From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Name is Noah.
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Andrew Treforce Howard. Most importantly, are you. You are here? That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know? Hold up, hold the phone, fellow conspiracy realists, hold off on the emails. This episode is about religion. It may not be appropriate for all listeners, but I would say, given all of our collective beliefs or lack thereof, recognize the vast importance of religion, right.
It's one of the most fundamental aspects of being human.
Yeah, absolutely, In this episode isn't just about religion. It's about religion and abuse.
Yes, that's why we have the disclaimer there, you know, at the very very top, and we may well give you a further disclaimer as we dive into it. For now, you know, we have to acknowledge whether or not you find yourself an adherent of a specific school of spiritual thought, whether you're agnostic, whether you're an atheist, religious institutions have a deep, indelible impact on your life. If you live anywhere other than North Sentinel Island, you know a lot about religion.
For sure.
I mean, whether you yourself are devouts, you surely have people in your lives who are on spectrum of religious belief and it's sort of just inescapable in day to day life and it ends up being something that kind of requires a little bit of navigation.
You know.
We talked a lot about like how to navigate the holidays, for example, and you know, talking to people with different views and different opinions and Ben, you and I were actually on a podcast the other day with some buddies out of the UK, and one of them mentioned a study that essentially mapped the brain when the topic of religion came up, and essentially a change occurred that basically represented shutting down the idea of the brain, sort of
shutting down to outside ideas because religion is something that can be so set for individuals who don't really want to hear alternatives because belief is very very powerful.
Yeah, yeah, Matt, that's the podcast that asked you if you wanted to go on with us there. It's a it's a podcast primarily about cannabis. They enjoyed the conversation and they're just brilliant dudes. Name the show is high on homegrown nice.
Well. I think one of the main things personally for me about religion is that every one of the religions that I've encountered over the course of my foury to one years teaches things like selflessness. It's not about you, it's about helping people. It's about being a good force on the earth for you know, in service of whatever deity that religion worships. And at the heart of all of them, there's a very positive thing that exists in
every religion. This episode, and a lot of the problems we've encountered in the past in other episodes have to do with the people that end up controlling the human beings that follow a certain.
Religion, right, Yeah, the bureaucracy, the doctrine. You know, if you look at the essence, that's a beautiful point. If you look at the essence of of I would say most longstanding surviving religions, it comes down to the idea of being a good person, regardless of a deity or a concept that is purported or claimed to inspire that. Religion has created so many amazing things. Right now, as we record, civilization is still trying to figure out whether
or not religion is solely a human endeavor. Do other intelligent animals have religion? This is a double edged sword. As they used to say, it's a two sided coin. I guess as all three D coins are. Religion has also led to at the same time that led to billions of positive outcomes those institutions, the bureaucracy. Right, A spiritual thing is the creation of a higher power. A religion or a dogma is the interpretation of that through
the lens of human experience. And as such, religious beliefs and institutions have been historically responsible for unfathomable atrocities, conspiracies, and crimes. And this is not throwing stone at any single religion. This is an observation of the patterns and the structures, and this is where we get to the statistical inevitability of these kind of horrific things occurring over time.
The one that pops up a lot for us in our explorations on this enterprise is, of course, the Catholic Church. The largest denomination of one of the world's largest religions.
And just to say really quickly, the conversation that I referenced that Ben and I had on High on homegrown.
I can't find exact details on the study that was mentioned, but there are quite a few very interesting studies on religion and the brain, and one that I did see was there are ways of making people less religious by introducing magnets, certain types of magnets and frequencies into their brain that can actually shut down certain parts of the brain that are kind of prone to engendering this kind
of deep, deep belief. But it does hold true that this is such an ingrained part that it makes perfect sense that people would be kind of guarded in that way cognitively when it comes to somebody kind of challenging their beliefs or challenging their religion, because the idea of a dogma, it's not just about something that guides your life or a set of principles. It is belief in something that to you very much exists. We are the stories we tell ourselves. That is the human experience.
So sometimes when another person has a different story, or when their own story cast you in a different lay that you do not agree with. You feel that your reality is threatened. That's a very serious thing.
Yeah, we can also see why if abuse is carried out by somebody who embodies that religious belief for you, the cognitive dissonance that would occur if the person who is both leading you in worship and telling you what to do is also your.
Abuser and consistently gaslighting you. Actually it's pronounced jazz kidding. And if they that person in power is consistently telling you that these horrific things happening to you, sometimes at their own hand, are part of the requisites for you to be a good follower in this spiritual system, then it creates, you know, as you said, at a massively damaging cognitive dissonance. If we look at the conflicts that things like the Catholic Church have dealt with over time.
