Archdiocese of Lima, Peru – BishopAccountability.org

Search results for Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

23 Accused in this Diocese

Br. Felipe Navarrette Diaz

Donate Photo

Status: Accused

Named publicly as credibly accused by the Carmelite Order on its list 11/22/2020. Assigned in Tlalpan Mexico, Lima Peru, Middletown NY, Coahula Mexico, and 2014-2015 in Washington DC. Separated from the Order in 2015. Included in the 5/23/2023 IL Attorney General's Report. (No information as to when or where abuse occurred. Placing him in Chicago, where the Province is based.)

Assignments:

Carmelites Assignment Record

Sources:

Br. Robert D. Wood

Order: SM
Status: Accused

Died: 12/6/2016
Diocese: Archdiocese of St. Louis MO

Professed vows in 1945 as a Marianist brother, St. Louis Province. Educator. Worked in MO, TX, IL. Also Canada, Japan, Mexico, and in Lima, Peru. Died in 2016. Included on the Marianists' 6/24/2020 list of those "found to have sexually abused a minor." Location of abuse not indicated - placing him in the St. Louis archdiocese for now.

Sources:

Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne

Order: Opus Dei
Status: Accused

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, a priest of Opus Dei, was only 44 years old in 1988 when Pope John Paul II elevated him to the bishopric, assigning him to be an auxiliary bishop of the Ayachuco o Huamanga archdiocese. Cipriani was promoted to archbishop of Ayachucho in 1995 and served just four years before JP II tapped him to become archbishop of Lima. He was elevated to cardinal in 2001, and continued to head the Lima archdiocese until January 2019, when Pope Francis accepted his resignation soon after the cardinal's 75th birthday.

On January 24, 2025, El País reported that Pope Francis had compelled Cipriani to step down as Lima archbishop soon after the cardinal’s 75th birthday because of Cipriani’s alleged abuse of a minor. In 2018, a man had written a letter to the Pope saying that in 1983, when he was ages 16 and 17, he had been groped, caressed and kissed by then-Father Cipriani. According to the victim, Cipriani was his confessor, and the abuses took place during confession. In response to the El País report, the Vatican spokesman Matteo Brunei confirmed the sanctions against the cardinal. Bruni said that following the cardinal’s 2019 resignation, he had received “a penal injunction with specific disciplinary measures related to public activity, place of residence and the use of insignia.” The cardinal “signed and accepted” the measure, Bruni said, adding that the restrictions remained in place.

Sources:

El primer cardenal del Opus Dei, arzobispo de Lima, fue apartado por el Papa en 2019 tras acusaciones de pederastia, El País, 24 de enero de 2025
Vatican confirms disciplinary measures against Cardinal Cipriani, Vatican News, 27 de enero de 2025

Daniel Murguía Ward

Order: SVC
Status: Acquitted

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

Murguía Ward was a consecrated Sodalit layman who reached the level of perpetual profession. He reportedly was close to Figari and worked as his cook, as nurse to Figari's parents, and as his personal secretary.

On October 27, 2007, Lima police found him in a hotel room near Plaza San Martín with an 11-year-old boy whose trousers were down. Murguía was holding a digital camera. The boy told police Murguía had tricked him into undressing and had performed oral sex on him. According to the 2019 report issued by the Congressional commission, the camera also held photographs of two other minors. Murguía denied the boy's account.

The Sodalicio expelled Murguía two days after his arrest. The Congressional commission’s later probe of the case included allegations that the Sodalicio had destroyed evidence that would further incriminate Murguía. The commission also found that the Sodalicio had provided no help to the child and had deliberately withheld files from law enforcement.

A Lima higher court acquitted Murguía of rape of a minor on January 7, 2009. The Supreme Court upheld the acquittal on June 30, 2011. The court relied on the child's changed statement that he had only been photographed. The Congressional commission criticized the ruling and said a child-pornography charge should have been possible. Prosecutors named Murguía again in 2017-2018 among those accused with Figari. The criminal case against Murguía and the other criminally accused Sodalicio leaders was permanently dismissed in 2024.

In 2019, Murguía refused to appear before the Congressional commission, and a court order to force him to do so was not carried out.

Sources:

Informes sobre Abusos y Respuesta en el Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, 10 de febrero de 2017
9.2 – Caso Emblemático “Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana,” Comisión Investigadora de Abusos Sexuales contra Menores de Edad en Organizaciones, Congreso de la República del Perú, 23 de julio de 2019
Parliamentary inquest in Peru revives accusations of abuse cover-up against lay group, Crux, 31 de julio de 2023
Encubrimiento Sodalicio: juez liberó en tres años a pederasta capturado in fraganti cuando abusaba de menor, Infobae, 03 de agosto de 2023
El Sodalicio publicó informe sobre abusos sexuales de Luis Figari, RPP, 14 de febrero de 2017
Justice delayed is justice denied: Peruvian whistleblower reported abuse 14 years ago, Crux, 20 de agosto de 2024
Peruvian priest ousted from order accused of sex abuse, coverup, Crux, 28 de octubre de 2024
El papa Francisco disuelve el Sodalicio, la organización religiosa peruana acusada de décadas de abusos, BBC, 20 de enero de 2025

