Days before the Conclave, Infovaticana published a report exposing serious deficiencies in the management of a case of sexual abuse of minors when Robert Prevost was bishop of Chiclayo. The document detailed significant omissions in the handling of the well-known “Lute case”, a pedophile priest who abused two girls aged 9 and 11, whom he took to an isolated stay in the mountains, where he made them sleep in the same bed and abused them (there are testimonies that claim Lute took more minors there). The investigation remains open, and the victims have recently requested access to the documents and evidence of the process.

The publication triggered a coordinated media campaign that surprised the Infovaticana team. Journalist Austen Ivereigh was the first to personally reproach the news: “it's a Sodalicio campaign”, he said. Days later, that same thesis was repeated in several media outlets—including Religión Digital, Vida Nueva, and even El País, which insisted on that line a few days ago and now faces a lawsuit from the victims for having manipulated a two-hour recorded interview with journalist Paola Nagovitch, whose content had nothing to do with what was published—. The official biography of the Pope, written by journalist Elise Allen, also echoes the same theory. All agree on the narrative: the report was a “Sodalicio hoax”, an intoxication operation attributed to the so-called ecclesial far-right.

However, Infovaticana has had access to conclusive evidence that completely dismantles that version. One of them is an audio, recorded in April 2025, in which an ecclesial authority directly involved in the case acknowledges that it was SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) —the well-known U.S. organization of victims of abuse in the Church— who at the beginning of that same month sent the document to the Vatican Secretariat of State. The objective, as can be inferred from the recording, was for the text to reach the cardinals on the eve of a probable Conclave, to inform about Prevost's irregularities in handling sexual abuse complaints in Chiclayo. Infovaticana has verified the authenticity of the audio and cross-checked its content with independent sources.

The confirmation that SNAP was the origin of the report leaves no room for interpretations: the complaint about Prevost's management came from an international victims' organization with a long history in defending people abused by clerics, with no relation whatsoever to the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana or any conservative group within the Church. Founded in the United States in the 1990s, SNAP has been one of the main platforms for denouncing cover-ups and episcopal negligence worldwide, and its independence from any ideological current is beyond doubt. It is hard to imagine an entity more alien to the so-called “ecclesial far-right” with which this story was attempted to be linked.

In addition to the documentary evidence, other elements reinforce the conclusion that the thesis of the “Sodalicio hoax” lacks foundation. None of the media that spread it has presented any evidence linking the Sodalicio to the preparation or dissemination of the report. It was all mere speculation amplified in newsrooms that, without verifying the facts, repeated the same slogan: “it's all a setup by the far-right”. SNAP sent it to the Vatican. It wasn't the Sodalicio. There is no possible doubt.

Now that the true origin of the report is known—an organization of victims with recognized independence and reputation—it is worth asking why such a lie was spread with so much insistence. Why divert attention from a possible case of negligence in the management of abuses toward an institution that had no involvement whatsoever? Was it a failed communication strategy or a deliberate attempt to discredit those calling for transparency? In Religión Digital, for example, some of its managers have publicly boasted of having promoted that narrative. Today, with the facts on the table, it would be advisable to ask if they will sustain that SNAP is part of a conspiracy or if they will recognize that, in journalism, verification always matters more than the slogan.

Transparency should not have ideology. And the right of victims to be heard, neither.

Help Infovaticana continue informing