You know, the recent sexual abuse scandals that rock the church to its core and are continuing as we record now. You've probably also heard of the crusades as well as the inquisition. Tonight, we are exploring a story you may not have heard. It's something that popped up in the news quite recently, and fellow conspiracy realist we like to brain trust and work as a group when we are coming up with topics to explore for the show. And Matt this stood out to you. You brought us to this.
The Catholic churches Sodolitium Christiane Vette. Be aware, once again, this episode may not be appropriate for all listeners.
We'll be right back after some sponsors.
Here are the facts, all right. Not everyone is Catholic. So we're going to give you the context of Catholicism. And this will be familiar to many of us playing along at home tonight because statistically, many of us listening this evening are in fact Catholic. A lot of people are Catholic.
Yeah, indeed, there are a whole lot of Roman Catholics in the world, somewhere in the neighborhood of one point three billion, meaning there are more Roman Catholics than all other Christians combined, and more Roman Catholics than all Buddhists
or Hindus. Guys, I've been watching this show called Say Nothing, that is about the Troubles, the period of social unrest in Ireland, you know, with the IRA, the Irish Republican Army basically going to war with the British government and that very much was around a divide between Protestant and Catholics, the Catholics there being the underdogs because the UK is a Protestant nation.
We have some episodes of ridiculous history on that. I believe. To this context of population and practice, there are more Muslims than Roman Catholics. However, if you divide Islam by Shia and Sunni, think of those as different spiritual traditions or denominations or belief systems, there are still more Roman Catholics than there are Sunni. There's still more Roman Catholics than there are Shia. Catholicism, despite its ginormous size, is
run by one person. Historically, a guy is called the Pope. You may remember having heard about him earlier. This position is incredibly important and has been for many, many centuries. The Church's central government is the Holy c See. Like I see you. It makes decisions on issues of faith and morality. And this is not like a democratic government.
You know, there are a lot of people, for instance, in the United States, who might vote for a president and then later have problems with specific aspects of what that president does. The word of the Church, the word of the Holy See, and the pope is indisputable law. It is not up for debate, your negotiation if you are an ardent Catholic.
And one of the big parts here is that it is regulated internally. So when let's say a judgment is brought down from on high, right from the Vatican, often it will not be a legal judgment against a crime or something like that. It will be an internally regulated decision where the Church says, hey, you person who is accused of this stuff, We've looked at everything, and now we tell you what's going to happen. And it has nothing to do with the court of law.
Yeah, not a second law. Because the Roman Catholic Church is a parallel human governance you could call it if you wanted to be absolutely technical and diplomatic. It traces its history as we go back to Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Please check out our earlier episodes there and to your point there, Matt. Over the course of the centuries, the Church has developed a highly sophisticated theology and an elaborate organizational bureaucratic structure headed by the papacy. The papacy
is the oldest continuing absolute monarchy in the world. And there's a lot of paperwork. There's a lot of procedure involved. There are many different layers of we could call them stakeholders or influencers that must be included before an official decision is made. So for comparison, the Pope is not just going on social media as an influencer and saying well, I think this today. A lot of interplay occurs internally, and there are multitudes. Like any bureaucracy, there are multitudes
of smaller groups existing beneath the umbrella of Catholicism. Often they're known as societies, and they're all around the world. Some are international orders, some are national, some are much much more localized. For instance, I'm remembering here in our fair metropolis of Atlanta, one of my favorite hangout spots for a long time is a monastery in the metro area called Our Lady of the Holy Spirit. We've talked about in the past. Have you guys ever visited.
You've mentioned it many times.
Ben and I do have to take you up on joining you sometime for a visit there.
It sounds like a beautiful spot.
The gift shop was ten out of ten.
There's a great Bonzia garden it's a firsthand glimpse of monastic life for Catholics and non Catholics alike. It's a real it's a really peaceful place. They're not going to try to convert you or proselytize too hard. Pro tip. The one thing to watch out for will be the geese around the pond. Those are the most agro things you have not visited.
No thank you, no thank you. I don't want to be dragged to my watery grave by a goose. That's not how I'm going to go out.
Then they're cool with the monks. I guess it's just familiarity.
I just need that monk energy. I don't think I have that.
Yeah, yeah, just hang out with one of the monks. But yes, it's a beautiful place. They have a museum as well, now, which is more than worth your time if you happen to be in the area. Anyhow, important thing we have to remember about these societies, whatever they may be, whatever particular specializations or priorities they hold, is this they have to be approved by the Church to be legit It's a very high bar to be approved.
Gaining this approval is a huge deal in theory that approval carries with it an equally large share of responsibility to the point we keep hammering about bureaucracy.
