Thanks to our friends in Argentina, more information has surfaced regarding Fr Buela's second resignation and punishment and we'd like to share it with you. As with all Church matters of this sort, it's impossible for us to verify the exact details without an admission from either the IVE or the Church authorities who conducted the investigations.
We share the story recounted below because it is consistent with our understanding of events as well as the communications to IVE priests. The latter, after Buela's second resignation, first heard rumors, then denials, then later more rumors, then quiet confirmation that something was to be done to Fr Buela, then later were told the story that Buela had retired to Italy to write a book.
In that context, the below pieces together and makes sense of the various stories many of us, both in and out of the IVE/SSVM, have hear over the last few years.
From "The Wanderer" Blog:
After completion of the canonical process against Buela, in which he was charged and convicted of what, in brief and understandable terms might be called "repeated manipulations of conscience upon IVE seminarians" in mid-2012 Pope Benedict XVI imposed strict prohibition not to interfere in the governance and "running" of the IVE.
And so it was... for a few months because the fox loses its hair but not its tricks. Buela came up with a scheme to survive the papal ban: his followers organized in the outskirts of Santiago, Chile, a pious course in which the revered father Buela would engage in his rudimentary preaching of retreats, ie., the same preaching and techniques he applied for decades to manipulate the minds of unsuspecting youth… (Ed: Probably his version of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises we've elaborated on here.)
With the greatest secrecy and discretion, IVE priests and sisters in Argentina, began filling busses with with seminarians, novices and other young members of the institution and crossed the Andes to meet and listen to the great founding father. And they did so in October 2012. Such huge recklessness! The Bishop of San Rafael heard, was furious, and immediately the news of the meeting came to the Vatican.
The appeal was lodged with the new Pope Francis who decided to detain the father Buelca in the Cistercian monastery of San Isidro de Dueñas in Palencia, Spain. There, the abbot would be responsible for monitoring Fr. Buela who was to have no contact with the outside and end his days in prayer and penance. Below you may read below the Italian text with its translation of the letter sent by Cardinal Braz de Aviz in May 2013 to Msgr. Edward Taussig, Bishop of San Rafael and minor character Argentine episcopate.
And to the abbey […] Buela went to begin his sad days, participating in some of the monastic offices and monitored closely by the monks, who had been warned of his tricks and background so as to barely give him even a short walk through the garden and the convent. Yet Buela was there only from July to October 2013.
But through who knows what influences and pressures - though Cardinal Sodano would undoubtedly be involved to some extent - Pope Francis relented and allowed the recluse Fr. Buela to take up residence in a new house of the institute in the city of Genoa, where he is now in silence and prayer - or further conspiracy - aided by a young priest who takes care of his health and probably also the keys to his cell.
Following the above is, according to the author, a letter from Cardinal Aviz, the prefect for the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, to Bishop Taussig of San Rafael. You can read it there yourself in both Spanish and Italian.
