Proponents urge the accounting of cases of sexual abuse in the past jurisdiction of the new Pope

The new Pope Leo XIV has this in common with many of his colleagues in the Catholic hierarchy: he was in authority positions when allegations of sexual abuse against priests were made under his supervision.

Now some supporters of victims say that there must be accounting for how Leo – the name of Cardinal Robert Prevost in his election on Thursday – dealt with such cases when he held positions by the church authority in Chicago and Peru. And they hope that as a Pope he will act against other bishops that they say that they abuse similar cases.

“Some could advise the new Pope to give the advantage of the doubt. We do not agree. It is on Pope Leo XIV to gain the trust of the victims and their families,” said Anne Barrett Doyle from the Bishopcountability.org Lawyers' Group.

Some proponents of the Borrow confusing Prevost with the support of the survivors of an abusive Catholic movement based in Peru, which was finally dissolved by the late Pope Francis.

Prevost “stood with us when others did it. That is why his choice is important,” said abuse surviving and journalist Predo Salinas, who contributed to ending the group abuse.

Nobody has accused the Pope to make an act of abuse themselves. He is also not accused of what many Catholic bishops have done worldwide – knowingly confirmed abuse in the public service – in the scandal of the Catholic Church in recent decades.

Rather, he was accused of going too short in his answers to cases in Chicago and Peru.

The Survivors Network submitted complaints in March

On March 25, the survival network of those who were abused by priests submitted a formal complaint against the then cardinal prevention with the state secretary of the Vatican and claimed that he abused church power in his treatment of two cases. The submission amounted to a formal call for an investigation according to the rules that Pope Francis defined in 2023 for dealing with the treatment of abuse cases by the hierarchy.

In one case, it is the time when Prevost in Chicago was located as regional leader of the midwest of the Order of St. Augustine.

The case included James Ray, then a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago. The Archdiocese stopped him in 1990 due to allegations of abuse in the limited ministry, according to a later report by the Attorney General in Illinois.

Bishops often imposed such restrictions on different assumption and usually without warning to the public-until the explosive sexual abuse scandal, which was exposed by the Boston Globe in 2002 in the Bostoner Archdiocese, led to a nationwide policy of automatic removal from the ministry.

According to the complaint, Ray, who was not a Augustinian, was allowed to live in a Augustinian in Chicago from 2000 to 2002.

The archdiocese, not the Augustinians, had the final responsibility for Ray as one of her priests, and there is no indication that someone had the legal obligation to inform neighbors that an accused perpetrator lived among them. However, the complaint states that Prevost is aware of the agreement and that an internal Archdiocesan memo of 2000 was based and the school should have informed.

“In this way, Cardinal Prevost endangered the safety of the children,” says the complaint.

Ray was moved out of the Frigy in 2002 and finally left the priesthood. Prevost later became the world's leader of the Augustiner this year.

The second case was created during the time of Prevost in Peru

The other case includes the term of Prevost as Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru.

In April 2022, three women reported to accuse two priests – Elvererio Vásquez Gonzales and Ricardo Yesquen – according to the complaint from 2007, when they were minors, were sexually abused. The diocese listed by Prevost forwarded information about the case to the Vatican office that monitor such symptoms. It closed the case without a statement, although the diocese later reopened the investigation in 2023 after Prevost had gone for a Vatican post.

The complaint states that the Gonzales diocese exposed to the ministry until the investigation, but showed him later photos that he continued to celebrate the fair publicly. The diocese reported that Jaquen was no longer on duty due to his age and health.

According to the complaint, Prevost fell too short because the diocese did not interview women – and withdrawn from the Vaticans' investigators and not supported the adhesioned information and did not support the applicants or the priests were able to report to the civil authorities.

According to news reports, however, the diocese said that it pursued the right step during the examination and that Prevost met with women.

In the Vatican examination, it states that Prevost acted correctly when taking preliminary restrictions on Gonzales, while the Peruvian authorities carried out their own civil law investigation.

Nine days after the Peruvian authorities had closed the case because the limitation period had expired, Prevost was publicly named to take over the Vatican's office for bishops and left the diocese. The Vatican's dicastery ultimately determined the case for the teaching of faith and cited a lack of sufficient evidence to continue with a canonical process against Gonzales.

His role in combating abuse in the Catholic movement

Some hoped that Prevost's intervention in a scandal with the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a Catholic movement in Peru, was a sign of the upcoming reforms. Salinas said in an explanation that the new Pope played a central role in the confrontation of the case in his role as Bishop of Chiclayo, which is considered one of the most outrageous sexual abuse scandals in Latin America.

In a remarkable step, Pope Francis dissolved Christianae Vitae in January because of suspected sexual and spiritual abuse and financial mismanagement.

“The world is waiting,” said Gemma Hickey, President of Ending Clergy abuse. “Do not let this Pope inherit because of the global abuse crisis, but for the way he ends it.”

When he took over the Vatican task in 2023 to monitor the selection of the bishops, Prevost told the Vatican News that it said progress in the way some bishops dealt against abuse, but that more work with “bishops that did not have to have been prepared” are required to deal with it.

He added: “Silence is not the solution. We have to be transparent and honest, we have to accompany and help the victims, because otherwise their wounds will never heal.”

Francis had a mixed recording of the reaction to the crisis of spiritual sexual abuse. Especially in 2018, he tensioned a big case in Chile before he reversed the course, ordered an investigation and apologized to the victims. Ultimately, it turned into a turning point for how he dealt with cases of priests that sexually abused children for the rest of his papacy.

In his own statement, Bischofcountability.org also claimed that in contrast to many dioceses and religious orders, Prevost never published a list of accused abusers under his supervision.

It was also claimed that during his term in his youngest Vatican post, no bishops were disciplined.

___

The reporting on Associated Press Religion receives support from the cooperation of the AP with the conversation, with the financing of Lilly Stiftment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.