Aharon Andrés Cardona joined the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae as a teen in Colombia in 1993 as a result of he wished to assist others.
The secretive Catholic society, primarily based in Peru, sought to mildew upper-class, fair-skinned boys into “troopers for God” by a mix of military-style coaching and theological examine.
Cardona mentioned he quickly realized, nevertheless, that his mission to assist others would include years of bodily and psychological abuse.
When he mentioned or did one thing that his superiors didn’t like, the chief of his neighborhood, Daniel Cardó, now the priest of a Colorado parish, punched him repeatedly within the abdomen or slapped him within the face, Cardona mentioned in an interview from Colombia.
“He mentioned I wanted to behave like a person,” he mentioned.
Cardona and his comrades have been continually pushed to their bodily limits by operating, swimming, squats and pushups. Some threw up or fainted from overexertion, he mentioned. They slept just a few hours an evening. Punishments included consuming solely lettuce and water for days at a time.
“The establishment has a logic to humiliate folks and to demand from them a variety of obedience,” Cardona mentioned. “They shouldn’t exist anymore.”
Pope Francis made waves in September when he expelled 10 members — together with Father Cardó and two others with Colorado ties — from the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae for what the Vatican known as “sadistic” abuses of energy, authority and spirituality. The pope’s choice rocked the group, which has been underneath investigation by authorities from Peru and the Vatican, in addition to its personal management, in recent times.
Over the previous 25 years, the Sodalitium has established a robust presence in Colorado, the place the Archdiocese of Denver entrusted it with a metro-area parish, and the place the group has moved a number of high-ranking leaders together with a few of its monetary operations.
“All the cash is in Denver,” mentioned Paola Ugaz, an investigative reporter in Peru who wrote a e book on abuses within the Sodalitium. “Their energy is in Denver proper now.”
Former members who lived within the Denver neighborhood described related bodily and psychological assessments by which leaders pushed them past their breaking level.
Regardless of the expulsion from the Sodalitium, Cardó stays a member of the Catholic Church and the pastor on the Holy Identify Catholic Church in Sheridan. He declined interview requests for this story, however wrote in an e-mail that he remembers the occasions with Cardona “very otherwise.”
“I used to be by no means anticipated or instructed to make use of violence,” Cardó wrote. “What some have described was not my expertise.”
The Archdiocese of Denver, in a press release final month following the Pope’s announcement, defended the expelled members, saying the allegations centered on decades-old claims from South America. Cardó stays a priest in good standing, the Archdiocese mentioned, although he now not lives with the Sodalitium neighborhood on the church’s property.
“Authoritarian course and management”
Luis Fernando Figari based the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, or Sodalitium of Christian Life, in 1971 as a lay neighborhood, comprising peculiar members who will not be clergy. The group was considered one of a number of Catholic societies born as a conservative response to the left-leaning liberation theology motion that swept by Latin America, beginning within the Sixties.
At its top, the group counted about 20,000 members throughout South America and america, and was authorised by Pope John Paul II in 1997. That membership is right down to 125 folks unfold throughout 9 largely Latin American international locations, together with six distinguished members in Colorado.
Because the SCV, because the group is thought, grew in dimension, Figari’s popularity as a extremely non secular, mental and charismatic man additionally grew.
“Figari used his management standing to have authoritarian course and management of most Sodalits,” or members, in response to a 2017 report commissioned by the group. “He was essentially the most highly effective particular person within the group and plenty of believed that his phrases and directives got here immediately from God. Figari’s private attributes and authority formed an surroundings the place younger males trusted him as a human being, in addition to a non secular, even fatherly, determine.”
The chief boasted about having supernatural items, reminiscent of the flexibility to see pictures of the Virgin Mary or a flaming sword, the image of SCV, the report and ex-members mentioned. He used hypnotism to make aspirants bark like a canine or, he mentioned, scale back an individual’s physique temperature. He claimed he may learn minds.
Figari served as Gerardo Barreto’s non secular counselor for years. The ex-member, who helped begin the Denver Sodalitium neighborhood, mentioned it was like having a direct reference to God. Others envied him.
“He’s a really sensible particular person, very clever, like Hitler,” Barreto mentioned in an interview. “He has a really intuitive option to see folks — 99% of individuals, he will get them directly.”
Within the St. Elizabeth of Hungary Church in downtown Denver, the place members of a sister society lived, Figari’s image sat subsequent to the Pope’s, an ex-member mentioned. Group members learn his works greater than the Bible and sang songs primarily based on his writings.
