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Peruvian journalists have denounced this Friday at a press conference in Lima that they have been persecuted – media and judicially – since 2018, for which in recent years they have received numerous complaints of pedophilia, sexual abuse and power abuse. “It has been a line of persecution aimed at opening legal proceedings, lawsuits, investigations and now criminal proceedings against Salinas and Ugaz,” said Carlos Rivera, lawyer for both. It happens after the Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office accused Salinas of aggravated collusion for having contracted with the State in 2017.
The lawyer has explained that Salinas, co-author of the book Half monks, half soldiers about sexual abuse of the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, is considered by the Prosecutor’s Office as an accomplice of aggravated collusion (having defrauded the economic interests of the State) for having contracted with the Public Ministry, in November 2017, to provide communication advice to prosecutor Pablo Sanchez Velarde. This cost 17,000 soles (4,200 euros). However, Rivera has assured that “the consultancy was carried out on regular terms and executed successfully.”
Like Salinas and Ugaz, who have assured that representatives of Sodalicio are behind all this persecution, the Institute of Press and Society (IPYS), an organization that promotes investigative journalism and freedom of expression in Latin America, has issued a statement this Thursday where he questions the latest accusation against Salinas: “IPYS has followed the case because it could constitute one.”
At the press conference, Salinas said that everything is part of “a campaign of harassment against the main journalists who have investigated Sodalicio.” He added that the person who filed the complaint for aggravated collusion is someone close to the religious group that has already filed other complaints against him. “For us there is no evidence that there was collusion with former officials [del Ministerio Público] nor that there was a criminal intent,” the lawyer indicated.
Paola Ugaz, co-author of the book, has also been the victim of complaints and complaints. Rivera has indicated that an investigation was opened against him for money laundering that was archived, but another was immediately opened for illicit enrichment, for the same facts. Although some of the investigations have been closed, “the summary is that as of November 2024, both maintain a status of being investigated by the justice system,” said the lawyer.
Ugaz recalled that she was the first journalist whose communications secrecy was lifted, and then Salinas was the second. “It is no coincidence that the first two journalists to investigate the Sodalicio are the first,” he mentioned. Ugaz became, in November 2022, the first Peruvian researcher to meet with Pope Francis. In Rome he spoke about the investigations into the Sodalitium and this Friday he indicated that “the Vatican has confirmed all our investigations.” [sobre los abusos y la malversación del dinero]”. Thus, he has questioned whether the Vatican recognizes them, but not in Peru.
The Vatican dismantles the heads of the Sodalitium
A year ago, Pope Francis appointed a special mission to investigate reports of sexual and physical abuse and sectarian behavior by Sodalicio in Peru, a complicated task since the organization has support in Peruvian politics, society and the media. . However, since that time, the Vatican, in August of this year. “The context that the Sodalicio is going through is important,” said Salinas, since “in this section the campaign against us has increased, which has occurred with Sodalicio operators through the media, the Public Ministry and the Judiciary.”
In addition, between September and October of this year, Francis expelled a dozen high-ranking members of the ultra-conservative congregation. Some of them, priests who consented and legitimized a system of violation of human rights. “These are abuses of office and authority, particularly in the form of abuse in the administration of ecclesiastical property, as well as sexual abuse, in some cases even of minors,” the document said.
The last two expelled, the priest Jaime Manuel Baertl Gómez and the consecrated layman Juan Carlos Len Álvarez, were the administrative brains and the main architects of the business network related to the group, accused of enriching themselves with non-transparent practices and sending money to tax havens.