Well, and those folks live in are It's not in all of these communities, but in a lot of the Apostolic communities, especially lay communities within the Catholic Church. Members of those smaller communities or fellowships commit when they become a member to living in celibacy and in obedience to whoever is running that. Essentially they would call it a community or a fellowship, but running that small society that exists there.
Yeah, yeah, and this mention of celibacy, which we'll get to you an obedience also, these are going to be familiar to a lot of people. Matt. Do you want to say a little bit about the difference between, let's say, a monastic community and a lay community.
Sure, a monastic community like that is an all male thing, that is like monks. You hear that there's also types of these communities for just women. Lay community is more I don't know how would you describe it.
Ben, A lay community is composed of people who are not themselves clergy, which later will you know they're like picture a priest, a lay community. A leader of a lay community can be very important and influential with the church entire but they themselves are not part of the priesthood,
meaning that again they're bureaucratic implications. In August of last year, the Catholic Church took serious action against one of these societies we're describing a group called Sodilitium Christiane Vitea, also known as the Soliditium of Christian Life. The Vatican expelled the founder of this organization, Luis Fernando Figari. They conducted a deep investigation into longstanding, terrifying allegations of conspiracy, and even now critics say this is nowhere near enough to
address the crisis. It's a multi faceted conspiracy that they argue continued for decades, and even now as we record, the survivors of these events argue that the Vatican has not been doing enough. So the question becomes what happened, what is happening, and what happens next. Here's where it gets crazy. Let's talk a little bit about Figari.
Yeah, born Luis or Lewis Fernando Figari Rodrigo and July eighth of nineteen forty seven and Lima, Peru, Figari was a lifelong Catholic, and in nineteen seventy one he founded so d Lytium Christiane Vite, the first of several organizations that he would have a hand in creating, including.
Oh h and real quick that the Latin there just translates to Fellowship of Christian Life or something thereabouts.
And this is just one of several organizations that he would go on to create, including the Immaculate Mary Association found that in nineteen seventy four, the Christian Life Movement in nineteen eighty five, and that Marian Community of Reconciliation nineteen ninety one. This is a busy lad. In nineteen ninety seven, Pope John Paul the Second approved so to Lytium as a society of Apostolic life. And let's you know to your previous point in that differentiation.
Figari was a layman, Yes, yeah, layman with a lot of influence in the larger ecosystem of the church. In his I mean you just named all these things he created right now. In his words, the purpose of SCV is to recruit soldiers for God. This was, in a larger context, one of several societies created as a response or as a backlash to the left leaning theology or liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America started in the nineteen sixties, and these were both associated with various
political things. So the left leaning liberation theology is also a little more politically left, and the more conservative stuff that Fagari is working with continually encounters accusations of being a little close with fascism. Yeah.
To be very clear, well and very close with the money, the moneyed powers. There are groups like this that have been looked at in Chile and Mexico and a lot of places in Argentina that just have the money. It's the human means. I have a lot of money, not all of you know, not everybody, but that's just where it leans.
That's the I think that's very fair to say, that's the trend, you know what I mean. And at its apex, in its halcyon days, this group SCV has something like twenty thousand members across South America and the United States. There are clerics involved. The layman and the clerics are
collectively known as sodolitz. That's an individual in SCV and the members have their specialization or the organization does I should say, and their priorities are to quote, this is from them to take special care in serving the youth and the poor in all spaces where culture develops, and to be completely secular about this, again without denigrading any
spiritual beliefs. This feels in step with activities that larger institutions will take to push their own goals, you know, like you see student organizations spring up whenever the United States desires a regime change, right, or like how do you reach the hearts and minds? How do you get the people? I think you made an excellent point there about the finances, Matt Well.
But you can see on their website and stuff like videos of its young people. Essentially, it almost looks like a youth group out there doing service work, you know, and serving especially in this case like people improve who were impoverished and setting up you know, water systems for them, and you can watch them doing it. It seems like really good work.
Yeah, until you get to who do I thank for this? Right? And thank us and do the following things? Yeah, SUV again taking special care serving the youth and the poor. And part that gets me is in all spaces where culture develops.
Yeah, that's an interesting kind of vaguary.
And the members of this organization live in monk like communities, sort of fraternal communities, and they practice celibacy. And this isn't unique to this group by any means at all. Multiple Catholic organizations advocate for celibacy, which is often seen
as a means of growing closer to God. I do think it is worth mentioning here that while it's not actively being phased out, there are conversations happening within the Catholic Church of potential removing the requirement of celibacy, because I think we've seen in a lot of these abuse cases it feels like it could well be a triggering event for some folks, you know, this kind of forced
celibacy and repression. Not to say that by being celibate, people are, you know, pushed towards these kinds of unclean acts. But if that urge maybe exists within people, the celibacy could well be a trigger to kind of committing some of these atrocities.