Fr. Daniel J. Mangen/Mangan

Order: CPPS
Ordained: 1980
Status: Sued

Diocese: Diocese of Cleveland OH

American. Missionary in South America. Accused of sexually abusing and raping a girl for three years beginning when she was 16 years old at a Catholic high school in Cleveland OH (U.S.) in the early 1980s. Mangen denied the allegations but acknowledged having been "sexually active" with minors and adults. In 1984, he was transferred to Chile. He became a parish priest in the rural town of Tralcao, located in the southern municipality of Mariquina [Valdiva Province, Los Rios Region]. In 2002, a Cleveland TV reporter found Mangen ministering at St. Sebastian church in the Chilean town of Purranque [Osorno Province]. In 2005, according to the Official Catholic Directory, he was working as a priest at San Francisco de Borja in Lima, Peru. Not included on Chilean bishops' public list of guilty clerics. Believed to be in Valdivia, Chile as of 11/2010 (not as a priest).

Assignments:

BA.org Assignment Record

Sources:

Fr. Frank E. Fairbairn

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Ordained: 1969
Status: Sued

Died: 9/13/2000
Diocese: Archdiocese of Boston MA

Left position as chaplain at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, to minister in Lima, Peru, 1994-1999. Died in 9/2000. Reportedly in 1/2003, Fairbairn was accused for the first time in a recent lawsuit of abusing a 14-year-old boy in 1970. Per the Boston archdiocese's list in 8/2011, there was no formal determination of guilt either because Fairbairn died prior to a canonical investigation or it was not complete at his death.

Assignments:

BA.org Assignment Record

Sources:

Fr. John D. O’Connell

Ordained: 1959
Status: Sued

Died: 7/11/2002
Diocese: Diocese of Springfield IL

Parish priest, pastor, hospital chaplain. On leave as a missionary in Peru 1976-1979. Died in 2002. Accused in a lawsuit filed in 7/2026 of sexually abusing a boy multiple times 1991-1994, at St. Mary's in Taylorsville. The boy was an altar server and parish school student.

Sources:

Fr. Leonard (Jeffrey) Fairfield

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Order: OCarm
Ordained: 1946
Status: Accused

Died: 11/28/2005
Diocese: Diocese of Joliet IL

Worked and/or lived in Ontario Canada, in the United States in PA, WDC, MA, TX, IL, FL, NY, CA, VA. Assigned 1952-1962 to Nuestra Senora del Carmen in Miraflores, Lima, Peru. Died in 2005. Named publicly as accused of child sexual abuse by the Carmelite order on its list 11/22/2020. (Location of abuse not noted - placing Fairfield for now in the Diocese of Joliet, where the Province is located.)

Assignments:

Carmelites Assignment Record

Sources:

Fr. Miguel Flores

Ordained: 1994
Status: Sued

Diocese: Diocese of Fresno CA

From Guadalajara, Mexico. Ordained in Bolivia. Ministered and taught in Chile. Studied in Argentina and Australia. Taught at a seminary in in Lima, Peru. Studied in Colombia. Arrived in the Fresno CA diocese from Mexico in 1999. Accused by a 16-year-old girl in 2002 of sexual assault 1/2002-2/2002. She was his office assistant at parishes in Tranquility and Hanford. Acquitted by jury in 8/2002 on three counts of forcible rape, three counts of sex with a minor and charge of making threats and intimidating a witness. Returned to active ministry. Case reopened in 2019 after new information was deemed credible. Placed on leave in 2/2019. Flores' alleged victim filed suit against the diocese in 2/2020 under the CA Child Victims Act. The case was dismissed by the plaintiff in 4/2024.

Documents:

Superior Court of California 04.26.24

Sources:

Fr. Milton Eggerling

Ordained: 1954
Status: Sued

Died: 2/29/2008
Diocese: Diocese of Austin TX

Ordained for the Sioux Falls SD diocese. Worked in a number of archdioceses and dioceses: St. Paul-Minneapolis, Bismarck ND, Oakland CA, Austin TX, San Jose CA, Boston MA, and Lima Peru via the Boston-based Society of St. John the Apostle. Accused in a 3/2016 lawsuit of sexually abusing a boy over five years, beginning when the boy was an 11-year-old student and altar server at St. Louis parish in Austin in the 1970s. Eggerling was assigned to Austin 1973-1979. He reportedly plied the boy with alcohol and took him on trips. He died 2/29/2008, per the 2009 Official Catholic Directory. Included on the Sioux Falls diocese's list 3/21/2019 (it erroneously notes his death dated as 3/7/2008). On the Austin diocese's list 1/31/2019.

Assignments:

Sources:

Germán Doig Klinge

Order: SVC
Status: Accused

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

Consecrated layman. Doig joined the Sodalicio in the 1970s. Ten years younger than Figari, he quickly became one of Figari’s favorites, eventually becoming his vicar general, i.e., second in command. Between 1983 and 2000, according to a 2017 investigative report commissioned by the Sodalicio, Doig allegedly abused five boys and one female teen, all of whom were minors. He also allegedly abused three adult male members and “sexually manipulated” three other adult men.

