Peruvians filing criminal charge against Vatican investigator defy excommunication threat

BRUSSELS – Two Peruvian laypeople who gave testimony as part of an ongoing Vatican inquiry into a scandal-plagued lay movement announced Friday on social media that they have filed a criminal complaint against one of the Vatican’s investigators, and are refusing to withdraw it even facing a papal threat of excommunication.

In a video published on YouTube Sept. 27, laywoman Giuliana Caccia Arana and layman Sebastian Blanco said they received a call from the Vatican’s embassy in Lima on Sept. 26 asking for an urgent meeting. During that meeting with Archbishop Paolo Gualtieri, the Vatican’s envoy in Peru, they said they were given a document “that includes a penal precept, signed by Pope Francis, in which we are given a period of 48 hours to comply with five conditions.”

If those conditions are not met, they said, “we will enter into a process of excommunication ferendae sententiae,” meaning it is not automatically incurred, but will be if the conditions are not met.

While journalists and others pursuing the SCV story have often faced legal action in the past, this is believed to be the first time a criminal complaint has been lodged against a Vatican official. In April 2019, for example, the then-Archbishop of Piura, José Antonio Eguren, an SCV member, withdrew criminal charges against two Peruvian journalists who had reported abuse allegations against the SCV after one of them had been convicted, eliciting a statement of support for journalist Pedro Salinas from the Peruvian bishops’ conference.

In the Peruvian system, criminal charges can be filed by individual citizens, not just public prosecutors.

In July 2023, both Caccia and Blanco requested to be interviewed by the Vatican’s top investigating duo – Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, adjunct secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the department – after the pope sent the duo to Lima to investigate the scandal-plagued Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV).

Neither Cacccia nor Blanco had been called to give testimony, but they requested a meeting and were given an appointment, ultimately speaking only with Bertomeu on the first day of the inquiry, as Scicluna’s flight had been delayed.

According to remarks previously given to Crux, Caccia requested the meeting to make a complaint against two former SCV members she accused of harassment, and Blanco, whose brother served as the longtime secretary of the SCV’s founder, Luis Fernando Figari, reportedly spoke of his time as a longstanding member of the SCV.

In their video, Caccia and Blanco accused Bertomeu of breaking his “professional secret” by leaking confidential information about their testimonies, saying they filed a criminal complaint against him in Peru in July.

“The criminal complaint has been admitted and is in progress, and both parties have been notified,” they said.

They said they took the extraordinary step after seeing details of their conversation in the media and concluding Bertomeu must have been the source, prompting them to send him two notarized letters “asking for an explanation.”

Caccia and Blanco said Bertomeu, as part of the investigation, had questioned other witnesses on various points each of them had made, though without mentioning their names. This, in their view, constituted “an attack on confidentiality,” prompting them to press for legal action.

Speaking to Crux, however, journalist Paola Ugaz, who has reported extensively on the SCV story, said Caccia and Blanco’s version of events is misleading.

To begin with, she said, it was not anyone involved in the Vatican investigation who identified Caccia and Blanco as the ones who gave testimony. Photographers waiting outside the Vatican embassy had taken pictures of the pair, she said, and asked for help identifying them.

“An ex-Sodalite recognized Caccia and Blanco and gave us their names,” she said.

During her own interview the following day, Ugaz said it was Scicluna, not Bertomeu, who asked her generically about “a woman who said she was a victim of two ex-SCV members, and whether that woman was actually a victim.”

“Scicluna also asked Pedro about a man who came the day before and said what we wrote in the book was an exaggeration and he wanted to know what his response to that was,” Ugaz said, saying the names of the two were never mentioned.

The papal document warning of excommunication, signed Sept. 25, was published on the social media platform X by Alejandro Bermudez, a former member of the SCV who on Wednesday was expelled from the community.

According to the decree, Caccia and Blanco “filed an unjust and reckless complaint for an alleged ‘violation of professional secrecy’ [not just] against one of the members of the ‘Special Mission’ but against ‘all those who are responsible,’ including therefore the Holy Father himself, the principal person primarily responsible for the ‘Special Mission.’”

The decree, which also cited other reasons for the excommunication threat, accused Caccia and Blanco of “publicly arousing hatred against the Apostolic See by an act of ecclesiastical function,” of “impeding the free exercise of the ecclesiastical power to investigate alleged notitiae de delicto, thereby obstructing canonical justice,” and of “unlawfully injuring the good reputation of third parties.”

The decree said the threat of excommunication was made “considering the need to intervene promptly, for the good of souls and to avoid further scandal and the repetition of the crimes reported, as well as any pressure or retaliation on the members of my ‘Special Mission,’ which is still ongoing.”

Both Caccia and Blanco were asked to “immediately withdraw” their legal complaint against Bertomeu, to apologize, and to give media platforms they have already interacted with about the matter a “fair explanation of the truth of the facts and the request for apologies offered to the members of the ‘Special Mission.’”

They were also asked to provide documentary evidence of the fulfillment of these requests to the nunciature within 48 hours, and were prohibited from making further public statements on the matter or from speaking to the media about it.

“Due to the extreme gravity of the criminal conduct reported here, out of respect for the truth and for the salvation of the souls of those affected,” the decree stated that should these conditions not be met within 48 hours, Caccia and Blanco would be excommunicated ferendae sententiae.

That means, among other things, that both Caccia and Blanco “will be prohibited from receiving all the sacraments, exercising offices, assignments, ministries or ecclesiastical functions.”

Should the conditions not be met, “they must each consign to Caritas Lima the sum of 100,000 Peruvian soles,” equivalent to just under $27,000 and they “may never again present themselves as Catholics in public nor represent the Catholic Church in any social event,” the decree said.

The decree stated that if the conditions were not met, the decree would be published by the Peruvian Episcopal Conference on its website.

In their video, published after they received the decree, Caccia and Blanco said they “in no way attempted to hinder the special mission sent by Pope Francis or question its legitimacy.”

Their legal complaint against Bertomeu “has no relation to the ongoing investigation” into the SCV, they said, saying the pope had been “misinformed” about their actions.

Caccia and Blanco said they “cannot accept” the conditions imposed by the papal decree, and that they published their video “to get ahead of this news because it seems fair and charitable to those close to us, our families and friends.”

They said they felt “pressured and blackmailed” by the papal decree, and voiced concern that their excommunication sets a worrying precedent for the Catholic Church.

“We want to think that all this has been the work of people who have other interests and seek to silence us, and that to do so they have misinformed the pope,” they said, reiterating their intention to pursue legal action against Bertomeu “for the love of the truth, for the love of the Catholic Church and of Jesus Christ.”

Neither Caccia nor Blanco, nor officials from the Holy See, responded immediately to a Crux request for comment.

This story has been updated.