Well said, Yeah, and I appreciate the point that there's nothing wrong with being voluntarily celibate or a sexual or ace. It's when you are forcing people to engage with that practice and you know, spirituality. We have to say it. We sound like broken records, PERHPS, but it's a highly personal thing. We're never going to judge a person's faith
or beliefs as better than someone else's. So long as you were not hurting other folks or attempting to force them to do stuff, then do as thou wilt, do what you want, Satan.
Shout out Satan, Yes, thank you.
That's where we run into the problem. You know, despite its positive public image, SEV had a dark side and it continued for decades in the shadows. Before we go to an ad break, one more warning. The following information may not be appropriate for all listeners. We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsors, and then we're we're diving into some very disturbing things with hopefully something like a little light in the dark at the end.
And we're back and we sort of you know, hinted at as before the break, But the Catholic Church has had something of a rec over the past maybe decade. Well, the allegation has been going much longer than that, but it would seem like people are being brought to justice and there are in conversations now happening within the top leadership of the Catholic Church on how to address and to deal with moving forward all of these instances of rampant sexual.
Abuse that just keep on, keep it on.
Yeah, they don't stop.
And we probably this is the thing that hurts me the most. We probably will never know the full extent. We can tell you a little bit about what happened with sev what's happening now. Dating back to at least two thousand, numerous people came forward in one way or another and claimed Fagari was far from what he pitched himself to be in the public sphere. He was not a benevolent celibate man working to spread the word of Christ,
focusing on helping youth in the impoverished. Instead, they said he was a series real sexual abuser of children, especially young boys. He was also deeply involved in financial crimes and may indeed have been I guess you would say,
an input channel for fascist organizations. Yeah, and there were, you know, by two thousand and three, we're looking at multiple allegations of brainwashing, elitism, authoritarianism, conservatism, even really petty petty means stuff seeking his dog on his followers, partially for punishment and partially to get his own giggles as a sadist.
Yeah. According to some of the reports, they said he liked to watch people experience pain and discomfort and fear.
Yeah, And there were separate control tactics within the group, yet they all occurred in step, inseparable from this sexual abuse. In twenty eleven, they're victims of this guy's abuse on record complaining to the Archdiocese in Lima, Peru. But then, as earlier, neither the local church, nor the group of bishops for Peru, nor the actual Holy See appeared to
take any action. The archdiocese would later say, hey, we turned the case over to the Vatican immediately, which is kind of their level of saying, we went federal with it. But nothing happened. It did not happen the first time someone came forward, nor the second, nor the third, nor the numerous other times survivors spoke up. Someone apparently wanted
to keep things quiet. Speaking of quiet, Figari stepped down from leadership in twenty ten, but was still very much, you know, like a professor emeritus for the organization.
Well, yeah, and he was still physically there, like if you went to the main offices. Essentially, the dude is still there hanging out just because he's not leading things.
Yeah, but also it's like official versus actual. He wasn't officially leading things, but I'm sure if he wanted something to happen, that thing occurred, you know what I mean?
Yeah, for sure.
So survivors of the abuse then as well as now alleged the Catholic Church continually played down these allegations, not just of abuse but of financial corruption. And their idea is that the Church would have been happy to keep sweeping these scandals under the rug were it not for a couple of whistleblowers. We want to want to thank Pedro Salinas, who, along with the journalist named Paula Ugaz, wrote a book that exposed the SCV practices called Half Monks,
Half Soldiers in twenty fifteen. So this is four years after the events of twenty eleven. It is five years after the leader Fagari voluntarily steps down. This is what finally triggers an independent investigation commissioned by the organization themselves. Commissioned by SCV, it takes several years. It's later published in twenty seventeen, but what they find is not pretty, I guess we should say. Also, independent investigation means the SCV didn't take some of their own members to look
into it. They hired outside.
Yeah. Yeah, and this is really important. Just the thing been mentioned already. So the Lima Archdiocese gets word of this thing in twenty eleven, as we're saying, they say, at least according to them, they immediately sent and all of the information that was provided to them to the
Vatican directly. And then whatever we're talking about, the bureaucracy of the Catholic Church, whatever bureaucratic body within the Vatican exists, sat on that information and didn't do anything with it, and the Archdiocese in Lima in Peru didn't do anything with it. It took a book that we just mentioned to be out in the public so other human beings around the world could read about this and see it, you know, in front of our in front of their
own faces. It took that to get an actual independent investigation.
And this independent investigation. You could argue that the SCV is doing the right thing, right, that's true. You could also, as some more cynical people would say, characterize it as a pr move right now that this is in the public square. The report is helmed by to America and Expert, an Irish expert in abuse, and what they find is
again pretty damning. They say, look, Figari is a charismatic individual, but then they also describe him as being and this is a quote from the report, narcissistic, paranoid, demeaning, vulgar, vindictive, manipulative, racist, sexist, elitist, and obsessed with sexual issues and the sexual orientation of SCV members. That's a lot in one sentence.