Doig died of cardiac arrest at age 44 in 2001. Shortly thereafter, the Sodalicio began the process to get him beatified. Dr. Rocio Figueroa, who had been sexually abused by Doig when she was 15, was named to the team charged with gathering information for Doig's beatification case. During the process, Figueroa found evidence that Doig had victimized others. Figari fought to silence her, but after he resigned as Superior General in late 2010, Figueroa’s case against Doig moved forward. In 2011, the new Superior General, Eduardo Regal, informed the community that Doig had committed acts “contrary to his vow of celibacy.” He did not mention that the victims included minors. The shocking news soon became public: in 2011, the now-defunct newspaper Diario16 ran testimonies from three victims, and the news outlet Caretas soon followed.

Sources:

Resumen del caso y artículos de prensa sobre el Germán Doig, Informe Guillén, 2012
Reporte para SNAP de los Casos Publicados en la Prensa Sobre Abusos Sexuales Relígíosos en Peru, Años 2000 Al 2012, by Héctor Guillén Tamayo, presented at SNAP’s 2012 Annual Conference, Chicago IL, U.S
Informes sobre Abusos y Respuesta en el Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, 10 de febrero de 2017
9.2 – Caso Emblemático “Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana,” Comisión Investigadora de Abusos Sexuales contra Menores de Edad en Organizaciones, Congreso de la República del Perú, 23 de julio de 2019

Jeffery Daniels Valderrama

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Order: SVC
Status: Case Dismissed

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

American. Consecrated layman of the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana from 1985 to 2001. Daniels led Marian Groups of boys, aged 12 to 16, at San Borja, taking them on mission trips, and teaching religion at Colegio San Pedro.

The 2017 report commissioned by the Sodalicio described Daniels as the group’s most egregious abuser. Between 1985 and 1997, he allegedly abused twelve boys and young men between 1985 and 1997. The abuses ranged from fondling to repeated anal penetration of boys aged 10 to 17. A victim, A.U., said Daniels abused him for about two years from age 14, and two other witnesses describe touching on mission trips in Arequipa.

Daniels had been reported to his superiors at the SCV in 1997, and he admitted abusing three young men. Luis Figari and Germán Doig neither expelled him nor reported him to law enforcement. Instead, he was isolated for three years at the San Bartolo formation house, while other members were told he was on retreat. Doig reportedly said he would deal with the victims' families himself.

After Doig's death in 2001, the Sodalicio’s Superior Council authorized Daniels' departure from the group. He moved to the United States that year.

In February 2017, the Sodalicio's Superior General delivered the group's own commissioned report to Lima's public prosecutor. It documented alleged sexual abuses perpetrated by Daniels, Luis Fernando Figari, Germán Doig, and Virgilio Levaggi against 19 minors and 10 adults.

In December 2017, Peruvian prosecutors formally charged Jeffery Daniels (by then living in the United States) with multiple counts of abuse. The charges, documented in court filings and reported by the Chicago Tribune, included sexual, physical, and psychological abuse and conspiracy to cover up these crimes. Peru intended to seek Daniels’ extradition, but once the case was closed by Peruvian authorities (in 2019, without indictments), extradition efforts stopped.

Peru closed its criminal cases against Daniels and the others in 2024.

As of 2017-2018, Daniels reportedly was living in Antioch, Illinois with his wife and children. Sodalicio said that in 2016, it had reported his whereabouts to Illinois child-welfare authorities and to the archdiocese of Chicago.

Sources:

JEFFERY DANIELS, SODÁLITE, Las Lineas Torcidas, 28 de octubre de 2015
Informes sobre Abusos y Respuesta en el Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, 10 de febrero de 2017
Residente de los suburbios acusado de abusar sexualmente de niños en Perú, Chicago Tribune, 15 de diciembre de 2017
El apóstol de niños implicado en el caso más grave de abuso sexual en Perú, ElNacional.cat, 04 de abril de 2018Sodalicio en Perú: quién es Jeffery Daniels, el “apóstol de los niños”, implicado en “el caso más grave de abuso sexual” contra menores en ese país, BBC, 04 de abril de 2018
Álvaro Urbina y los abusos del Sodalicio: Habla el hombre que inspiró la obra “San Bartolo,” RPP, actualizado el 9 de julio de 2018
9.2 – Caso Emblemático “Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana,” Comisión Investigadora de Abusos Sexuales
contra Menores de Edad en Organizaciones, Congreso de la República del Perú, 23 de julio de 2019
Álvaro Urbina: “¿Cuántos curas siguen encubiertos por la Iglesia?”, Perú 21, 25 de agosto de 2019
Papa Francisco expulsa a otros tres miembros del Sodalicio y exige que enfrenten a la justicia “sin más dilación”, Infobae, 10 de octubre de 2024

Luis Fernando Figari

Order: SVC
Status: Accused

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

Consecrated layman. Figari founded the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV) in Lima in 1971 as a Catholic lay community of consecrated laymen and priests. Officially approved by Pope John Paul II as a society of apostolic life in 1997, the reputedly ultraconservative group eventually spread to 25 countries and claimed to have 20,000 members.

