ROME – Pope Francis has met the man who blew the whistle on abuses carried out within Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV), a Peru-based Catholic group which was recently suppressed.
“It was not only like a dream when they granted me the audience, but it is still a dream now, because I feel a lot of happiness, it’s been 25 years of struggle, but I also feel a great burden because there are many voices that I am carrying,” said José Enrique Escardó.
Escardó also met on Friday with American Cardinal Robert Prevost, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, and with Italian Sister Simona Brambilla, prefect of the Dicastery for Religious, to discuss the SCV case.
He said he appreciated Pope Francis’s attitude, saying the Pope “listened and I liked that a lot”.
He said: “I didn’t find myself in front of an authority who was telling me what they were doing to be applauded, or what I should do, but he was silent and listening.”
“His body language surprised me very much because at each thing that I would say, he would make it clear that he was disturbed, that he was disgusted, that he was sad,” Mr Escardó said, saying the Pope’s reactions to his testimony were “very physical” and he left feeling “comforted because I felt that he listened to me”.
A former member of the SCV who says he experienced devastating sexual, physical and psychological abuse by various members of the group, as well as continual public harassment over his complaints, Mr Escardó is now an advocate who...
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