However this legendary standing additionally led Figari to allegedly perpetuate many years of sexual, bodily and non secular abuses. The 2017 report discovered Figari and three others sexually abused 19 minors and 10 adults, with a lot of the abuses taking place within the Eighties and Nineties in South America.
Former and present Sodalits described Figari within the report as “narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist and obsessive about sexual points and the sexual orientation of SCV members.”
The Vatican in August expelled Figari following an investigation by the church’s high intercourse abuse specialists. It got here 9 years after the group’s dealings burst into the open following the publication of the e book “Half Monks, Half Troopers” by a former SCV member, Pedro Salinas, and Ugaz, the Peruvian journalist.
Figari has denied the allegations. He was ordered in 2017 to stay aside from the Sodalitium neighborhood in Rome and stop all contact with it.
The Sodalitium in recent times has denounced Figari’s habits, apologized to victims and given reparations to those that have been harmed throughout their time within the group.
“Though every particular person is accountable earlier than God and others for their very own actions, we acknowledge that our neighborhood has dedicated abuses and faults which have induced actual hurt,” the group mentioned in a 2019 assertion.
Bodily assessments
Bodily challenges function a central part of the SCV’s construction.
Figari modeled the group’s initiation program after motion pictures and TV reveals he watched, in response to the 2017 report. These bodily assessments concerned swimming in chilly ocean waters for hours at a time, operating lengthy distances in dangerous climate and forcing aspirants to do hundreds of pushups and sit-ups.
It wasn’t uncommon for superiors to hit members repeatedly within the stomach for any slight infraction.
“Bodily punishment was a part of the deal,” mentioned Eduardo Maura, a former SCV member in South America who now lives in Florida. “You must be sturdy. You’re not supposed to point out any signal that you simply’re experiencing bodily ache.”
Leaders instituted different punishments, together with withholding meals and water or forcing members to eat dessert coated in ketchup or mustard. Different self-discipline got here within the type of sleeping on the ground or forcing people to remain up all night time.
Former member Oscar Osterling recalled, on the age of 18, being woken up at 4 a.m. in Peru and advised to undress, leaving solely his underwear on.
Figari then requested the kids questions whereas somebody filmed them.
“It was a primary step to see if now we have some sexual insecurities,” Osterling mentioned in an interview from Peru.
The elevation of struggling has been part of Christian id since its starting, mentioned Christy Cobb, a biblical scholar and affiliate professor of Christianity on the College of Denver. Texts and even early Christian saints tried to embrace struggling of their lives to imitate the struggling of Jesus Christ, she mentioned.
“This ideology, taken to the acute, can result in this sort of abuse,” Cobb mentioned.
Leaders additionally regularly examined the psychological make-up of their members.
Aspirants have been advised initially of their formation interval to element every thing of their lives: their intimate hopes, fears and even sexual histories.
The technique, ex-members say: Break folks down so that they turn out to be depending on the Sodalitium.
“This was step one within the brainwashing,” mentioned Martin Scheuch, a former member in Peru who now lives in Germany. “They make you are feeling dangerous, like you’re the worst on this planet. Then they advised us that they’ve the reply to our issues and we should comply with Jesus and obey all of the issues they inform us.”
Transferring operations to Denver
These psychological and bodily abuses ultimately made their option to Denver, ex-members mentioned.
Since at the very least the Nineties, Denver’s conservative archbishops have maintained sturdy relationships with the Sodalitium and their sister societies.
Cardinal James Francis Stafford, then Denver’s archbishop, in 1992 invited the Christian Life Motion to Colorado, its first foray into america. Figari based the group in 1985 as an ecclesial lay motion by which younger folks stay communally in marginalized areas. It’s thought of a part of the Sodalitium household.
Barreto and his spouse have been a part of the primary cohort to return to Denver. Figari was initially reluctant to ship clergymen and consecrated members, he mentioned, so as an alternative they despatched two married {couples} to start evangelization in america.
“Stafford had insisted a number of occasions he wished the Sodalitium to return to his archdiocese,” Barreto mentioned.
The presence of the Sodalitium within the U.S. adopted in 2003, when Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Stafford’s successor in Denver, invited the group to stay at Camp St. Malo, a retreat middle in Boulder County. (Chaput retired when the extra liberal Pope Francis changed him as archbishop of Philadelphia in 2020. He declined interview requests by an Archdiocese of Philadelphia spokesperson.)