In 2000, ex-member José Enrique Escardó Steck became the first person to reveal abuses within the Sodalicio, as it is called, when he published a six-part series in Gente magazine detailing the psychological and physical suffering he endured as a teenager in the group.

In 2007, Sodalicio member Daniel Beltran Murguía was caught by Lima police in a hotel room, preparing to photograph an 11-year-old boy in the nude.

In 2008, Sodalicio leaders were notified of abuses perpetrated by Germán Doig, Figari’s second-in-command until his death in 2001.

Figari continued leading the group until he resigned abruptly on December 31, 2010, citing health problems. An inquiry later commissioned by the Peruvian Congress revealed that he faced pressure to resign because of allegations of abuse. His sexual, psychological, and physical abuse of minors and young men have since been extensively documented.

In 2011, the first public victims’ testimonies accusing Figari of sexual abuse appeared in the now-defunct newspaper Diario16.

In 2015, two journalists, ex-Sodalicio member Pedro Salinas and investigative reporter Paola Ugaz, published more than 30 accounts by victims of Sodalicio leaders. Their book, Mitad monjes, mitad soldados, detailed cult-like control, humiliation, and severe abuse within the organization. It proved to be a watershed in the history of the Sodalicio, galvanizing responses by prosecutors, the Peruvian Congress, the Vatican, and the disgraced sect itself. It also marked the beginning of a reckoning, however slow and sputtering, of the Peruvian church for its inadequate response to clergy sex abuse.

In early 2017, the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life finally took action against Figari, banning him from contact with any Sodalicio members and from returning to Peru.

On February 13, 2017,the Sodalicio published its own report of an investigation by outside experts that named five lay leaders of the Sodalicio as sexual abusers of minors, including Figari, who it cited as a sexual abuser of one minor and six young adults.

In late 2017, a Lima prosecutor, armed with new victims’ testimonies, re-opened the criminal case against Figari that had been dismissed by another prosecutor months before. She sought nine months’ pre-trial detention for Figari and three other Sodalicio leaders – Virgilio Levaggi, Jeffery Daniels, and Daniel Beltran Murguía. Rather than sexual abuse, she charged them with criminal conspiracy and causing serious psychological harm – charges that had not yet prescribed.

In the meantime, victims of Figari and other Sodalicio leaders testified to the Congress’s investigating commission. One victim said that Figari had sodomized him repeatedly, justifying it as a spiritual technique. Another said that Figari had shown him pornography. Yet another said Figari had forced him to undress and re-enact a sexual act.

The commission concluded that Figari was both a perpetrator and an enabler: he had committed sexual, physical and psychological abuse, and he had been complicit in similar abuses perpetrated by Virgilio Levaggi, Jeffery Daniels, and Germán Doig.

Figari consistently denied everything, calling himself innocent and refusing to appear before the congressional inquiry.

In January 2018, Pope Francis ordered the Vatican to take control of the Sodalicio’s governance. In July 2023, Francis dispatched Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Msgr. Jordi Bertomeu to investigate abuses within the group. The two gathered testimonies from victims, current and former Sodalicio leaders, and journalists who had exposed the group’s wrongdoing. Their report, issued in late 2023, spurred further action by the Vatican.

In August 2024, the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life expelled Figari from the Sodalicio. The Peruvian bishops’ conference stated that the Vatican had found Figari guilty of abuses. In September 2024, the Vatican expelled 10 other prominent Sodalits from the group, including Archbishop José Eguren, two priests, and seven laymen.

In January 2025, the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had decided to permanently dissolve the organization. His decree was officially enacted on April 14, 2025, days before his death.

The Church’s forceful action was long overdue. Former Peru bishop Reinaldo Nann notes in his book, ¿Cueva de abusadores o iglesia segura?: Los abusos sexuales contra menores en la iglesia peruana y su futura prevención" that victims’ complaints had been presented to the ecclesiastical tribunal of Lima since the early 2000s. Victims say that they never received information about the disposition of their cases and that no action was taken against their abusers.

In March 2026, investigative reporter Paola Ugaz obtained a face-to-face interview with Figari, aged 78, at a church-run nursing home in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy. She reported that he was living in comfort.

“Figari lives peacefully in his gilded exile because the justice system in Peru stopped pursuing the case in which he was being investigated as the leader of an abusive and sectarian organization,” she said.

In May 2026, Msgr. Jordi Bertomeu and his team overseeing the Sodalitium’s dissolution process returned to Lima to hear victims’ accounts. In their first five days of work, they received more than 100 reports of abuse, including sexual abuse. Bertomeu said he had heard from victims "who do not know where to begin to explain all the trauma that belonging" to the Sodalitium has generated for them. In an interview later that month, he said that in their final ten days of gathering testimonies, an additional 142 victims had come forward.

