Sodality of Christian Life Layman Caught with 11-Year Old Boy / Sodalicio pedofilo capturado

In July of 2007, Daniel Bernardo Beltrán Murguía Ward, a 42 year-old layman of the Sodality of Christian Life, was caught by the police in a hostel in the city centre of Lima with an 11 year-old boy, whom he paid 20 soles ($7) for sexual activities. He was also caught with child pornography, which featured two other boys. The accused had given the false name Samuel Bernardo Mujica Brown to the police and has denied the charges against him, despite the evidence. He has hired the help of José Pflucker, an attorney from the show of known TV personality Laura Bozzo.

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Fuente: Peru 21

Capturaron a pedófilo cuando fotografiaba a menor de 11 años
Efectivos de la comisaría de Alfonso Ugarte hallaron fotos de otros dos niños en poder del sujeto. Se investiga su relación con alguna red internacional de pederastas.

Efectivos de la comisaría de Alfonso Ugarte hallaron fotos de otros dos niños en poder del sujeto. Se investiga su relación con alguna red internacional de pederastas.

Agentes de la comisaría de Alfonso Ugarte detuvieron a Daniel Bernardo Beltrán Murguía Ward, alias el italiano, en el preciso momento en que le tomaba fotografías a un menor de 11 años.

Según información llegada a nuestra redacción, el execrable hecho ocurrió el último sábado en una de las habitaciones del hostal Las Palmeras, ubicado en el jirón Carabaya 1017, Cercado de Lima.

El niño agraviado señaló a la Policía que conoció al depravado en Miraflores y que le ofreció figuritas de Pokemón a cambio de dejarse fotografiar sus partes íntimas. Asimismo, denunció que su agresor le practicó sexo oral.

Murguía Ward negó las acusaciones. Sin embargo, los agentes del orden le incautaron

una cámara fotográfica y comprobaron que también captó imágenes de otros dos niños.

El detenido también era conocido como Samuel Bernardo Mujica Brown -una identidad falsa-, y fue puesto a disposición de la fiscalía de turno. Se investiga si pertenece a una red internacional de pornografía infantil.

PERTENECIÓ A SODALICIO.

Se supo que Beltrán Murguía perteneció al Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, comunidad religiosa que decidió expulsarlo inmediatamente al tomar conocimiento del execrable hecho.

"Como consecuencia de esta situación, hasta ahora totalmente desconocida para nosotros, que consideramos completamente inaceptable, y que ha sorprendido y golpeado dolorosamente a toda nuestra comunidad, habiendo examinado la seriedad de la denuncia, queremos comunicar que el Sr. Murguía ha sido inmediatamente expulsado de nuestra institución", señala un comunicado remitido a los medios de comunicación.

Según la página de dicha comunidad, el Sodalicio está integrado por laicos y sacerdotes "que tras un proceso de discernimiento han reconocido en sus vidas la vocación a consagrarse plenamente a Dios".

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Fuente: Terra.com.pe


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Caretas Nro. 2030 - El Otro Cachete

El obispo de Ayaviri, Kay Martin Schmalhauen Panizo, extendió la rama de olivo en última Carta Pastoral. “Queda vivo el testimonio de sus obispos Luciano Metzinger, Luis Dalle, Francisco D´Alteroche y Juan Godayol”, reza el documento. La Prelatura de Ayaviri celebra 50 años de creada el mes próximo. El nombramiento de Schmalhauen Panizo, de la conservadora Orden Sodalicio, el año pasado remeció la estructura de la Iglesia Sur Andina, eminentemente progresista (CARETAS 1960). Los prelados expulsados se han atrincherado en el Instituto del Sur Andino de Investigación y Acción Solidaria o ISAIS.

El Semanario 'El Sur' in Arequipa Speaks of the SCV; Sodalicios Respond

There is little available at the moment regarding this story. What appears to have happened, according to the Director of the weekly publication 'El Sur', is a controversy stemming from an article published on the Sodality of Christian Life.

The Director, Valerio Andia Carreòn, notes that this recent story has to do with similar allegation against the group - their brainwashing of youth - and new allegations ranging from the strange company kept by Luis Fernando Figari to the Sodality of Christian Life being in the business of the dead (through the sale of funeral/cemetery paraphernalia).

Like the very immediate responses made by Sodality members in previous exposés (see: Agencia Peru and Careta's coverage of the Sodality), Sr. Carreón claims that the Sodality of Christian Life members have threatened the weekly paper with the following statements: 'we are going to sue you' and 'the judges are our professors (at the University of Saint Paul in Arequipa, a Sodalit-run institution)'.

The Director of Communications and Institutional Relations of the Sodality, Miguel A. Jaramillo Luján, has allegedly placed phone calls trying to attract people from the weekly publication 'El Sur' offering 'juicy contracts to work with the University/Sodalits'.

The Argentine Bishop

Taken From BBC:

Christian Von Wernich, 69, was convicted for involvement in seven murders, 42 abductions and 31 cases of torture during the 1976-83 "Dirty War".