The Archdiocese of Denver requested Cardó in 2007 to function the parish’s priest. Three years later, Chaput gave the Holy Identify parish in Sheridan to the Sodalitium. Not all parishioners at Holy Identify belong to the motion however the parish is led by the group and members of the Sodalitium have a home on parish grounds.
Chaput in 2012 spoke earlier than the final meeting of the Sodalitium, the place he lauded the group for its devotion to God.
“God has accomplished one thing extraordinary by the genius and keenness of Luis Fernando (Figari), and in addition by the zeal of every member of the Sodalitium,” he mentioned, in response to Scheuch’s account on his weblog. “As a bishop, I’ve seen the outcomes.”
Chaput later invited the SCV to Philadelphia after he grew to become archbishop there.
One former member of the Marian Group of Reconciliation, a ladies’s group additionally based by Figari, recalled the “indoctrination” she went by when she joined the Denver-based neighborhood. The Marian neighborhood is taken into account a part of the Sodalitium household and members attended the Holy Identify parish collectively. The group shuttered its Denver neighborhood in 2022.
“They attempt to break you down and educate you to mistrust your individual ideas and personal view of your self and the world,” the lady mentioned, talking on the situation of anonymity as a result of she nonetheless has household within the parish. “You begin to query every thing you recognize and really feel about your self.”
The SCV preyed upon determined younger folks looking for that means and construction of their lives, mentioned one other former member of the Denver neighborhood. This particular person, talking on the situation of anonymity as a way to shield his profession, mentioned he was aimless after his mother and father divorced. The Sodalitium provided order.
“There was a variety of grooming and manipulation of people that have been vulnerable to becoming a member of a cult,” this particular person mentioned, calling his expertise residing within the Denver home for a number of years within the 2010s “a nightmare.”
As Peruvian and Vatican authorities have zeroed in on the Sodalitium in recent times, it seems the motion has more and more used Denver as its hub.
Three of the ten members expelled by the Pope final month had Colorado ties, together with the previous govt director of the Catholic Information Company, Alejandro Bermudez, and the chief of the Sodalitium’s Denver-based neighborhood, Eduardo Regal.
The group has additionally moved two of its firms to Colorado amid accusations of economic misdealing in Peru.
Certainly one of them, the Basis Santa Rosa, a charity that helps Sodalitium causes all over the world, was registered in Colorado in 2016 and used the identical deal with because the Holy Identify church. The opposite, Providential Inc., didn’t seem within the Colorado Secretary of State Workplace’s enterprise database, however Ugaz mentioned it’s primarily based within the state.
The Sodalitium moved its operations abroad, Ugaz mentioned, as a result of its leaders worry prosecutors in Peru or the Vatican may seize their property. And Denver served as an ideal place to cover away, she mentioned, because of the group’s shut relationships with Chaput and his successor, present Denver Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila.
Aquila is shut buddies with Bermudez and got here to Holy Identify for lunch, a number of ex-members of the church advised The Submit. He additionally led mass on the Sheridan church, and his photograph is prominently featured on the SCV’s web site.
“The Sodalitium really feel very protected with them,” Ugaz mentioned, referring to the Archdiocese of Denver. “They really feel nothing will occur to them there.”
Aquila just isn’t and has by no means been a member of the SCV, mentioned Kelly Clark, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Denver. The archbishop has not served as their confessor and celebrates mass with them a number of occasions a 12 months, she mentioned.
Cardó, who was not talked about by identify within the 2017 report commissioned by the SCV, advised The Submit in an e-mail that he’s been “devastated” and “deeply saddened” because the Pope’s announcement.
“I joined the Sodalitium as a result of I felt known as to serve God and his folks by neighborhood life and repair,” he mentioned. “I’m glad I’ve been in a position to assist others by my vocation as a Catholic priest and I’ve nice respect for the overwhelming majority within the Sodalitium who’ve toiled to serve others over a few years.”
Cardona, the previous member who says he was punched by Cardó, mentioned he felt unhappiness when he heard the Colorado priest had been expelled from the Sodalitium. Cardó, he mentioned, was simply doing what the higher-ups anticipated from him.
“Daniel Cardó is the sufferer of the principles of the establishment,” he mentioned.
However eradicating 10 members will do nothing, he mentioned.
“It’s higher to cancel the entire establishment,” Cardona mentioned.
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