Sources:

Mitad monjes mitad soldados, por Pedro Salinas con la colaboración de Paola Ugaz, 2015
Abuse Allegations Follow Leader of Peruvian Catholic Sect to Rome, The Guardian, 16 de junio de 2016
Informes sobre Abusos y Respuesta en el Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, 10 de febrero de 2017
9.2 – Caso Emblemático “Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana,” Comisión Investigadora de Abusos Sexuales
contra Menores de Edad en Organizaciones, Congreso de la República del Perú, 23 de julio de 2019
Vaticano expulsó a Figari acusado de abuso infantil, El Diario, 15 de agusto de 2024
Figari, the Sodalitium and sexual abuse: much ado about nothing, Los Ángeles Press, 19 de agosto de 2024
Quién es Luis Fernando Figari, el fundador del Sodalicio peruano al que la Iglesia expulsó tras múltiples denuncias de abusos sexuales, BBC, 20 de agosto de 2024
Vatican to compensate victims of abusive Peru Catholic group,
Agence France Presse, 2 de abril de 2026

P. Alfonso Pedrajas, S.J.

Order: SJ
Status: Accused

Died: 9/5/2009
Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

"Padre Pica." Spanish. Taught as a seminarian 1961-1971 at schools in Bolivia, at Colegio Colombia in Lima, Peru, and in Ecuador. He settled into ministry in 1971 at a boarding school in Bolivia. Pedrajas died in September 2009. In 2023 El Pais reported that Pedrajas had admitted in a diary to sexually abusing dozens of children, mostly in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and that the Jesuits covered it up. Pedrajas' nephew discovered the diary in an attic in 2021. He said he contacted the order in Bolivia but they did not want to take responsibility. The nephew then contacted the press. The Jesuit provincial told El Pais that it had opened a preliminary canonical investigation. An April 1964 entry in Pedrajas' diary reveals that he made his "first mistake" in Miraflores, Lima, Peru. He confessed his abuses in 1978 to his Jesuit superior in Madrid, Spain, who told him to keep it quiet and not to give up teaching.

Sources:

Diary of a Pedophile Priest, El País, 05.03.2023
Jesuit’s diary of sexual abuse prompts investigations in Bolivia, Irish Times, 05.07.2023
Bolivia’s attorney general accuses Jesuits of obstructing sex abuse investigation, Catholic News Agency, 07.14.2023
Judicial investigation of Bolivian Jesuits reveals pattern of covering up pedophilia cases, El País, 08.01.2025

P. Eugenio Bernardo Masías Abadía

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Order: SDB
Status: Accused

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

According to a Sudeca. pe essay by writer and former Sodalico member Martín Scheuch, a man provided testimony to the Congressional Investigative Commission on Sexual Abuse of Minors within Organizations (2018-2019) that Masías Abadía sexually abused him during the 1970s, when he was ages 8-12 and a student at the Colegio Parroquial Salesiano in Breña, Lima. Masías Abadía was the school's principal. Per the alleged victim, Masías Abadía would take him to a dark room in the school to review lessons, then physically punish and sexually touch him. The abuse included beatings on the boy's buttocks, forced undressing and bathing, then anal penetration. The abuse ended when a teacher noticed that the boy would return from the review sessions in tears and wet. The teacher confronted Masías Abadía and threatened to report him. The boy was transferred to a different school the following year.

Sources:

Los Salesianos Pederastas, Las Lineas Torcidas, 21 de enero de 2023

P. Gerardo Araujo Sarabia

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Order: OFM
Status: Accused

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

Peruvian. One of the first clerics investigated criminally for child sexual abuse in Chile. In February 2001 a parishioner in the southern town of Carahue [Cautín Province, Araucanía Region] accused Araujo of sexually abusing her young son (whose age was reported variously as 12 years old and younger than 12). A prosecutor investigated. He escaped without criminal charges: judicial proceedings were suspended provided the priest leave the country for at least three years. Araujo reportedly relocated to Lima but a journalist who sought to interview him there was unable to determine his whereabouts. According to one news report, Araujo also worked in the Chilean town of Cañete [Arauco Province, Biobío Region]. Included in the Chilean bishops' original list of 18 guilty clerics, released November 2011.

Sources:

Sacerdote Abandona el País, El Mercurio, 04.15.2001
Chile/Pederastia: Procesan a Sacerdote, by Gilberto Villarroel, BBCMundo.com, 10.18.2002
Abogada Magina Zegpi Pons: “La Iglesia ya entendió que no puede ocultar a pedófilos”, by Sonnia Mendoza, revistanos.cl, 03.2011
Iglesia reveló listado de sacerdotes condenados por abusos contra menores en Chile, cooperativa.cl, 11.11.2011

P. Jaime Baertl Gómez

Order: SVC
Status: Accused

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

Ordained in 1981, Baertl was the Sodalicio's first priest and for decades served as its Assistant for Spirituality on the Superior Council. The press calls him the architect of the group’s finances, a characterization that Baertl denies.

A former member, Martin Scheuch, alleges that in 1979, when he was 15 or 16 and Baertl was his spiritual director, Baertl ordered him to undress and simulate intercourse with a chair. In April 2019, Scheuch testified to the Congressional commission. The commission’s report noted that in 2016, the Sodalicio had deemed the allegation not credible and refused to recognize Scheuch as a victim. It later apologized and reportedly paid reparation to Scheuch in December 2024.

