Pope Leo XIV in sex scandal, how many demand the probe

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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.

In his statement, Bishop Accountability.org claimed that in contrast to many dioceses and religious medals, Prevost never published a list of accused abuse under his supervision.

The group also claimed that Prevost had kept “confidentiality” in its latest Vatican post in the disciplinary process for bishops. “No complicated bishop was robbed of his title under his watch,” it said.

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 of abuse. 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.

Complaint of the surviving network
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 have often imposed such restrictions on different enforcement levels and usually without warning to the public to the gender abuse scandal exposed by the Boston Globe in 2002 in the Boston Archdiocese for a nationwide policy of the ministry of the ministry without warning.

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.

A case 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 girls 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 statement, although the diocese reopened the investigation in 2023 after Prevost had gone for a Vatican post.

The complaint states that Gonzales' diocese from the Ministry was pending until investigations that later photos showed him 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.

Bishop Edinson Farfán, Prevost's successor in Chiclayo, defended the case of the predecessor and said it was important to be sensitive to the alleged victims and at the same time respect the investigation.

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 to leave 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.

“The world is waiting”
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 there were progress in the way some bishops treated abuse, but that “more work with bishops that did not have received the necessary preparation” needed 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.

Smith writes for the Associated Press. AP authors Holly Meyer and Nicole Winfield contributed to this report.

This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

AI

May 22, 2025

Tags: Cardinal Robert Prevost Pope Leo