Whoof sounds like a lovely fella, not yeah, pretty awful traits unfortunately, not that uncommon. And people that wield that level of power and control, people who seek out those positions often do it for megalomaniacal.
Reasons, you know, for impure reasons.
Not always there people that are out there to do good and they want to lead a community, et cetera.
But I do think sort of a N diagram situation.
Not all people that aspire to this level of power are evil, but a lot of evil people might aspire to such things.
Well, And we have to remember this guy has been leading this thing he created since nineteen seventy one, so a lot of the leadership in the community throughout all of these years are people who rose through the ranks within his community. And it doesn't mean they definitely experience the same abuse by this guy, but maybe they did, and maybe, you know, maybe that is another form of
control to then hold. Basically, all of your bishops are all of your people who are beneath you, are people you've abused, So there is a certain amount of coercive control that exists there.
Potentially, Yeah, and this is this is the creation of a system, of a cycle, a structure. The report found that on multiple occasions, there's no other way to say it, folks, Fagari sodomized his recruits and then forced them to fondle him and each other, and may have also coerced them into abusing other newer members of the group. And this went beyond sexual gratification. This is a method of control common in a lot of cult organizations, a lot of
coercive communities. Similar to Jim Jones from the People's Temple, he would do the same thing. Similar to the disgraced UK politician Cyril Smith, humiliation of the vulnerable was a
way to satisfy personal sadism, while also disallowing dissent. The report found that Faghari liked, like, honestly enjoyed witnessing his followers experience pain, discomfort, and fear at times his abuse and his manipulation tactics, even when they weren't to the level of physical sexual abuse, they occurred similar to the way Bishop Edie Long assaulted young men here in Atlanta.
They occurred under the auspice of giving spiritual advice to the victims, and sometimes they were told that the acts he forced them to perform or that he performed upon them were part of his mystical powers. Look the investigations find that the abuse documented that we know about began as early as nineteen seventy five, just four years after
the founding of SCV. Faghari molested a fifteen year old boy, and at this point, four years in the child and his family are already terrified of reporting the abuse because Fogari has acquired so much power right and use that power and that threat of humiliation or even physical harm
to the kid's family against him. Fagari, this is the most important part, was not acting alone, because he was forcing other members of the organization to perpetrate similar acts, perhaps as a means of mutual blackmail, perhaps as a means of proving one's loyalty. He was not a lone wolf. He built an unholy system of abuse and institution of cyclical assault.
It is a huge that's a great phrase, institution of assault and mind games. Because this group a lot like another group that existed in Chile in the same time. There was a priest named Father Fernando Carradma. He's in Santiago, Chile, and what he would do, I think is very similar to this, where he would abuse a young man. Then he would force that young man to go and confess
his sins, the young man's sins to another priest. That priest would hear the confession and hear that he was sodomized by the main guy, and that priest would say, oh, be patient, be you know you're do this because of your sins. Go forward, And that means that the abuser, the main abuser, knows this is happening. And another priest, not always the same priest, would hear the confessions. The group, the circle of other priests would know exactly what was
going on. Just to really reiterate here, what Fagari is doing. It is a whole group of people who are in control, who have control over this one major thing in your religion, which is confessing your own sins. They are using that directly against you.
Yeah. And you know, again to our earlier point, you see the you see the same or similar systems with UH, with multiple multiple religious organizations, and also with Jim Jones, which may be a comp for the the Yanks in the crowd. This leads us to the next logical question, how does Fagari respond?
Well, he denies everything, of course.
Oh sorry, that's that's a terrible ode to say. But yeah, he denies these allegations. Uh, and there are and he's you know, he's saying people are mis contextualizing, or people are coming from outside his enemies of the church.
Didn't get what I was going for. Guys, Wow, got me all wrong. Wow.
And this does not stop the investigations. More investigators emerge, more survivors emerge, The church itself is digging further, and the further they dig, the more they find they have to react. But the survivors find the church's reaction insufficient. Instead of officially expelling Fagari from SEV the Holy See puts him in a no contact situation. You have to live apart from the SCV community, you have to cease all contact with it. He complies, and the entire time
he maintains his innocence. In fact, he makes multiple appeals over time, as we'll see, to something called the Apostolic signatora, which is the oversimplified explanation is that's like the Vatican Supreme Court. That's where your ultimate appeal goes. Again, bureaucracy and the bureaucracy we all caught this. This seemed to be one of the big complications from the Vatican's perspective. So we've all heard the stories about priest who are
found guilty of similar acts of abuse. They can be defract they can be excommunicated, they can be made no longer priests, they can be kicked out right. But the laws, the policies of the Vatican of Catholicism, they didn't have a rubric on how to punish a layperson, how to punish a non priest founder of a religious community. That's where they're coming from from their perspective. We looked at the rules and the rule book didn't tell us exactly
what we should do. Is that an unfair way to characterize it.
