoration and reparation.”
He applauded the “enormous and strenuous work” of the Vatican and of Pope Francis in their efforts to prevent, investigate and prosecute abuses of power and conscience, and spiritual and sexual abuse in the church.
“We have full confidence in the canonical procedures and instruments that the Holy See has used, uses and applies, which have steadily been evolving and improving,” he said, assuring of his “determined and unwavering support, collaboration and solidarity with the Holy Father.”
In an apparent reference to critics of the Vatican’s actions on Cipriani and the pope’s recent suppression of the SCV, Castillo noted that in recent months “there are people and institutions that refuse to recognize the truth of the facts and the decisions taken by the Holy See.”
“We call on everyone to come to their senses through a path of conversion that involves abandoning vain justifications, stubbornness and the rejection of the truth, which, when accepted humbly, makes us all free,” he said.
Castillo argued that this path of conversion is the only way to effectively overcome “the tragedy” of abuse that the church in Peru is experiencing, especially for victims and perpetrators.
He applauded Pope Francis’s efforts to foster hope and to be “always open to healing the virus of division.”
Castillo ended his statement by thanking journalists for “the positive work” they have done to protect victims of abuse, and he asked faithful in Lima and throughout Peru “to reaffirm our profound fidelity and adherence to Pope Francis, his decisions, and his ministry.”
In their own Jan. 28 statement, the Peruvian Episcopal Conference issued a statement echoing Castillo’s sentiment and voicing their sorrow over the news.
“We regret the pain suffered by the victims of abuse and by the ecclesial community and we ask the entire People of God to respect the will of the victim to remain anonymous,” they said, referring to pressure Cipriani’s alleged victim has faced to go public and efforts to identify him.
The bishops voiced their closeness to victims of every form of abuse and recognized “the wise decision of the Holy Father in uniting justice and mercy” in opting to accept Cipriani’s letter of resignation once he reached 75, while also imposing limitations on his ministry.
They asked faithful to pray for the accuser, for Cipriani, and for the church, “that it be a safe space where reconciliation is lived.”
Francis’s actions with Cipriani are not unsimilar to Benedict XVI’s actions in the notorious case of former priest and former cardinal Theodore McCarrick: Rumors – in this case, formal allegations – were made and some level of veracity was ascertained, but since Cipriani was close to the age of retirement, it was decided that instead of launching a full-blown canonical procedure, he would quietly retire at 75 but with secret limitations in place on his movement and ministry.
In Cipriani’s case, the allegation dates to 1983, meaning it is covered by a statute of limitations, which Pope Francis could have waived but apparently opted not to in a bid to accommodate the alleged victim’s request not to create scandal but to ensure that Cipriani be barred from entering a future conclave.
Under the heading of be careful what you wish for, Cipriani and his supporters calling for a full canonical process to be opened might consider that in McCarrick’s case, once the allegations went public, a canonical procedure was launched that ultimately led to his dismissal from the clerical state, and a civil trial.
Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen
