(PERU)
Agence France Presse [Paris, France]
April 2, 2026
Vatican City – The Vatican has announced plans to compensate victims of a Peru-based Catholic movement, which was dissolved last year following revelations of rampant sexual and psychological abuse by some of its leaders.
Pope Francis ordered the closure of the ultra-conservative Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV) a week before his death, after a seven-year Vatican investigation.
The lay order acknowledged that its founder Luis Fernando Figari and other leaders of the movement sexually and psychologically abused at least 19 minors and 10 adults between 1975 and 2002.
The investigation also revealed financial mismanagement.
The Vatican said Wednesday it would set up a “listening channel” in Lima in May for the victims, in order to hear their complaints and requests for compensation.
The church will use assets seized from SCV to compensate the victims, it added.
“For those who have directly suffered abuse, this announcement opens a real opportunity to continue moving toward just reparations,” the Peruvian Bishops Conference said in a press release.
Figari, a Peruvian national, founded the SCV in 1971 with the aim of transforming teenagers into “soldiers of Christ.”
He currently lives in Rome.
He has not returned to Peru since the investigations against him began in 2015.
Peruvian authorities dropped the investigation in 2024.
Robert Prevost, who would later become Pope Leo XIV, served for years in Peru.
As a trusted bishop under Francis, he supported SCV victims in their claims, according to the victims’ accounts.