Prosecutors declined to charge Baertl in 2017, and a money-laundering inquiry was archived in May 2026.

On October 23, 2024, Pope Francis expelled Baertl and fellow SCV member Juan Carlos Len from the Sodalicio. The communique from the nunciature cited their participation in “irregular and illicit” financial activities within the group’s companies and organizations, as well as one allegation of sexual abuse, without saying which of the two men was accused. The pair sent a notarized letter to the papal nuncio calling the charges “false and defamatory” and the allegation of sexual abuse “absolutely false.” In a Crux article that appeared on October 28, 2024, Scheuch reiterated his allegation of abuse by Baertl. The priest continues to deny the allegation, saying that he has not been found guilty under either church or civil law.

Sources:

Jaime Baertl: El sacerdote que está detrás de los negocios del Sodalicio. Los abusos del Sodalicio (parte VII), La voz a ti debida, La Mula, 05 de junio de 2016
Piura: arzobispo sorprendido por estar en denuncia contra Sodalicio, Comas, 10 de octubre de 2016
Informes sobre Abusos y Respuesta en el Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, 10 de febrero de 2017
9.2 – Caso Emblemático “Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana,” Comisión Investigadora de Abusos Sexuales contra Menores de Edad en Organizaciones, Congreso de la República del Perú, 23 de julio de 2019
A espaldas del Vaticano, el Sodalicio saca su dinero de Perú para no reparar a los sobrevivientes, La República, 01 de diciembre de 2021
Sodalicio: El Informe De Belaunde, Sudaca.ped, 26 de noviembre de 2022
Caso Sodalicio: expulsan a dos miembros tras denuncias por abuso, El Comercio, 23 de octubre de 2024
Peruvian priest ousted from order accused of sex abuse, coverup, Crux, 28 de octubre de 2024
Carta de Baertl a Gualtieri, Crux, 24 de octubre de 2024
El exsodálite Jaime Baertl niega haber cometido abusos en carta notarial al exobispo Reinaldo Nann, Religion Digital, 24 de septiembre de 2026

P. José Antúnez de Mayolo, S.D.B.

Order: SDB
Status: Accused

Died: 4/9/2022
Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

On May 7, 2017, the program Punto Final featured interviews of two men who said that Padre Antúnez de Mayolo sexually abused them as children. Musician Américo Legua Díaz was nine years old in 1980, performing altar boy duties at Sagrado Corazón de Jesús parish in Magdalena del Mar, Lima, when Antúnez de Mayolo allegedly began sexually violating him. The incidents occurred over two or three years, until Legua was 11 or 12, and ranged from inappropriate touches to anal rape. In 2015, Legua formally reported his abuse to the Salesian congregation, then headed by Provincial Santo Dal Ben. In February 2017, the Salesians informed him that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had reviewed the case and decided to dismiss it. No explanation was given.

The Punto Final segment also featured the testimony of “Luis,” who said he was age 15, attending the Salesian school in Arequipa, when Padre Antúnez de Mayolo asked to meet with him privately to discuss the boy’s alleged homosexual leanings. Antúnez de Mayolo allegedly told the boy to take off his pants and the priest fondled his genitals. Luis said that he did not report to the Salesians but that he knew other victims who had.

In a public response to the Punto Final program, the Salesians stated that the Vatican had closed Legua’s case “due to a lack of sufficient evidence.” They said they were unaware of any additional victims and suggested that those testimonies could be presented to the Salesians’ Commission for the Protection of Minors.

According to Martin Scheuch in a post on his blog, Las Lineas Torcidas, reports there is no record that any of the victims or witnesses filed a complaint against Antúnez de Mayolo with the civil courts. Scheuch also reveals that the case against the priest had been re-opened after Américo Legua wrote a letter to Pope Francis in April 2017. Nonetheless, church officials dismissed the case without ever asking Legua to testify:

“And while in the case of Américo Legua there was a canonical process, since his complaint was sent by the Salesians to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the latter decided in 2016 to close it due to a ‘lack of credibility.’ The case was reopened after the Peruvian musician wrote a letter to Pope Francis, dated April 4, 2017. Even so, in December 2017, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith decided to definitively close the complaint against Father Antúnez de Mayolo, due to ‘an absolute absence of evidence to support the claims contained in the complaint.’ At no time was the victim contacted or summoned to testify, nor was he ever officially notified of how the process was going, what its outcome was, much less what the arguments were for its dismissal.”

Antúnez de Mayolo appears to have remained a Salesian in good standing until his death at age 95 on April 9, 2022. An obituary that appeared in a Salesian publication made no mention of the allegations against him. It praised him as a “man of God” with “a serene disposition and the big heart of a shepherd.”

