For its informative interest regarding the audios revealed by Infovaticana in which Jordi Bertomeu conditioned the Vatican’s collaboration with the FBI on a series of payments to dioceses and victims, we reproduce in full the open letter from Gonzalo Flores Santana.
Monsignor:
The facts revealed by the Infovaticana portal, which include an audio that was delivered without my knowledge and whose dissemination was done without my consent, as well as the unfounded accusations against me coming from people in your entourage, compel me to address this letter to you. It seems important to me that the ungrateful experience I lived during our meeting in February of this year be known, as well as the complaint that, because of it, I filed against you in the canonical forum.
My professional practice has oriented me toward advising religious institutions and non-profit civil entities. One of them was the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, of which I was an external advisor from 2006 to 2018. This professional service, added to my Catholic commitment, I provided always seeking justice and the greatest good of the Church, without ever having received any questioning about my performance.
In January of this year, you addressed the bishops of Peru gathered in their annual assembly. In that meeting, you made serious—and absolutely false—accusations about my work as an advisor to that entity. Your grievances were never backed by evidence, nor did you ask for my version of the facts, as justice, law, and evangelical charity require (see Mt 18:15-17). With this, you also violated my right to good reputation and to make the corresponding defenses. Unfortunately, I have learned that you would have proceeded in this manner with other people as well.
In February 2025, a person close to you, a member of the ecclesiastical hierarchy of my country, asked me to meet with you. This person told me that the meeting would serve to prevent me from being included in an alleged complaint against members of the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana and representatives of other civil and ecclesial institutions. I was emphatic in telling him that if I agreed to that meeting, it was not to seek any privilege or personal benefit, but to confront you and make it clear to you that I was never the author, cover-up, or witness of any act of corruption, and to clarify the false and serious accusations that you had made against me before the bishops of the Church in Peru.
I went to that meeting knowing, from the credible and proven testimony of other people, that you had committed abuses of power. I knew of several cases in which you threatened, pressured, accused without foundation, tried to force your interlocutor to yield, knowing their innocence. Unfortunately, there were many cases that showed that it seemed not to matter to you to damage reputations, violate rights, and breach procedures in order to achieve your goal. For that reason, I decided to record the conversation we had, protected by the law, national and international jurisprudence, and an elementary moral principle of protecting myself from a threat, abuse, or any illicit act that you might commit against me.
I was not wrong. What I suspected ended up happening during the meeting we had: an act of intimidation and abuse of power, taking advantage of your position in the Holy See and your appointment by the Pope as liquidator of the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana—before the formal suppression of it. You told me that U.S. authorities were investigating a large-scale money laundering case and emphasized that this case would «splash» third parties, that there would be collateral damage: I would be one of them, as well as bishops and others. «Help me,» you said, to make the authorities of certain civil institutions understand that the best thing is for them to transfer their assets to the Sodalicio and, in that way, you as liquidator can then dispose of greater assets, once the suppression of the Sodalicio is consummated.
If the proposed transfer were achieved, you offered me that the Holy See would take care of informing the FBI and the U.S. Prosecutor’s Office that it was economic irregularities that had been remedied. That is, without any shame, you assured me of the Church’s commitment to «cover up» an alleged money laundering offense before U.S. authorities, if you took control of assets belonging to civil institutions that were not part of the Sodalicio.
But, beyond that immoral and illegal proposal, the truth is that you were manipulating me with a lie, because there was no, nor is there, an investigation in the United States for an alleged large-scale money laundering.
In sum: you sought me out so that I would «help» you, you offered me an «immoral deal,» seeking to make me your accomplice, and you used false information to pressure me, threatening to include me in a complaint if I did not do so. You bet that I would accept your proposal out of fear of seeing myself involved in a criminal case of major proportions that, in the end, was known never to have existed.
You were wrong. I have a clear conscience, I am a Catholic man, my principles are above my conveniences, the law and rights accompany me. I have been a victim of blackmail on your part and, given the gravity of what happened in that meeting, I reported it to the corresponding Vatican instances, months before all this became public.
I never sought public scandal, which I deplore. Nor do I promote any campaign against your person. Today I speak out because of the gravity of the matter and because I have seen my honor damaged. It is surprising the campaign that your friends have been carrying out on the Religión Digital portal and in La República, to try to justify your serious actions. They seem to share a common eagerness to promote personal, pecuniary, and political interests, regardless of the facts that occurred, the damages caused, and violating others’ rights. All this, to the greater detriment of the Church.
Contrary to that secret and convoluted game that you star in and organize with your allied press, I make public this concise account of the facts as they happened, in a clear and open manner so that everyone can read it and the disinformation spread by the communicators who work with you can be corrected. I consider it just to expose the truth and to express to you my desire that the corresponding instances take the pertinent actions regarding your conduct contrary to the law, Christian morality, and evangelical charity. I hope that you account for your actions and face your responsibilities with fortitude, as befits a priest.
Sincerely,
Gonzalo Flores Santana
December 9, 2025