Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani of Lima, Peru, is the first Opus Dei cardinal, and because Opus Dei is so controversial, so is the cardinal. In this week’s Word from Rome feature, John Allen interviews the cardinal and finds out some very interesting stuff.
For example, a Peruvian government official tried to frame the cardinal and the papal nuncio by sending copies of letters to the Vatican that purportedly showed them to have been in cahoots with a disgraced former head of security forces. However, the letters were later proved to be fakes. And Cardinal Cipriani bluntly says that some of his brother bishops were involved:
“There are bishops involved,” Cipriani said bluntly, describing himself as “completely convinced” that the attacks against him came from senior levels inside the church. He declined to name names, but described in detail how he believes the operation was carried out.
The article also describes Cipriani’s blunt words to a Peruvian diocesan priest who is a leading figure in liberation theology who asked for permission to become a Dominican. Cipriani basically told him that he knew the priest was only looking for the change in order to avoid Cipriani’s authority over him.
There’s more there, too, including Cipriani’s role in the 1997 Japanese embassy hostage crisis, the explosion of Protestant sects in Peru, one ordinary woman who runs a remote clinic for women and children, and scandals in Italy and Austria.