I think it's the only way to characterize it. Been.
Yeah, Yeah, there's this book, it's called the Bible. You could look in there. You can find some really inventive punishments to enact on people if you want it.
Just saying pretty violent text.
I mean, let's exercise empathy. Let's imagine we're Pedro Salinas. You know, we're other survivors of this system of abuse. We're scandalized. We feel that our church, which is still a core part of our identity, has betrayed us. You know. Selenas calls the decision shameful, very similar to the verbiage that Pope Francis would use about other cases of abuse in the church. And he said, ordering Faghari to go no contact and live away from the community was This
is a quote from Selenas a golden exile. And he says, look, Fagari can live comfortably with all of his needs taken care of. AKA, he's not really getting in trouble. To your earlier point, Matt, about the difference between canonical justice r Vatican bureaucratic justice, and secular or criminal justice.
Yeah, that's a Karadema guy in Chile was talking about. For decades, he molested, sodomized, raped young men. And we're talking about not a handful, We're talking about dozens and dozens of young men. He did that too, and he would continue to do that until they were grown, even after they were married, even after they had kids. He would continue to enter their homes and have dinner with their families and then ask the now man who was once a young man under his leadership, to go upstairs
and he would sodomize them again. He continued to do that, and continued to do that, and guess what happened to him. His punishment was to go live in seclusion and live a life of penance and prayer, and he was forbidden from having contact with any former parishioners and he was no longer allowed to you know, he was defrocked, right, He was no longer allowed to perform any public acts of ministry. But that's what happened to him.
And this is Karadimon the el Boss community.
Yes, he just had to go away, and that's it. You just need to go away for.
A little bit.
It sounds a lot like sweeping under the rug sort of situation when there was already a six year gap and even acting at all.
Yeah, and that is after the Vatican Church found him guilty of sexually abusing minors, sometimes by force. That's what they said. Yeah, go live a life of penance and prayer.
And that's after, you know, dragging their feet for six years and acting on fogari by the way, in the first place.
Yeah, they said the information that they received had gaps and was inconsistent. They also pointed out this is another thing they'll come up in a third comp They also pointed out that the initial complaints were anonymous. Now for the safety of survivors and their families. Of course, you want anonymity. You're living in a small town for instance, right, and your abuser is the most powerful person in the land. The Vatican said these anonymous complaints made a massive hindrance
for their investigation. Yet former SCV members say if the Vatican or authorities from the Peruvian Church really wanted to help, they could have followed up to wit. Critics claim the Vatican did not follow up, and the Church claims they originally could not. This led to further investigations. Maybe we pause for a word from our sponsor and return with more of the recent news. And we've returned. Let's fast
forward a little bit. January tenth, twenty eighteen, Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Noel Londono Botrago of the Diocese of Erico, Colombia pardon pronunciation, as the papal commissioner, the guy running the continuing investigation. And just to be clear, this is not our pal nol right, no no relation, no relation, all right. And this bishop is working in step with
Cardinal Joseph Tobin from the Diocese of Newark. Their investigation reveals more of the same, more evidence of sexual psychological abuse, financial irregularities. There's so much the story here. Ultimately, on March twenty nineteen. On March tenth, twenty nineteen, Cardinal Pedro Berreto and other bishops Imperu. They announced the world. They say, look, we've been following this the same way as you have, folks. We have asked the Vatican and His Holiness to dissolve
SCV entirely. And there's an interesting quote from Cardinal Barretto that I think we should share.
Right, this is what he had to say.
Personally, I think that when a religious organization has committed a crime because it has to be said that way from the point of view of sexual abuse and the economic side, where there are also problems, it has to be dissolved. The fundamental problem is that the founder is a perverted person, and such a person cannot transmit the holiness of life.
Yeah, and that's clearly something the cardinal was not happy to write, was not giddy about it, but felt ethically and spiritually required to do so. To the earlier excellent point about secular versus spiritual or religious punishments. The Peruvian government considered criminal charges and everybody was wondering if this organization would be reformed, you know, could you cause a rise and save the wound or do you need to simply get rid of this. This happened in step with
Oh gosh. They even put in the head sex crime investigators for the Vatican, which I did not know existed, but they do, the Maltese Archbishop Charles Sicluna and the Spanish magistrator Jorde Berdomo. They interviewed more members of the SCV, the alleged victims, the journalists who were threatened for talking about this case. Because there was an active cover up. I don't know if we'll talk about the the SCV journalist who was accused of hacking and harassing and compromising survivors. Anyway,
if we fast forward, it's twenty twenty four. We mentioned that Fogare voluntarily stepped down from leadership in twenty ten, mentioned that he was put on kind of an exile, what critics called a golden exile. A few years later, in August of last year, as we record, Faghari was officially formally expelled from SCV. No longer a member, no contact, get them out, is what they said.
