(PERU)
The Pillar [Washington DC]
August 1, 2025
By Edgar Beltrán
Cardinal Carlos Castillo has been accused of covering up sexual misconduct at the capital see’s archdiocesan seminary
Cardinal Carlos Castillo of Lima has been accused of covering up sexual misconduct at the capital see’s archdiocesan seminary, and of retaliating against seminarians who accused the former rector of failing to respect personal boundaries.
Former seminarians and several diocesan sources told The Pillar that Fr. Luis Sarmiento, rector of the Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Major Seminary from 2020 to 2023, was the subject of multiple accusations of sexual misconduct against seminarians.
Sources added that in 2018, before he was appointed rector, Sarmiento was dismissed for inappropriate behavior from his post as a formator at the seminary.
Despite the allegations, Castillo brought Sarmiento back to lead a reform of the seminary. But former seminarians charge that Sarmiento fostered a dysfunctional environment and crossed personal boundaries with seminarians.
Several sources told The Pillar that Castillo personally intervened to remove seminarians who reported Sarmiento’s behavior rather than ordering an investigation into the allegations.
The Lima archdiocese did not respond to requests for comment from The Pillar.
Sarmiento has not commented publicly on the allegations.
After he was named Archbishop of Lima in 2019, Castillo initiated a shakeup of Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Major Seminary, alongside numerous other changes within the archdiocese.
His predecessor, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, was well-known for his theological conservatism and had kept the seminary under tight control. Cipriani was himself embroiled in controversy after he retired as Archbishop of Lima in 2019 and has a contentious relationship with other Peruvian bishops.
A former seminarian told The Pillar: “We weren’t allowed to grow a beard. Everything was very strict. There was a strict dress code, so when Castillo came and relaxed some of the stuff, many saw it as a welcome change and thought Castillo had a pastoral heart.”
Another ex-seminarian said: “I remember a 2019 meeting with Castillo in which he came to the seminary and said that we should forget about the formation we received before, because it was not useful.”
Sarmiento was appointed the seminary’s rector before the 2020-2021 academic year with a mandate to overhaul the institution, but the appointment proved controversial.
“Sarmiento had briefly been a formator in the seminary between 2017 and 2018 when Cipriani was the archbishop, but was dismissed because the then-rector received accusations of inappropriate behavior against Sarmiento with some seminarians: [That] he was too close and too touchy-feely with some of them,” a former seminarian said.
A senior diocesan source told The Pillar: “The kind of behavior he engaged in was not explicitly sexual, but he had very strange relationships with some seminarians and issues with personal boundaries, so it was decided he should leave the seminary.”
When Sarmiento was appointed as the rector in July 2020, the seminary’s culture began to change, numerous sources close to the seminary told The Pillar.
A former seminarian summarized a frequently-told account of seminary culture: “The seminary became odd, it seemed a kind of ‘self-formation’ place. There was basically no schedule beyond the classes, no daily rosary, no Eucharistic adoration on Thursdays. It seemed like you had no human or spiritual formation in the seminary.”
Several senior diocesan sources and former seminarians told The Pillar that Sarmiento allegedly violated personal boundaries shortly after his appointment.
A former seminarian described Sarmiento as being “very touchy-feely,” giving big hugs to seminarians in which it was apparent that he had an erection.
“It happened to me and I saw when it happened to others,” said the ex-seminarian, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.
Another former seminarian said: “He’d randomly come at you from the back and grab you and lift you from the floor. It was weird. He was doing this to guys who were not 18-year-old kids, who were almost 30, and guys with whom he didn’t have that kind of personal trust. He was just odd.”
As time passed, the number of allegations against Sarmiento grew.
“There were two instances in which Sarmiento tried to kiss seminarians. In one, he went to a seminarian’s bedroom to talk with him, hugged him tightly and started smelling him, and tried to kiss him while having an erection,” a seminary source said.
“The second time, it was a propaedeutic seminarian that was sick, and Sarmiento visited in his bedroom, tried to kiss him, and the seminarian started yelling at him. A few weeks later, the seminarian was dismissed from the propaedeutic seminary.”
Some seminarians went to the formators to complain about the situation but were ultimately dismissed from the seminary, several sources close to the situation told The Pillar.
“A group of seminarians decided to talk with a formator, who went to the archbishop to tell him about the situation, and also spoke with Sarmiento directly. Sarmiento denied everything but said he’d go to therapy, so the decision at the moment was to keep him in his post,” a former seminarian alleged, with his account confirmed to The Pillar by multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.
“In late 2022, two seminarians who came forward with allegations, including one who spoke with Castillo personally, were both dismissed from the seminary,” another source added.
“There was a priest who tried to help the seminarians, and was later left without a parish assignment,” he recalled.
According to the sources, other seminarians who involved themselves in the complaints against Sarmiento were punished in various ways.
“Some seminarians were sent away for a pastoral year, although they had not finished their theology studies,” another source added.
“They were sent to parishes in the peripheries of Lima with very difficult priests on purpose, and the formators and rectors didn’t call them or invite them to the seminary for the whole year. In some cases, seminarians were sent on a second pastoral year until they understood they would never be ordained and just left.”
Several sources close to the seminary alleged to The Pillar that Sarmiento also tolerated sexual misconduct by seminarians.
“There was a seminarian in a relationship with a girl from the youth ministry of the archdiocese, and Sarmiento knew this, and didn’t dismiss him from the seminary until he was shown a video of the seminarian with the girl going into a hotel,” a source told The Pillar, with his account confirmed by multiple sources close to the situation.
“There was a case during some missions in which a seminarian was sexually touching another seminarian during the night. A third seminarian realized and the next day left his phone filming after he went to sleep, and recorded the situation. He and others went to Sarmiento with the information, and Sarmiento said he wouldn’t expel them.”
“Only a few months later, when half of the Lima clergy heard what happened and pressure grew, he decided to dismiss them from the seminary,” another source said.
When Sarmiento was eventually removed from the seminary in 2023, he was not sanctioned or subject to a canonical investigation, sources said. Instead, he was sent to Rome for study, which raised eyebrows among Lima’s clergy.
“Castillo wanted to make Sarmiento an auxiliary bishop, but the nuncio disagreed because he knew of these issues,” a senior diocesan source told The Pillar.
“So, in the end, he was sent to Rome to study while everything calmed down. But this raised even more suspicion among the diocesan clergy, because Sarmiento has never been a scholar or a bright theologian, so a lot of people started asking questions.”
Diocesan sources said that enrollment at the seminary declined notably during Sarmiento’s tenure.
“We were 60 [seminarians] the year Castillo arrived. When I left a few years later, there were 15 seminarians left. A lot of people left due to the dysfunction in the seminary,” one former seminarian said.
After dismissing Sarmiento, Castillo appointed Eudist priests from Colombia to seminary administration, who have reportedly brought a semblance of normality to the seminary.
“It’s been better since, and there are some more people entering the seminary again,” the former seminarian noted.
The Pillar broke the news in June that the Archdiocese of Lima was accused of mishandling an investigation into Fr. Nilton Zárate Rengifo, who was accused of harassing a religious sister, solicitation in the confessional, and attempted absolution of an accomplice in a sexual sin, but had not been subject to a formal canonical process.
After the allegations against Zárate broke, the priest sent a letter to Castillo formally requesting his dismissal from the clerical state.
Senior diocesan sources said the dysfunction in investigating abuse cases had led to a rapid turnover at the judicial vicariate of Lima, with several employees and judges of the diocesan tribunal being fired in recent weeks, including Fr. Edwin Limas, who served as the notary in the interrogation of the sister during the brief canonical investigation against Zárate.