VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis expressed his help for peasant farmers in northern Peru threatened to be evicted off what they declare is their ancestral territory by corporations related to a Catholic motion.
“I do know what is occurring to you. Defend the land, don’t let it’s stolen,” the pope stated in a video message circulated on-line April 13. The video was posted the subsequent day on X by the workplace of Archbishop Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio of Lima.
Pope Francis directed his message to the peasant farming communities of Piura in northern Peru, which have accused corporations related to the Catholic motion Sodalitium Christianae Vitae of expropriating their ancestral lands and harassing the farmers with threatened authorized motion.
The land dispute remains to be being thought-about by a Peruvian courtroom.
“Thanks for what you do,” the pope informed the farmers within the video message. “From right here, I pray for you and I gladly provide you with my blessing.”
In July 2023, Pope Francis despatched the Vatican’s prime abuse investigators — Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta and Spanish Msgr. Jordi Bertomeu — to analyze the Sodalitium in Peru, which had been accused of systemic religious, psychological and sexual abuse amongst its ranks in addition to monetary corruption.
Throughout their investigation, the pair met with members of the peasant neighborhood of Catacaos close to Piura. The neighborhood’s chief, Marcelino Ynga, stated he informed the Vatican delegation in regards to the harassment and abuse suffered by the hands of Sodalitium-associated organizations, such because the St. John the Baptist Civil Affiliation, which he stated had slandered and threatened the farmers with a view to drive them off their land.
Responding to Pope Francis’ video message, Ynga thanked the pope for launching the investigation into the Sodalitium, which he referred to as a “felony group” that tried “to slander us, interrogate us and imprison us.” He additionally stated two members of the peasant neighborhood have been killed in efforts to take away the farmers from their land.
The Vatican stated April 2 that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of Archbishop José Eguren Anselmi of Piura, a professed member of Sodalitium since 1981.
The Sodalitium was based in Peru by lay Catholic Luis Fernando Figari in 1971 and was acknowledged as a society of apostolic life; it later grew to function in a number of different Latin American international locations and Italy. Though the motion was beforehand accused of abuse, a 2015 e book detailed its alleged psychological and sexual abuse and a 2017 inner investigation discovered that Figari and different high-ranking members of the motion abused 19 minors and 10 adults.
In 2017, the then-Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life banned Figari from residing with a Sodalitium neighborhood, taking part in Sodalitium actions or contacting any Sodalitium member.