Well, I think about that situation. So prior to twenty twenty four, this guy who is a known abuser, all of these investigations are showing it. All of these individuals know that he abused them, and he is still being taken care of by the organization. Like if you ever if you've ever been to a church, often doesn't really matter what denomination. If it's Christian, it doesn't really matter,
if it's Catholic, if it's you know whatever. The person who is running the church, the person at head, is generally taken care of by money that flows in through the church, by the local church.
Right, Professor emeritiths position.
Yeah, but they've often got a place to live, they've got all of their expenses taken care of by the donations of everybody who's there by the living, by the expenses that everyone takes in and then give to the church. So it is a weird situation to know that guy who's your abuser is still being taken care of in some way by your work and your money and your donation.
Like if you have an abusive family member and now they're in an elder care facility and you're somehow paying for them to continue existing.
But it's also directly linked to your faith in God.
Yeah, that's where it gets extra complicated.
It's the bureaucracy. It's confusing for a lot of us to hear the idea of exsit but not expulsion, and for expulsion to be a separate thing. There is bureaucracy a play. The next month, September twenty twenty four, Pope Francis expels ten people from the organization, not a no contact thing, the same thing as happened with Fagari the month previous. There's a bishop, there's several priest or clergy, there are lay people, and they are all expelled on
charges of sadistic abuse. The Peruvian Bishop's Conference says this came directly from the Pope, a special decision from Pope Francis. This wasn't unprecedented, because Pope Francis, as we remember, had previously spoken out against cases of abuse in the church, expressing that it was shameful to our earlier comparison with Salinas. But it was incredibly unusual in the way that they announced this.
Right the fact that the offenders were officially and publicly named, as well as specific details about their crimes, which is a lot less sweeping under the rug. Ish about the you know, I mean that seems to have been the mo of the Catholic Church in the past, I would argue, I think maybe we could all say that this seems to indicate a more progressive approach to dealing.
With these kinds of you know, abominations.
With It's close to where we need to be. I think we need to bring back lion fights, make them fight the lions, you guys, I'm joking, but also not joking.
Yeah, but publishing the specificity, I'd agree, it's close to where it needs to be. But it's it's not quite there yet, also catching up with the times by saying someone was hacking the communications of survivingse harassing them on social media. There were high ranking people expelled in this order, the most high ranking archbishop Jose Antonio Igurin. This guy, like Thagari, had already been kind of forced out or
forced into exile. He had resigned as bishop in April of twenty twenty four, and the Vatican Embassy realized this specificity was somewhat unprecedented, so they went a little further and issued a statement where they explain why they are expelling this group of individuals. We've got a quote here that I think will give us a little bit of insight into their internal logic.
To take such a disciplinary decision. Consideration was given to the scandal that was produced by the number and gravity of the that were denounced by victims, which are particularly contrary to the balanced and liberating experience of the evangelical councils.
Which seems overly I mean overly wordy. Perhaps definitely not dismissive, but in plain English, they're saying, so many people experienced so many terrible things that are in direct opposition to why like the point of these organizations existing, we had to do something. And then Pedro Salinas, again a whistleblower, hero of the story, he talks with the Associated Press and says, look, this is very good news, but remember for twenty four years of impunity. And he also said,
still not good enough. Close to where we need to be, but not close enough. You should dissolve this organization entirely. And you did not get everyone. You only got what eleven out of how many We still don't know how many people were abused, how many people participated in the abuse, and to your point, know what the then diagram of that institution of abuse may be.
Yeah, hard to wrap your head around.
It's just horrifying.
Yeah.
An SCV, by the way, remains active as we record. Fagari is alive as well. He's not incarcerated, live in that golden exile, I guess.
Right, yeah, And there are videos of the guy leaving and he just it's I don't know, go look at a picture of him.
Just there's a vibe, there's a gutaway vibe.
And you know, and I think we've.
Something that we talk about in the show all the time is kind of the banale body of evil, the absolute commonplace nature of it. It's unfortunately not unique at all, nor is this situation. And I forget who said this earlier, but the fact that this is what we see, what about the ones that we don't see. There's so many cases like this that have almost certainly been completely buried. So just as the SCV itself isn't unique, neither is it scandals and conspiracies.
