Pope Francis accepts the resignation of a Peruvian bishop accused of ignoring abuse

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Pope Francis on Tuesday accepted the resignation of an influential Peruvian bishop, who has come under criticism for not doing enough to stop abuses committed by a conservative Catholic movement that was recently disbanded by the Vatican.

Peru’s Bishops Conference said Archbishop Miguel Cabrejos from the diocese of Trujillo, will be replaced by the Jesuit bishop Gilberto Vizcarra. A reason for the Pope’s decision was not provided.

Cabrejos, 76, was the president of Peru’s Bishops Conference until January, and had held that position for 12 years.

In a statement published last year, the archbishop said that he had presented his resignation letter to the Vatican in 2023, in accordance with Catholic Church laws that call on bishops to prepare for retirement at age 75.

During the time that Archbishop Cabrejos led the bishop's conference, the Peruvian-based Catholic movement, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, was accused of sexually abusing its recruits, of threatening journalists and of deploying schemes to strip peasants off their lands in the north of Peru.

Victims of the movement, known also as SCV, have accused Cabrejos of turning a blind eye to these practices.

“He was indifferent towards victims,” said Pedro Salinas, a journalist and former member of the SCV who published a book about the group’s abuses that unleashed several investigations into the conservative Catholic movement.

SCV, which had been founded in the early 70’s, was disbanded in January by Pope Francis.

In 2017, a report commissioned by the group’s leadership determined that its founder Luis Figari sodomized his recruits and subjected them to humiliating psychological and other sexual abuses.

After an attempt at reform, Francis sent his two most trusted investigators, Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, to look into the Sodalitium abuses. Their report uncovered “sadistic” sect-like abuses of power, authority and spirituality, economic abuses in administering church money and even cases of harassing critics.

The 2023 report by Bertomeu and Scicluna resulted in the expulsions last year of Figari and 10 top members, including an archbishop who had sued Salinas and journalist Paola Ugaz for their reporting and was forced to retire early.

In a recent interview with Peruvian newspaper La Republica, Cabrejos said that Peru’s Bishops Conference had been warning the Vatican of abuses committed by SCV since 2015. The archbishop claimed that the investigators sent to Peru by the Vatican based their findings on information that had already been gathered by Peruvian church leaders for several years.

The SCV was founded in 1971 as one of several Catholic societies born as a conservative reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America in the 1960s.

At its height, the group counted hundreds of members across South America and the United States. It was enormously influential in Peru and had its U.S. base in Denver.

____

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america