Sources:

Latina Noticias, Punto Final, 07 de mayo de 2017
Salesianos en Perú responden a acusaciones contra sacerdote sobre presuntos abusos, ACI Prensa, 09 de mayo 2017
Nueva denuncia de pedofilia contra sacerdote peruano José Antúnez de Mayolo, exmiembro de la CVR, Lamula.pe, 09 de mayo 2017
#Popemode: 10 Allegations of Sexual Abuse in the Peruvian Catholic Church that You Won’t See Anywhere Else, Útero.Pe, 18 de enero de 2018
Boletin Salesiano, Marzo-Abril 2022
Los Salesianos Pederastas, Las Lineas Torcidas, 21 de enero de 2023

P. Linán Ruiz Morales OFM

Order: OFM
Status: Accused

Died: 8/26/2010
Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

From New York, of Puerto Rican descent. Arrived in Peru in 1978 to promote the Encuentros de Promoción Juvenil movement. Found murdered at age 80 in August 2010, along with his assistant, in the Convent of San Francisco in Lima. One month later, in September 2010, Diario Correio reported that in 2002 a complaint had been filed in Puerto Rico that Linán Ruiz had sexually abused a minor there several years earlier. The Archdiocese of Puerto Rico said it had informed the Franciscans' Provincial Superior and, in August 2003, notified Lima's archbishop Cipriani Thorne. The Lima archdiocese said that Linán Ruiz was prohibited from ministry as of September 11, 2003.

Sources:

Priest killed near soup kitchen in Peruvian capital, EWTN News, 08.30.2010
Asesino del sacerdote Linán Ruiz confiesa, Diario Correo, 09.04.2010
Padre Linán fue acusado de actos impropios con un menor en Puerto Rico, RPP, 09.06.2010
Cura Linán estaba prohibido de ejercer el sacerdocio, Diario Correo, 09.08.201

P. Marco Agüero Vidal

Status: Accused

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

Padre Marco Agüero Vidal was arrested March 3, 2026 at his parish, Nuestra Señora de la Alegría church in San Borja, Lima, after police received complaints that he had sexually abused penitents during the sacrament of confession and following an unruly protest by parishioners defending him. Agüero was detained for seven days; he was released on March 12.

According to a Diario Correo report, five females filed complaints of inappropriate touching during confession. Two were adults, and the three others were minors represented by their parents. One mother told Radio Exitosa that the priest had grabbed her daughter’s leg during confession on more than two occasions.

Months earlier, in early December 2025, some of the complainants and other parishioners had sent a long letter to Lima archbishop Cardinal Carlos Castillo requesting an investigation into the priest and his removal. The letter cited “confusing” changes to the liturgy, and also said that several young women, including at least one minor, had been subject to “non-consensual touching” by Agüero. During confession, the priest had placed his hands on some of the alleged victims' shoulders “and, in other cases, on their knees,” according to a page from the letter that was published by Infovaticana. The letter appended statements by three of the complainants, including a minor. The parishioners did not receive a response.

In response to the publicity around the Agüero’s arrest in March, the archdiocese removed him from public ministry. It also issued a public statement acknowledging that it had received the parishioners’ letter in December and that the archdiocese’s “Listening Commission” had assessed it and forwarded to Cardinal Castillo on December 26, 2025. The archdiocese said that Castillo had ordered a preliminary investigation and then subjected Agüero to unspecified “precautionary measures” and that the investigation was still ongoing.

On March 13, 2026, the local prosecutor requested that the priest be subject to nine months’ preventive detention for alleged "inappropriate touching, acts of a sexual nature, or lewd acts against three minors and two adult women" (“tocamientos indebidos, actos de connotación sexual o actos libidinosos en agravio detres menores de edad y dos adultas.”) On April 18, 2026, Peru 21 reported that the Superior Court of Lima had lifted the travel ban on the priest. The article included an image of a March 9, 2026 letter from the Lima archdiocese to law enforcement, stating that the archdiocese had recorded no complaints against Agüero - an apparent contradiction of Cardinal Castillo's public statement on March 6 that he had received the letter the alleged victims had sent in December 2025.

Sources:

Cura denunciado por presuntos tocamientos indebidos continúa dando misa en parroquia de San Borja, Radio Exitosa, 03.04.2026
Detienen a sacerdote denunciado por abuso sexual en confesionario: fieles protestan en parroquia de San Borja, Infobae, 03.04.2026
Tres denunciantes acusan al sacerdote Marco Agüero Vidal de abuso sexual en San Borja, un caso por el que sería suspendido, Infobae, 03.05.2026
Comunicado, Arquidiocesis de Lima, 03.06.2026
Escándalo en Lima: denuncian tocamientos a menores y abusos litúrgicos de un sacerdote protegido por el cardenal Castillo, Infovaticana, 03.06.2026
Arzobispado de Lima impone medida penal y suspende a sacerdote denunciado por abuso sexual en parroquia de San Borja, Infobae, 03.08.2026
Párroco detenido por denuncia de tocamientos: tres de las denunciantes son menores de edad, Diario Correo, 03.09.2026
Fiscalía solicita prisión preventiva para sacerdote por presuntos tocamientos indebidos, LP Derecho, 03.13.2026
Agüero Case: victims denounce lack of support and contradictions from the Archdiocese of Lima, Infovaticana, 04.08.2026
Caso Marco Agüero: Poder Judicial deja sin efecto el impedimento de salida del país en su contra, Perú 21, 04.18.2026

