VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican mentioned Sunday that disciplinary sanctions in opposition to Opus Dei’s first cardinal stay in impact after allegations of sexual abuseconfirming a sequence of restrictions in opposition to the as soon as highly effective archbishop of Lima, Peru, which included the duty to go away his residence nation.
The sanctions imposed on Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne embrace restrictions “referring to his public exercise, place of residence and use of insignia,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni mentioned. While he has been allowed to waive them on particular events as a result of his age and household wants, the measures stay in place, he mentioned.
The 81-year-old Cipriani, who lives in Madrid and Rome, acknowledged the sanctions on Saturday after an article appeared within the Spanish newspaper El País detailing the story of an alleged sufferer. Cipriani referred to as the accusations “utterly false”.
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“I didn’t commit any crime, nor did I sexually abuse anybody in 1983, neither earlier than nor after,” Cipriani acknowledged within the letter delivered by the Rome headquarters of Opus Dei.
Bruni’s assertion offered no particulars in regards to the case, however mentioned the sanctions have been imposed after Cipriani retired as head of the Peruvian church in 2019 “following allegations in opposition to him,” suggesting multiple declare. He mentioned Cipriani accepted the measures.
The sanctions are just like these imposed on different high-ranking clerics accused of sexual abuse. The former Archbishop of Agana, Guam, Archbishop Antonio Apuron and the previous bishop of East Timor, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belothey have been each compelled to go away their residence international locations and restrict their public ministries following allegations of abuse.
Cipriani, who led the Peruvian Church for twenty years earlier than his retirement in 2019, was the primary cardinal of Opus Dei, the conservative motion based by Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá in 1928 and which has greater than 90,000 members in 70 international locations. The lay group, a lot favored by Saint John Paul II, contains monks, celibate lay folks, but additionally lay folks and girls with secular jobs and households who try to “sanctify atypical life”.
The costs in opposition to Cipriani add to the upheaval within the Peruvian Church following affirmation final week of Pope Francis’ resolution to disband the highly effective and influential Peruvian-based motion Company of Christian Lifeone other conservative secular Catholic motion. After years of making an attempt to reform, Francis determined to suppress the group after a Vatican investigation uncovered sexual abuse by its founder, monetary mismanagement by its leaders and religious and bodily abuse by its most distinguished members .
Cipriani was new to the management of the Peruvian church when the primary accusations in opposition to Sodalitium have been aired publicly in a sequence of articles in 2000 within the journal Gente by former member José Enrique Escardó.
Cipriani was archbishop when the primary victims offered formal accusations in opposition to Sodalitium to the church in 2011. Him he insisted he had handled the allegations correctlynevertheless it was solely when journalists Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz uncovered Sodalitium’s practices of their 2015 e book “Half Monks, Half Soldiers” that the case started to maneuver.
Ten years later and 25 years After Escardó first went public with tales of abuse, Escardó met with the pope on Friday. He mentioned they mentioned disbanding the motion and the necessity to hold victims entrance and heart whereas the Vatican dismantles the group and cares for its members.
“I really feel very, excellent, listened to,” he instructed The Associated Press on Saturday simply exterior St. Peter’s Square. “I believe I additionally let go of an infinite weight, which is the voice of many victims.”
He attributed the church’s sluggish response to the Sodalitium scandal and the assaults victims confronted for talking out to the safety Sodalitium loved at church leaders in Rome and Lima.
“Cardinal Cipriani was the Opus Dei cardinal that Sodalitium wanted,” he mentioned.
The Sodalitium was based in 1971 as one in every of a number of Catholic societies that emerged as a conservative response to the left-wing liberation theological motion that swept by means of Latin America within the Nineteen Sixties. At its peak, the group had roughly 20,000 members throughout South America and the United States. It has had monumental affect in Peru and has its American base in Denver.
After a Vatican investigation, Francis started taking motion final 12 months, first formally expelling the Sodalitium’s founder and 10 core members. Last week the group confirmed that the Vatican intends to suppress it.
Peruvian bishops, for his or her half, expressed solidarity with Sodalitium victims and thanked them in an announcement Saturday, however defended their actions.
“We deeply remorse that one thing so horrible has occurred within the Church in Peru,” the bishops’ convention mentioned in an announcement Saturday. “We categorical our remorse to those that didn’t really feel duly accompanied by us as a result of they weren’t conscious of the steps that this Episcopal Conference has been taking for a number of years earlier than the Holy See”.
Victims have lengthy accused the Peruvian ecclesiastical hierarchy of complicity within the Sodalitium scandal and of wanting the opposite method, given the group’s affect within the nation.
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