VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
The Tablet [Market Harborough, England]
January 28, 2025
By Bess Twiston Davies
The Vatican contradicted Cardinal Cipriani’s claim that Pope Francis had eased the disciplinary measures against him, allowing him to resume his priestly ministry.
The first cardinal to belong to Opus Dei denied an allegation he abused a teenager in the sacrament of confession.
Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, who was Archbishop of Lima from 1999 to 2019, said he had “never abused anyone” after the claim appeared in the Spanish daily El País.
It reported allegations Cipriani had abused the teenager at an Opus Dei centre in Peru in 1983. The 16-year-old’s mother had sent her son there after the death of his father, hoping Opus Dei would help him focus on his studies.
Lengthy confessions with Cipriani last 45 minutes. The alleged victim said he would weep when reproached for his sins by Cipriani, who would then give him long hugs, which made him “uncomfortable”, and caress him, touching him on the bottom and reaching under his clothing. After Cipriani kissed him on one occasion “near the edge of the lips”, he refused to go to him for further confession.
Encourged by a friend, he complained to Opus Dei superiors and later met three priests from the prelature, including its then vicar general. According to El País, they requested he “tell no one what had happened” and said they would speak to Cipriani. They also told the victim he was an orphan “who had problems and had misinterpreted [Cipriani’s] fatherly affection”.
In 2018, he wrote to Pope Francis after watching a film about the abuse crisis in the Chilean Church. He asked Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean abuse survivor who is a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, to deliver Francis his letter personally.
The letter said he was not seeking revenge: “All I want is for you to know the truth and bear it in mind when you make decisions about the future of the current bishop of Lima and cardinal of Peru … I only want you to remove from the Church a pastor who has done me harm and does not deserve all the privileges he has received.”
“Francis acted,” Cruz told El País. The Pope asked a Jesuit in Peru to meet the victim. When Cipriani submitted his letter of resignation on turning 75 in January 2019, the Pope accepted it and also imposed disciplinary measures him, ordering him to leave Peru and forbidding him from wearing the insignia of a cardinal or making public statements.
Cipriani claimed last Saturday that Pope Francis had eased the disciplinary measures, allowing him to resume his priestly ministry after they had met in 2020. On Monday, the Vatican contradicted Cipriani in a statement, explaining that “although specific permissions have been granted on certain occasions to accommodate requests related to the cardinal’s age and family circumstances, at present, this precept remains in force.”
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In a note emailed to El Pais last week, Cipriani, now 81, denied the abuse allegation saying: “I have neither committed any crime nor sexually abused anyone either in 1983, before or afterwards.”
He added: “In August 2018, I was informed that an allegation had been made which was not given to me.” He claimed he had not been “listened to” by the Vatican.
The complainant further claimed he had been bullied by acquaintances and relations linked to Opus Dei. He said one Peruvian Opus Dei bishop had wanted to co-author a letter with him to withdraw the claim. Another friend of Cipriani sent him 49 “intimidating” WhatsApp messages, according to El País.
“I was surprised by the amount of rejection and attacks I received because I had not done anything wrong,” he said.
Opus Dei in Peru said it had no record of the victim’s complaint because “at the time there was not the same awareness as today regarding the most suitable procedure for accompanying the parties involved.” It added: “Today, it would be impossible for a complaint to fail to be recorded.”
The prelature acknowledged that the victim had been refused a meeting in 2018 with Fr Ángel Gómez-Hortigüela, its vicar general in Peru. Gómez-Hortigüela said he had not considered the matter within his remit because Cardinal Cipriani was not dependent on Opus Dei but “incardinated in the Holy See”.
Fr Gómez-Hortigüela apologised last week, saying he realised that he could have met the victim in a “personal, human and spiritual fashion like other people did from Opus Dei”.
Since his resignation, Cipriani has lived between Italy and Spain. Notorious for his friendship with the Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori. Cipriani also incurred criticism for his support of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, or Sodality of Christian Life, the Peruvian lay movement dissolved by Pope Francis last week.