At the trial, several former prisoners said the former Roman Catholic priest used his office to win their trust before passing information to police torturers and killers in secret detention centres.

They say he attended several torture sessions and absolved the police of blame, telling them they were doing God's work.

"Von Wernich participated assiduously and maintained direct contacts with the detainees," the prosecution said in its indictment.

Father Von Wernich's lawyers said the case against him had more doubts than certainties and that he had been obliged to visit police detention centres as part of his duties.

The priest said he had never violated the prohibition against revealing information obtained in the sacrament of confession and accused those torture victims who gave evidence in court of being influenced by the devil.

"False testimony is of the devil, because he is responsible for malice and is the father of evil and lies," he said.

Taken From Catholic News Agency:

The executive committee of the Bishops’ Conference of Argentina issued a statement on Tuesday calling on Argentineans to reconciliation in the wake of the life sentence imposed on Father Christian Von Wernich, accused of having contributed to the violation of human rights during the military dictatorship.

Von Wernich, 69, was chaplain of the police force of Buenos Aires during the military dictatorship of 1976-1983 and was found guilty of “crimes against humanity” and sentenced to life in prison.

Upon news of the verdict, the bishops of Argentina immediately issued a statement saying the Church in Argentina “is shaken by the sorrow we feel over the participation by a priest in serious crimes, according to the sentence by the Federal Court.”

“We believe that the steps taken by the courts to clear these matters up should serve to renew the efforts of all citizens in the journey to reconciliation and are a call to back away from both impunity and hatred or anger,” the statement said.

The Argentinean bishops reiterated what they said in 2000: “If some member of the Church, no matter what their condition, recommended or was complicit in these acts (the violent repression), he or she was acting under their own responsibility, erring and seriously sinning against God, humanity and his or her conscience.”

Pope Benedict XVI Will Beatify Catholic Clergy Casualties from the Spanish Civil War

With all respect for the dead, this is quite political, no?

Taken from: Catholic News Agency : en español

First native Cuban to be beatified with martyrs of Spanish Civil War

Havana, Jun 29, 2007 / 11:13 am (CNA).- On October 28 Pope Benedict XVI will raise 498 martyrs of the Spanish Civil War to the altars—perhaps the largest number of martyrs beatified in one ceremony in the history of the Church. Among the five that are not of Spanish origin will be Brother Jose Lopez Piteira, an Augustinian deacon born in Cuba.

Brother Jose will become Cuba’s first blessed. He was born in Arroy Blanco, Cuba, on February 2, 1912 to Spanish immigrants. According to the family records, his family returned to Spain when Jose was four or five years old.

They settled in Partorvia in northwestern Spain. As a young man Jose entered the Augustinian order and began studies for the priesthood. He made his solemn profession in 1934 and was ordained deacon on September 8, 1935, the feast of Our Lady of Charity, the patroness of Cuba.

One of his biographers, Father Gonzalez Velasco, wrote: “It should be noted that the young Jose Lopez Piteira always felt proud that he was born in Cuba and was a Cuban citizen.

The magazine Palabra Cubana related the story of his martyrdom: “While studying at the Monastery of El Escorial, he was detained on August 6, 1936 with his Augustinian community at that monastery and imprisoned in Madrid. When he was told he could appeal to his Cuban citizenship to gain freedom, he answered: “All of you who have been my teachers and superiors are here. What I am going to do in the city? I prefer to have the same fate as everyone else, whatever God wishes that might be.”

“On November 30, 1936, Brother Jose Lopez Piteira was martyred in Paracuellos de Jarama together with 50 other Augustinian religious. At the time of his martyrdom he was 23,” the magazine reported.

Figari's Bio Claims TFP Saw Him as "Disguised Communist"

According to the latest biography released from his own organization's website, Figari is apparently not connected to more extreme right-wing groups and was seen by them as a communist. A tad weak that Figari and his organization have been negatively labelling people marxists, communists, terrorists, and the new biography displays Figari "persecuted" with the same label by another right-wing group, Tradition, Family and Property (TFP).

This strongly contradicts other accounts of Figari, the founder of 'God and Country', rooted in falange ideologies (which are fairly in line with fascism), and an alleged supporter of bringing TFP from Brasil to Peru. It also strongly contradicts the close ties that Figari's movement has with people such as Cardinal Cipriani of Opus Dei, who was very much involved with the Autocratic President Fujimori, and Bishop Chaput, a fairly right-wing bishop in Denver (except for his stance on immigration). And this new account of Figari's not-so-scary ideology is being stated while Sodality Bishops continue to root out the 'communists' and 'marxists' of the Church.

Taken from Sodality of Christian Life USA

"At age 24 he found a lack of esteem towards the Social Doctrine of the Church, which since age 16 he had considered essential for a just social renewal and for respecting human's rights and dignity. Therefore, in a short time he became a herald of the Church's social teachings, which granted him the bitter animosity of institutions such as "Tradition, Family and Property" that regarded him as a "disguised communist".

