The Jose Sanchez del Rio High School Seminary is an apostolate of the Institute of the Incarnate Word, an Argentine-based religious order recently placed under the authority of a Vatican delegate, over concerns about its formation and governance practices, and its ongoing promotion of its founder, a priest found guilty of sexual abuse of young men.
The diocese also declined to comment on whether diocesan safe environment policies address the potential vulnerability of high school seminarians.
Founded in 2008, the seminary forms teenagers in grades 8-12 who wish to discern a call to the priesthood with the institute, which is frequently called the IVE.
The seminary website lauds Fr. Carol Buela, founder of the IVE, as “a tireless preacher” who “dedicated himself with great enthusiasm to serving the youth.” The website does not mention that in 2016, Buela was found guilty in an ecclesiastical process of sexual misconduct with IVE seminarians, forbidden from contact with members of the institute, and prohibited from appearing or speaking in public.
In Winona-Rochester, the diocese declined to respond to questions about whether any process had been carried out to evaluate the community life and spirituality at the seminary, especially after the Vatican confirmed in 2016 that Buela had been found guilty of abusing seminarians. The diocese was at that time led by Bishop John Quinn, until the 2022 installation of Bishop Robert Barron as diocesan bishop.
Earlier this week, the Vatican announced it had appointed pontifical delegates to take charge of the IVE and its related female branch, amid concerns that members continue to revere Buela and refuse to acknowledge his abuse, and amid reports of spiritual and psychological manipulation of members and aspirants to the community.
For its part, the Winona-Rochester diocese declined to indicate whether it had ever received reports of misconduct regarding formation or governance at the high school seminary.
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The
Religious Family of the Incarnate Word, founded in Argentina in 1984,
consists of the priestly Institute of the Incarnate Word, the female
branch known as the Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará, a secular third order, and contemplative branches.
The Vatican’s recently announced decision to appoint outside leadership of the communities came after an apostolic visitation of the women’s branch of the institute, carried out by Sr. Clara Echarte, FI, the Spanish religious sister who has now been appointed pontifical delegate of the women’s religious community.
In addition to appointing outside leaders for both the men’s and women’s communities, the Vatican also prohibited the communities from accepting new members for the next three years.
In doing so, the Vatican decree cited “severe deficits” in both the male and female institutes, “especially with regard to vocational discernment, the formation of the candidates, the great inexperience and excessively small number of the formators, the lifestyle, [and] the service of government.”
That document also said members continued to view Buela “as a priest unjustly persecuted by the Holy See, and the victims are considered false and insincere.”
“The two institutes organize pilgrimages to his tomb, and his writings have been republished and disseminated,” it said.
The IVE’s website still highlights Buela’s role as its founder, without mentioning his canonical conviction.
Some provinces of the institute published commemorative videos when he died in 2023, and he received multitudinary funerals in Italy and Argentina with the presence of hundreds of members of both branches.
In the United States, the IVE was previously close to Theodore McCarrick, the disgraced former cardinal who sexually abused seminarians for years before being publicly accused in 2018 and found guilty of abuse.
McCarrick flew frequently to Argentina to ordain the IVE’s priests, and he lived on the grounds of the IVE seminary in Maryland — using IVE seminarians as his aides — after he’d been ordered out of the archdiocese’s own seminary where he had been living.