P. Santiago Caballero

Donate Photo

Status: Accused

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

In August 2025, The Pillar quoted an unnamed source saying that Caballero "has had at least 10 allegations against him for abuse of minors." The priest reportedly had been suspended from ministry in 2014 by Lima archbishop Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani. According to another unnamed Pillar source, when Cardinal Carlos Castillo succeeded Cipriani in January 2019, he fully reinstated Caballero to ministry, after which there were additional allegations against Caballero of sexual abuse. The Pillar reported that according to "senior archdiocesan sources in Peru," the Vatican had commissioned an investigation into allegations of financial misconduct and cover-up by Castillo.

Sources:

Vatican-ordered investigation underway in Lima, The Pillar, 08.12.2025

P. Waldir Pérez Salinas

Order: CSsR
Status: Convicted

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

Chaplain of San Alfonso School in Santa Clara, in the district of Ate, when accused in May 2012 of repeatedly sexually assaulting a boy 2010-2012, beginning when the boy was age 10. Salinas admitted to the abuse. The boy was a San Alfonso School student. Salinas was suspended by his order and taken into custody by law enforcement. He was sentenced in October 2015 to 35 years in prison. He had also previously been ordered to pay the boy 8,000 nuevos soles as civil reparation.

Sources:

Cura confesó abuso sexual a escolar de 14 años en Santa Clara, RPP, 05.09.2012
Condenan a 35 años de prisión a sacerdote que abusó de menor en Perú, ACI Prensa, 10.27.2015
Perú condena a 35 años de prisión a un sacerdote por abuso sexual a un menor, Reuters, 10.28.2015
Corte Suprema de Perú ratifica condena de 35 años a sacerdote por violar a un menor, El Espectador, 10.28.2015

Virgilio Levaggi Vega

Order: SVC
Status: Accused

Diocese: Archdiocese of Lima, Peru

Consecrated layman and a member of the Sodalicio's founding generation. By the mid-1980s, Levaggi was in charge of Instruction and described as the organization's number three.

According to the inquiry later commissioned by the Sodalicio, Levaggi sexually abused at least one minor and two young adult men between 1977 and 1987 and sexually manipulated three adult men. After abuse complaints were reported to his superior, Figari, Levaggi left the Sodalicio of his own accord in 1987. In 2016, then-SCV Superior General Alessandro Moroni reportedly admitted that two accusations had been concealed.

In February 2017, Moroni delivered the commission's investigative report to Lima's public prosecutor. It documented alleged sexual abuses perpetrated by Luis Fernando Figari, Germán Doig, Virgilio Levaggi and Jeffrey Daniels against 19 minors and 10 adults, including an allegation that Levaggi had sexually abused a 17-year-old boy in 1977. In March 2017, a prosecutor closed the case, citing statute of limitations. In late 2017, another prosecutor, pursuing other charges, called for nine months' pre-trial detention for Figari, Levaggi, Daniels and Daniel Murguí. According to the Sodalicio, the detention request was annulled in 2019 and the criminal cases against Levaggi and the others were definitively closed in 2024.

Levaggi called the allegations in Sodalicio's 2017 baseless and denied committing any abuse. As of 2018, he reportedly was living in Madrid.

Sources:

Ex miembro del Sodalicio rechaza cargos de abusos en su contra, El Comercio, 07 de octubre de 2016
SODALICIO: EL OCASO DEL INNOMBRABLE, Las líneas torcidas, 8 de octubre de 2016
Piura: arzobispo sorprendido por estar en denuncia contra Sodalicio, RPP, 10 de octubre de 2016
Informes sobre Abusos y Respuesta en el Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, 10 de febrero de 2017
Caso Sodalicio: OIT tomó conocimiento de abusos de Virgilio Levaggi, Lamula.pe, 02 de febrero 2017
El Sodalicio publicó informe sobre abusos sexuales de Luis Figari, RPP, 14 de febrero de 2017
Sodalicio: los dolorosos testimonios de las víctimas de abusos, El Comercio, 10 de enero de 2018
Virgilio Levaggi y el Sodalicio (parte final), La Mula,16 de abril de 2018
9.2 – Caso Emblemático “Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana,” Comisión Investigadora de Abusos Sexuales
contra Menores de Edad en Organizaciones, Congreso de la República del Perú, 23 de julio de 2019
Papa Francisco expulsa a otros tres miembros del Sodalicio y exige que enfrenten a la justicia “sin más dilación”, Infobae, 21 de octubre de 2024

Our Database of Publicly Accused does not state or imply that individuals facing allegations are guilty of a crime or liable for civil claims. The reports contained in the database are merely allegations. The U.S. legal system presumes that a person accused of or charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty. Similarly, individuals who may be defendants in civil actions are presumed not to be liable for such claims unless a plaintiff proves otherwise. Admissions of guilt or liability are not typically a part of civil or private settlements. For more information, see our posting policy.