For a very secretive organization rife with controversy, past and present, and with right-wing affiliations, the new 'moderate' Figari and the 'moderate' Sodality of Christian Life is hard to believe. They should be applauded for their craftiness; they are on the way to re-writing their own history. As long as they [Sodalits] deny, counter-attack and pro-actively enforce being non-extremists, they will eventually erase proof of their right-wing identity - at least until the next controversy.

No a la 'iglesia india', and Papal Damage Control on the First Evangelization

Taken from CNA:

Holy See reminds its opposition to an “indigenous church” and to married priesthood in Latin America.

Vatican City, Mar 9, 2006 / 12:00 am (CNA).- Through a letter sent to the Bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas (México), Bishop. Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, the Holy See decided to put an end to the so-called “Indigenous Church,” influent especially in southern parts of Mexico and throughout Latin America.

The letter is signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Cult and the Discipline of Sacraments. He deplores the influence of the ideology of the "autoctonous church,” inherited by Bishop Arizmendi from his predecesor Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia and remarks that the new policy should supress the overreliance on the ordination of permanent deacons in this diocese.

Bishop Ruiz prevented many different movements and religious orders to be active in the diocese, and seriously discouraged religious vocations to celibate priesthood and above all, he promoted the massive ordination of permanent deacons, valuing that in little time the Church would end up accepting the practice of married priests, which according to him was better adapted to the vision of an "indigenous" or “autochthonous church.”

The eloquent letter written by Cardinal Arinze in the latest issue of the “Notitiae” the bulletin of the dicastery is addressed to Bishop Arizmendi, but its conclusions are extended to other regions such as Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, where the similar “Indian theology” has been spread.

The case and constant petitions coming from San Cristóbal de las Casas, has forced the creation of a interdicasterial committee in September 1993, and which finally came to a conclusion in October during the pontificate of Benedict XVI. The Committee rejects the creation of an “autochthonous church,” inspired by the “theology of liberation.”

The letters states as follows:

“We can’t ignore that, even after five years after the retirement of H.E Samuel Ruiz of San Cristóbal de las Casas, the ideology that promotes the implementation of the project of Autochthonous Church is still latent. In that sense, the Interdicasterial meeting has pronounced himself for a suspension of eventual ordinations of permanent deacons.”

“Therefore, we ask that a proper pastoral of vocations, in the perspective of celibate priesthood might be strengthened as in other parts of Mexico, and other countries in Latin America.”

In order to reorganize the ecclesial life, we asked from the beginning that the diocese may open itself to the proper realities of the universality of the Catholic Church, to help it overcome its ideological isolation.”

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Taken from CNA: En Español

Pope insists: Gospel did not destroy native cultures in America

Vatican City, May 23, 2007 / 12:42 pm (CNA).- During his weekly general audience, Pope Benedict reflected on his recent apostolic trip to Brazil and insisted that, despite the shadows in the process of announcing the Gospel in the new world, the Evangelization did not destroy but instead ennobled the native cultures.

Speaking before more than 25,000 people on a sunny day, the Pontiff said that his journey to Latin America, where he inaugurated the 5th General Conference of Latin American Bishops, "was primarily an act of praise to God for the 'wonders' worked among the people of Latin America, and for the faith that has animated their lives and culture over more than 500 years."

The Holy Father acknowledged that the "remembrance of a glorious past cannot ignore the shadows that accompanied the work of evangelization on the Latin American continent: ... the suffering and injustices inflicted by the colonizers on the indigenous peoples whose fundamental human rights were often trampled underfoot."

"But the obligatory mention of those unjustifiable crimes, condemned even at the time by missionaries like Bartolomeo de las Casas and theologians such as Francisco de Vitoria, must not prevent us from recognizing with gratitude the marvelous work achieved by divine grace among those peoples over the course of the centuries."

On the Latin American continent, the Holy Father continued, "the Gospel has become the mainstay of a dynamic synthesis that has different aspects in the different nations but everywhere expresses the identity of the Latin American people."

Finally, reflecting on the theme of the Conference, "Disciples and missionaries in Jesus Christ, that in Him our peoples may have life," Pope Benedict said that "the word 'disciple' suggests the idea of formation and of following [a master], the term 'missionary' expresses the fruit of discipleship, in other words bearing witness to and communicating a real experience: the truth known and assimilated."

"Joyfully renewing the will to be disciples of Jesus," he continued "is the fundamental condition for being His missionaries who 'start again from Christ,' to use the words of Pope John Paul II to the entire Church following the Jubilee 2000."

"With my apostolic trip," Pope Benedict concluded, "I wished to exhort people to continue along this path, presenting the unifying perspective of the Encyclical 'Deus caritas est,' a perspective that is inextricably social and theological and that can be summed up in this expression: 'it is love that gives life'."