Investigations by Peruvian reporters Paola Ugaz and Pedro Salinas led to what would become one of Pope Francis’ final decisions: confirming the dissolution of an influential movement of Catholic lay people active across Latin America.
The decision to dissolve the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana (SVC), known since January, was confirmed by the Vatican on April 15 through a statement signed by Sister Simona Brambilla, Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
“I feel there is a great deal of symbolic reparation in what Pope Francis has done, not only for journalists but for the survivors,” Ugaz told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR) in an interview before the Pope’s death. “It is a major scolding for the Peruvian state, which, during the more than 50 years the organization existed, did absolutely nothing to support the survivors, to defend the journalists, or to do anything at all. This organization did as it pleased, and nothing happened.”
The allegations against Sodalicio, founded in 1971 by layman Luis Fernando Figari, first became public in the year 2000 when journalist José Enrique Escardó accused the organization of alleged cases of abuse and violence of which he was a direct victim, according to his accounts. In 2007, police officers found Daniel Murguía Ward, an SVC member who was close to Figari, in a hotel room with an 11-year-old boy.
Sodalicio “responded to everything as if it were an isolated incident,” Ugaz said. Murguía Ward was expelled from the organization and sent to prison for a year and a half.
Ugaz and Salinas conducted a five-year investigation that led to the publication in 2015 of the book Half Monks, Half Soldiers, which documents physical, psychological, and sexual abuse against both Sodalicio members and non-members.
“It was a serious crisis because it was systemic,” Ugaz said. “It was not just one priest—it was an entire practice that operated.”
The two reporters then faced legal and physical persecution. Ugaz has faced defamation lawsuits and accusations of money laundering. She was even accused of trafficking uranium and “a thousand absurd things,” she said.
“In 2019 I became the most sued journalist in Peru,” Ugaz said. In 2023, she became the first journalist whose communications were unsealed by court order.
The persecution was so intense that the Apostolic Nuncio in Lima advised her to inform Pope Francis about what was happening to her and other journalists who dared report on Sodalicio. Eventually, Ugaz and Salinas met with the Pope twice: In November 2022 and December 2024.
The first meeting, planned meticulously and almost in secret (Ugaz had been told she was being followed), was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In November 2022, Ugaz and Salinas told the Pope not only what they had uncovered in their investigations, but also about the persecution they were enduring. In response, the pontiff sent an investigative commission made up of the Archbishop of Malta, Charles Scicluna, and Spanish Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu.
The commission arrived in Peru in July 2023 and “the rest is history,” said Ugaz. They “realized that both Pedro Salinas and I had sinned by omission, not excess.”
According to Ugaz, the Pope’s envoys found many more issues than Ugaz and Salinas had been able to report. The first results were seen in April 2024 when they forced Bishop José Antonio Eguren to resign. In August, the group's founder Figari was expelled, followed by 15 more members — including Father Jaime Baertl, who managed the organization's finances and whom Ugaz is still investigating.
“At the beginning, [Sodalicio] did something very true to its DNA: it began persecuting and launching smear campaigns against the religious figures working with Pope Francis,” Ugaz said.
In December 2024, after receiving detailed information from the commission, the Pope met again with journalists Ugaz, Salinas, and Vatican journalist Elise Ann Allen, to whom he revealed in advance the decision to dissolve Sodalicio.
“He told us, ‘Give me time. I want to do this right,’” Ugaz said.
In January, Sodalicio was informed of the decision to dissolve the organization, but the decree was not signed until April 14, 2025. In a statement, the SVC said it accepted the Pope’s decision and included a report acknowledging the organization’s victims and the reparations process it has undertaken.
“At the conclusion of an investigation ordered by the Holy Father Francis on July 5, 2023, in order to ascertain the validity of accusations regarding responsibilities of various kinds attributed to Mr. Luis Fernando Figari and numerous other members of the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, it was decided to suppress” both the male and female branches of the SVC, as well as a community of nuns and an ecclesial movement sharing the same founder and spirituality, according to a statement signed by Sister Simona Brambilla on April 15, 2025.
Ugaz says she’s confident the Pope’s death will not change the decision because “the notification of the suppression was made on April 14.” In canon law, “notification” refers to the ceremony in which an organization like Sodalicio accepts the suppression document under certain conditions and signs it.
Monsignor Bertomeu will be responsible for carrying out all actions related to the dissolution of Sodalicio.
For Ugaz, the dissolution of Sodalicio is also a validation of the work done, because in a way, the papal commission’s work confirmed her investigation.
“I feel satisfied with the work accomplished,” Ugaz said. “And I feel very happy for the gratitude of so many survivors—messages you receive that bring you to tears because I feel their voices were heard, and that is worth more than anything.”
For Zuliana Lainez, president of the National Association of Journalists of Peru (ANP), it is highly significant that news investigations can lead to such an important decision. For her, it is “a triumph” for the profession.
“The fact that through quality journalism you were able to reveal the criminal practices that existed, and that this led to the dissolution, is the clearest evidence of how journalism can fulfill its goals and purposes when practiced with rigor,” Lainez told LJR.
However, she points out as a negative the persecution and attempts at silencing that the journalists who dared to report have had to endure. But these decisions, she said, “restore faith” in journalism.
For Ugaz, it was precisely journalism that saved her in the midst of “the storm” that was Sodalicio.
“I feel that in such dark times, in times where there is so much skepticism, where everything looks bleak, journalism saves you,” Ugaz said. “I feel like I was in a little boat with Pedro Salinas, Daniel Yovera [another journalist who was sued], and the mast was journalism.”
As for the impact the Vatican’s decision might have on the legal cases against them, Lainez said she does not know how far it will go. “Sodalicio’s tentacles,” she explained, have reached even the country’s justice system.
“But the suppression [of Sodalicio] proves that what they reported was true and that the sacrifice was worth it,” said Lainez. “It was worth it so that these abuses will not happen again.”
Journalist Paola Ugaz during one of her meetings with Pope Francis. (Photo: Vatican Press Services)
Ugaz also believes the decision will have judicial repercussions, particularly in “cooling down the fire” of the lawsuits. However, the same week the decree of suppression was signed, Ugaz received a third notarized letter from Jaime Baertl – the expelled priest who had managed the Sodalicio’s finances – announcing a new lawsuit against her.
For now, she feels fortunate to have met the Pope and to have received support not only for herself and Salinas but for journalistic work in general.
“I am saddened by the passing of Pope Francis, but at the same time I feel grateful to have met someone empathetic to the work of journalists, and that at the most difficult time for me due to the persecution, he listened to the request to send the Scicluna-Bertomeu mission,” she said.
Organizations such as PEN International, Forbidden Stories, Reporters Without Borders, and the Clooney Foundation spoke out against the persecution of Ugaz.
“If Pope Francis or people like [writer] Mario Vargas Llosa had not helped with their solidarity, with their voices, and by telling and alerting people to what was happening to us, we would have ended up in prison,” Ugaz said.
