Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana confirms that it will be dissolved by decision of Pope Francis

The Sodalitium of Christian Life confirmed this Monday that Pope Francis has decided to dissolve this society of apostolic life, without going into more details about how the process will be carried out.

The Sodalicio (SCV for its Latin acronym) issued a statement following the news that the portal published on Saturday Infovaticanaaccording to which Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda would have announced the dissolution to its members gathered at the general assembly held in Aparecida (Brazil).

The general assembly began on January 6 and will end on Friday the 31st. Cardinal Ghirlanda attends in his capacity as a consultant for the process of reviewing the Constitutions of the Sodalitium and delegate for formation, a task entrusted to him by the Vatican in 2019.

In your statement This Monday, the SCV noted: “On January 18 of this year, the ‘Infovaticana’ website published the news that the Holy Father had dissolved our society of apostolic life. The central information about the event was truebut it contained several inaccuracies.”

In its text, the Sodalicio does not point out what the inaccuracies are, but clarifies that the leak to the press of this “reserved” information has not come from Cardinal Ghirlanda, but from two sodalites who violated “the reservations of the case” and that They have been expelled from the assembly.

“The Assembly recognizes as its own only the news from its official communications, therefore, the Assembly distances itself from any other news that has come or will come from the press related to the Assembly, the Sodalitium, the Holy Father, in which we trust and to whom we obey, Mons. Jordi Bertomeu Farnós and Card. Gianfranco Ghirlanda, SJ”, adds the SCV.

According to Infovaticana, the dissolution decree “refers to the immorality of the founder, Luis Fernando Figari, as an indication of the nonexistence of a founding charisma, and therefore, the lack of ecclesial legitimacy for the permanence of the institution.”

Figari was expelled from the SCV by Pope Francis in August 2024. The Holy See had already sanctioned him in 2017 and prohibited him from having contact with any member of this society after it was proven that he committed sexual and power abuses.

According to the portal, the Vatican would have appointed Mons. Jordi Bertomeu, from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, commissioner responsible for the dissolution process. The Spanish priest was part of the special mission that the Pontiff sent to Peru in July 2023 to investigate accusations against members of the Sodalicio.

The SCV was founded in Lima in 1971 and is currently also present in Italy, the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and Ecuador.