Well, there are a lot of organizations out there that are essentially on paper, and when you go and talk to somebody who's a representative of the organization, it seems like, oh, I'm going to do God's work here. I'm going to help people who are less fortunate than I. I'm going to help people who are in need, especially children especially, you know, just anyone who needs water and food and clothing. I can go and do that, which is what the
Bible tells you to do. You to give up all your worldly possessions and go help people if you're actually following the Bible. But and this is these are organizations that on paper say that's what you get to do.
But there and there were many of them, just like the one that we mentioned earlier, right the Bosque community that we mentioned with the Fernando, just like that organization, Just like there's another one in Mexico that was exactly the same, same type of abuse from the leader, the founder.
Yeah, the Legion of Christ. The founder, Marcille Marcel de Gaiado was similar to Fagari, was quite influential and powerful in the overall structure of the Catholic Church. He was one of the boys of Saint John Paul the Second. He was friends with him, they hung out and he was later del Gliado was later found to be a serial sexual abuser. He fathered as many as six children.
He possibly abused several of his own children as well, and he built a secretive cult like organization to hide his double life, to bring people into this unholy activity. The Vatican sanctioned him in two thousand and six after decades of allegations. And the folks who sanctioned him, who slapped him on the wrist and put him in exile, that was the same investigative body, or they called a congregation that received the SCV complaints. We've already talked about Karadima.
We're showing you the larger picture, right, this case of fugari is we could argue at least a partial win for the good guys and the survivors, because think about it, you know, enormous odds are against them, socioeconomic, socio political, even the spiritual odds, the bureaucratic, spiritual odds, the dogmatic odds are against them. But because of their courage, the
conspiracy was uncovered. At least some people are held accountable, and our hearts, I think we can say this unanimously, our hearts go out to the survivors, and go out to your loved ones, and thank you again for speaking truth to power. But this all brings us to the following question, what's next? You know, Noel Matt we I think we all. We all pointed out at various times in this investigation that the church has weathered a lot of similar scandals, and it's fully possible that more scandals
have yet to come to light. The thing that really bothers me is it's fully possible that scandals like this have been successfully covered up in the past and the public may never know.
There's no doubt.
What bothers me is that these scandals come to light, facts are known, and the punishments are still internal and not automatically turned over to you know, US authority or a country's investigative authorities. It reminds me. It reminds me a lot actually of the Camp Hell show that our buddy Josh Thain created and we talked to him back in June of twenty twenty one and Awake, Yes called Camp Hell and Awake. You can go listen to it now if you want. But it reminds me of that.
Like in that case, it's Wilderness Therapy. It's not a service organization. It's not linked directly to a church, but religion is heavily baked into it, and it is just a human being or set of human beings that founds an organization that in some way is based on service. Because again, in that organization, it was just a bunch of kids out there building stuff out in the woods.
In this case, it's mostly kids out there building stuff in impoverished parts of the country they are living in and they're just being abused by the human beings that started the organization. Yeah, yeah, and they just need to go to jail or freaking fight a line.
Heed.
There need to be real world criminal and secular punishments, right, This shows us, I think one of our most crucial points here. It's not just the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church, due to its size, due to its reach, due to its power and its long history, is more visible. But you don't need a Catholic Church for this kind of evil to exist. And it brings us to ask what else is out there? What else is there that people in power don't want us to know?
Well, I mean, you know, there certainly feel like there are parallels with what's the allegations against p Diddy, for example, the facts of the case of Jeffrey Epstein and who was involved with him. People that we think of as being completely safe, you know, in terms of like celebrity types, it would never imagine be running in those kind of circles.
It's just you're right.
Evil is not unique, and with great power comes the possibility for great abuses of power, and those types of folks that seek that level of power and influence can have very unclean motives.
In the end, it's coercive control sought by those evil things.
Yep, we are on the same page here. Survivors anybody affiliated with this specific organization or organizations of similar ILK We're holding you in our thoughts and we want to hear from you, so let us know what you think. We try to be easy to contact. Send us an email, call us on a telephone, find us online.
That's right.
You can find us at the handle conspiracy stuff, where we exist. On Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy, on YouTube with video content color for your perusing enjoyment.
And on x FKA Twitter.
Hey, do you want to call us? Tell us your story. We would love to hear it. Our number is one eight three three st d WYTK. When you call in, it's a voicemail system. You will hear a familiar voice than a beep. Then you've got three minutes. Say whatever you'd like do. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we can use your name and message on the air. Within the message, If you've got more to say than could fit in a three minute voicemail one, instead,
send us a good old fashioned email. We are It's.
One of the best ways to contact us. We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence we receive. Please give us leads for other episodes, give us your personal stories so long as you feel comfortable. We have your six, we have your back. Join us out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.