Today there are already very clear indications, which InfoVaticana has documented and exposed with rigor, of a carefully orchestrated communication campaign to whitewash the image of all those involved in the so-called Lute case. It is not about clarifying the facts, but about rewriting them, building a narrative of “conspiracy” aimed at discrediting the victims and their former lawyer. Under the guise of an exercise in investigative journalism, media outlets such as Crux, Religión Digital, and El País —with journalist Elise Allen as the articulating axis of this narrative— have promoted a manipulated version that reverses roles and confuses public opinion.
The origin of the so-called “Prévost report” was not, as falsely reported, in any maneuver by the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, but in the international organization SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), an independent entity recognized for its work in supporting victims of ecclesiastical abuses. Linking Ricardo Coronado to the Sodalicio was a crude attempt to divert attention from the real problem: an erratic, disorganized ecclesiastical management lacking a sense of proportional justice in a case of sexual abuse of very young girls. Coronado, the lawyer who dared to request access to the file, has been mediatically battered, institutionally mistreated, dismissed from the clerical state, and disqualified for some consensual encounters with an adult person. Without justifying the improper, one wonders what Capella, Zanchetta, or Lute himself will think in the face of such a double standard. If the Church applied that level of severity to everyone, only the laity would remain.
Furthermore, Coronado did not belong to the Sodalicio, nor did he act on behalf of anyone. It was the victims themselves who contacted him seeking help, and that fact completely dismantles the conspiratorial narrative promoted by Elise Allen and replicated without contrast by other media. In reality, there is no conspiracy: there is a poorly resolved case, poorly managed, and even worse explained, whose clumsiness is now being attempted to be disguised through a media distraction operation. Allen’s strategy —amplified by Religión Digital and El País— is based on fabricating an emotional and simplistic narrative, where anyone who questions the official version is labeled as a spokesperson for a supposed “ecclesiastical ultraright”.
That strategy, besides being unfair, is poorly conceived. Trying to hide errors with more media noise is running forward. El País and journalist Paola Nagovitch will have to face legal lawsuits for not rectifying the manipulation of an interview of more than two hours with the victims, edited in a biased way until distorting the meaning of their statements. It is not a minor journalistic error, but a deliberate distortion of a vulnerable testimony, used to support a previously decided script.
The case has been processed with countless errors, from the lack of minimum evidentiary practices to the concealment of documents. Prolonging the conflict, continuing to hide the file, or ignoring those who directly suffered the facts leads nowhere. It only aggravates the damage, erodes institutional credibility, and fuels the discredit of a Church that needs transparency, not propaganda. If Rome does not urgently assume the responsibility to review what happened in the Lute case, Allen’s strategy and her media allies will end up sinking into absolute discredit all those who today try to cover up their own mistakes. Because the problem is not the victims or their lawyers: the problem is the organized lie so that nothing changes.