Pope meets ousted Peruvian archbishop, member of scandal-plagued group

ROME – Pope Francis on Friday met with an archbishop who belongs to a scandal-plagued lay group in Peru and who was recently removed from leadership of the Piura archdiocese as an ongoing Vatican investigation into his community moves forward.

According to an Aug. 23 Vatican bulletin, Pope Francis that morning met privately with Archbishop José Antonio Eguren Anselmi, who in April resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Piura at the age of 67, eight years shy of the usual retirement age for Catholic prelates.

The reasons for the pope’s meeting with Eguren were not disclosed, nor was it clear whether Eguren had been summoned, or whether he had asked for the meeting himself.

Eguren’s exit from Piura in April came amid ongoing allegations of land trafficking and financial corruption, and as part of a Vatican investigation into this community, the Sodalitium Christinae Vitae (SCV).

Founded by Peruvian layman Luis Fernando Figari in the 1970s, the SCV is among Peru’s most famed and influential ecclesial groups, however, in recent years it has been a source of continued scandal amid public accusations of physical, psychological, spiritual and sexual abuse on the part of Figari himself and other top members.

Figari was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2017 and forbidden to have contact with the SCV, from returning to Peru without permission, and from making public statements.

He was expelled from the SCV by the Vatican last week as part of an ongoing investigation launched by Pope Francis last year, when he sent his top investigating team – Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, adjunct secretary of the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), and Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the dicastery – to Lima to investigate after several unsuccessful attempts at reform.

This spring, the Vatican sent punitive letters to several other top members of the SCV, including three who have an affiliation with the SCV-run Holy Name parish and community house in Denver, Co.

Eguren met with Scicluna and Bertomeu during the pair’s visit to Lima in July 2023, and he has remained point of interest in the investigation, finding himself at the center of corruption allegations in Piura and as the instigator of a legal campaign against the journalists who revealed the SCV scandals.

In 2015 Peruvian journalists Pedro Salinas, a former member of the SCV, and Paola Ugaz published the book Half Monks, Half Soldiers detailing years of alleged sexual, physical and psychological abuse by top members of the SCV.

Eguren in 2018 filed criminal defamation suits against both Salinas and Ugaz related to their reporting, citing investigative reports in which they named him as not only complicit in the SCV’s abuses and coverup efforts, but also land trafficking.

(In the Peruvian system, private citizens can register a criminal complaint for defamation.)

Pope Francis met Eguren in a private audience at the Vatican in September 2018 for a conversation widely believed to be related to his criminal suits against Salinas and Ugaz. A year later, shortly after winning his case against Salinas, Eguren retracted his complaints against both journalists amid an avalanche of public, media, and ecclesial backlash, including a statement from the Peruvian bishops condemning his actions and in which they claimed to have the pope’s backing.

Eguren met Pope Francis at the Vatican again in March 2022, as Ugaz was publishing further reports on land trafficking in the Piura area by organizations associated with the SCV.

Among the items cited in Eguren’s original complaint against Ugaz were her allegations of criminal activity in the purchase of a large patch of land in Piura by the SCV-run Saint John the Baptist Civil Association (ACSJB) and the attempted intimidation and ousting of farmers who have been living there for centuries.

For years, a legal battle has been unfolding in Piura between a group of farmers in the town of Catacaos and a handful of companies either operated by or with ties to the SCV. The farmers have faced threats from criminal groups and a swath of legal suits by companies of the SCV.

Given the authority he has held in the region and within the SCV, Eguren has been at the center of many of the accusations and has been accused of being an architect of various schemes to oust the farmers from their land.

As part of their inquiry last summer, Scicluna and Bertomeu while in Lima met with a group of peasant farmers from Catacaos to discuss the situation and the allegations against the SCV. They were joined by Jennie Dador, executive secretary of the National Coordinator of Human Rights (CNDDHH) in Peru. Later that same day, Scicluna and Bertomeu met with Eguren.

Shortly after Eguren’s spring ouster received video message of support from Pope Francis, who told them, “I know what happened to you…Defend your land, don’t let it be stolen.”

Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen