Orland Park police have said Brett Smith, 43, of Tinley Park, has been charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse. According to the charges, he inappropriately touched a 9-year-old boy he was tutoring.
Evergreen Park police also have charged him with battery. Those charges accuse him of making unwanted physical contact with a child at Queen of Martyrs school earlier this month by placing his hand on the student’s hand while standing behind him, and pressing himself against the boy’s back while he was at school.
Smith, who spent 16 months as a substitute teacher and tutor for Chicago Catholic Schools, was fired by the Chicago Archdiocese earlier this week, after officials learned of his long history of child molestation allegations.
Smith has changed his name multiple times, and has been arrested many times before and accused of touching his students, but has never been convicted of a felony.
In the case in Orland Park, prosecutors said Smith posted a listing on Nextdoor, identifying himself as BJ S. McAuliffe, a private tutor for hire.
Parents of a 9-year-old boy interviewed Smith and hired him the same day. He tutored their son at their Orland Park home more than a dozen times
Originally, the parents paid for the sessions in cash, but when they swapped to Zelle, they were confused to see the account linked to the name Brett Smith.
The boy’s father looked up Smith online and found an extensive criminal history, which prosecutors also outlined in court.
Prosecutors said the boy told his parents that his tutor would rub his back under his shirt while he was reading.
The parents found Smith was also formerly known as Brett Zagorac, and worked in at least four Catholic schools in the Chicago area over the last 16 months. The Chicago Archdiocese fired him on Monday and said they were not aware of any sexual misconduct allegations against him.
He was also previously accused of similar conduct in Arizona and Indiana.
In Arizona, that state’s attorney general has accused smith of legally changing his name to hide his past in 2021.
He was never convicted of a felony in these cases. Many times, the state argued, not because the crimes didn’t happen, but for other reasons — in some instances, young victims chose not to testify against Smith.
The judge in the Orland Park case ordered Smith detained until his next court date, saying, “Quite frankly, Mr. Smith, enough is enough.”
Smith is also facing a civil lawsuit from the family of a 2nd grade student at Queen of Martyrs, although it’s unclear if that’s the same victim he’s facing a battery charge for in Evergreen Park.
The lawsuit accuses Smith of grooming the boy and touching him inappropriately, including rubbing his buttocks and pressing his own body against the boy’s while he was seated at his desk.
The family also accuses the Archdiocese of negligence in hiring Smith, saying they should have known about his background of child molestation allegations.
In the filing, attorneys wrote “a simple Google search reveals credible evidence of SMITH’s sexual misconduct, occurring in multiple states. Therefore, a proper background search would further reveal such misconduct.”
Officials at the archdiocese asked anyone whose child has had contact with Smith that makes them uncomfortable to call their local police department or the DCFS Hotline (1.800.25.ABUSE). They can also contact the Archdiocese Office for the Protection of Children and Youth at 312-534-5254.
Orland Park police also asked anyone who believes they, their child, or a child under their care might have been a victim of Smith to contact their local police department.
As we begin a new year, I want to reflect on where we have been, where we are now, and where we are heading.
This past year has been one of significant effort, growth and at times, strain. SNAP is a survivor-led organization made up of people who care deeply and hold strong convictions. That reality can be both our greatest strength and sometimes a source of tension.
Substantial progress is being made, especially since July when a SNAP working group selected SNAP’s first professional Executive Director, Angela Walker. During this period, important steps have been taken to strengthen SNAP’s foundation, systems, and capacity to serve.
SNAP has modernized its website, integrated new accounting and database systems, and secured a pro bono forensic IT review. We implemented a social media policy that has significantly increased engagement and launched new LinkedIn and YouTube channels. We have expanded the Board with three new members from SNAP’s volunteer corps and allied organizations. We have professionalized digital fundraising, communications, and trauma-informed practices.
We also held professionally facilitated meetings requested by some volunteers to hear concerns and work through disagreements. The facilitator’s recommendations are expected soon. We successfully produced the 2025 SNAP Conference, one of the best attended in recent years, and continued advancing Conclave Watch, a worldwide grassroots initiative holding leadership in the Catholic Church accountable for protecting perpetrators of sexual abuse.
Viewed holistically, these steps represent major progress toward a stronger and more effective SNAP, and reflect sustained, good-faith efforts by the Board, the Executive Director, her team, and volunteers to listen, engage, and improve.
And still, there is more to do.
I remain committed to continuing the work of moving SNAP forward as a professional, transparent, and resilient organization, while never losing sight of why we exist: to support survivors at the grassroots level.
I also need to address some recent public discourse that was brought to my attention.
A claim has appeared on social media that I accepted a salary while serving as Interim Executive Director. I want to be clear about this. During that 15-month period, I voluntarily did not collect the Executive Director salary. SNAP’s official IRS filing, Form 990, reflects this accurately. In fact, I donated money to SNAP. I have given, not taken. It is disappointing to my wife and me that our sacrifices have been mischaracterized.
Thank you to all who continue to believe in SNAP’s mission. We are on track to achieve the changes and growth the board and community members outlined in 2024 when our three-year plan was first unveiled. I expect 2026 to be a pivotal, transformational year, and I can’t wait to see the progress we make to support survivors, help them seek justice, and hold abusers accountable.
With respect and gratitude,
Shaun Dougherty
President, SNAP Board of Directors
Through public action and peer support, SNAP Survivors Networkis building a future where no institution is beyond justice, and no survivor stands alone. Our global community works to end sexual abuse in faith-based organizations by transforming laws, institutions, and lives.
FREDERICKSBURG, Va. (DC News Now) — An usher at a Catholic church in Fredericksburg has been arrested and charged in connection with child sexual abuse material, according to a statement from the church.
The individual volunteered at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception as an usher before his arrest. The church is part of the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, which said they were not aware of any activity that took place on parish grounds.
“We encourage anyone who may know of any abuse or misconduct on the part of any cleric, employee, or volunteer of the diocese to immediately notify civil authorities as well as to reach out to the diocesan Victim Assistance Coordinator at (703) 841-2530,” the church’s statement reads.
DC News Now has reached out to the Fredericksburg Police Department and is working to gather more details.
ROME, January 7, 2026 – As Pope Leo convenes his first extraordinary consistory in Rome, the world’s Catholic cardinals – the men who have overseen, enabled, and concealed the largest institutional sexual abuse scandal in modern history – will formally gather behind closed doors. These are the men who transferred known offenders, concealed criminal evidence from the public, obstructed justice, and facilitated hundreds of thousands of sexual assaults across generations. Absent from the consistory’s agenda is any plan to hold themselves accountable, dismantle the systems of secrecy they created, or take any concrete action to end the ongoing cycle of abuse and cover-up they have perpetuated.
On the day of Pope Leo’s election, SNAP delivered a letter outlining a clear and actionable roadmap to stop sexual abuse and institutional concealment within the Catholic Church. Instead of embracing that mandate, Pope Leo has moved the Vatican backwards. In his first interview, he dismissed the need for major reform, rejected instituting a universal zero-tolerance law, emphasized the rights of accused priests over the safety of children, and appointed a known enemy of transparency to succeed him in one of the Vatican’s most powerful offices overseeing bishops worldwide.
Since then, new whistleblower information has emerged, further demonstrating Pope Leo’s failure to comply with Vos estis lux mundi, the policy allegedly promulgated by Pope Francis to ensure accountability for bishops who mishandle abuse. Evidence shows that while serving as a diocesan bishop in Peru, Pope Leo failed to respond appropriately to reports that two priests sexually assaulted young girls – precisely the kind of conduct Vos estis was meant to address.
“Justice is not on the agenda,” said Peter Isely, a SNAP spokesperson and himself a survivor. “This consistory brings together the very men who engineered the global cover-up of clergy sexual abuse, yet there is no plan to discipline perpetrators, no transparency, and no accountability for bishops who protected abusers.”
Survivors are no longer willing to wait for internal reform that never comes. This consistory will not bring justice, transparency, or safety for children. That is why SNAP survivors believe it is essential for the courts, lawmakers, and governments of civil society to step in and hold the Vatican accountable for its actions. Until church leaders face real consequences beyond their own closed systems, the abuse and cover-up will continue.
I can’t let the year end without thanking each and every one of you. Your dedication, creativity, support and heart have made such a meaningful difference to me during my short tenure at SNAP. I’m deeply grateful for all the care and thought you put into what we did as a community together in 2025!
December was an important month for SNAP. Sarah, Peter and other survivors held a press conference in Chicago detailing how Pope Leo helped shield clergy accused of abuse in Peru. The new recordings of church officials spurred SNAP to file an updated complaint with the Vatican. You can watch the full press conference here.
SNAP continued to hold the church accountable to fight and stand with survivors. Read the most recent statement on the Michigan AG Report detailing decades of preventable clerical sexual abuse against children. You can find this statement and all of our latest news on SNAP in Top News on our website.
As the year draws to a close, I need to let you know some changes to the SNAP leadership. Guila Benchimol has stepped down from the SNAP Board as Leona, Mike and James have joined us. I spoke to Guila last week, and she will continue to support our work at SNAP moving forward. We thank her for her invaluable work during her Board tenure.
In addition, SNAP Japan’s Harumi Suzuki is stepping down because of ill health but is actively working on identifying a successor. We thank her for all of years of service to survivors in Japan and beyond.
So many of you have remembered SNAP in your end of year charitable donations. I have been blown away by your generosity. If you’d still like to make an end-of-year, tax-free donation, there is still time. No donation is too small and provides much-needed support for us to reach even more survivors.
I hope the holidays give you a chance to rest, recharge and enjoy time with family and friends and all the people you love. I know the holiday season can be a trying time for many. Remember you are not alone! Reach out to us, and we can put you in touch with a survivor who can help in your healing journey.
I wish each and every one of you the best. I can’t wait to see what 2026 brings,
GRAND RAPIDS, December 18, 2025 – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Monday the release of a report on clergy abuse in the Diocese of Grand Rapids, the fifth of seven reports released as part of the Michigan’s statewide investigation into abuse and cover-up in Catholic dioceses that began in 2018.
The 335-page report names 51 priests who have been accused of sexual assault of a child or vulnerable adult. The Diocese of Grand Rapids is one of the few Catholic dioceses in the United States that has not published a list of “credibly accused” clergy.
The horrific assaults described in the report are not isolated crimes committed by individual priests; this is a preventable catastrophe in which diocesan leaders knowingly allowed dangerous men to hold positions of authority over children and vulnerable people, resulting in decades of repeated acts of sexual violence.
In the diocese’s response, Bishop Walkowiak attempted to minimize the findings of the report, claiming that there are no priests accused of abusing minors in active ministry, ignoring the fact that, until very recently, Walkowiak allowed several accused priests to remain in ministry in Grand Rapids:
Fr. Rock James Badgerow is listed on the Diocese of Grand Rapids website as “retired” after receiving senior priest status in 2023, despite having been accused of sexually assaulting a high school boy in a 1993 report. The victim alleged that when he reported the abuse to former Bishop Rose, he was told there had been other allegations against Badgerow. In 2004, an adult man reported being inappropriately massaged by Badgerow. In 2018, a witness made a complaint, saying that Badgerow had said of a tenth-grade altar boy, “the older I get, the younger I like them. I can’t help myself.”
Fr. Peter Omogo is currently listed as a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Abakaliki in Nigeria despite several reports of sexual assault in Grand Rapids. In 2017, a woman called the diocese to report that she and several other women had been subjected to kissing, groping, fondling, and other unwanted sexual advances. In December 2024, another woman contacted the diocese reporting that Omogo had repeatedly raped her between 2019 and 2024. After the allegations were reported to law enforcement, Omogo fled to Nigeria. In January of this year, there was a large celebration in honor of Omogo’s 20th anniversary as a priest.
Several priests who are now deceased or laicized were permitted to remain in ministry for years after serious allegations of sexual assault:
Fr. William Allen Langlois was accused in 2014 of sexual abuse of an adult woman from 2008-2013. The woman had been seeing Langlois and another spiritual director as she disclosed she feared she was struggling with mental illness and experienced the death of family members and several miscarriages. As the woman confided in Langlois, he fondled her and masturbated in the confessional. Langlois admitted to this conduct and was put on a six-month leave of absence in 2014. In 2016, a parish staff member reported that Langlois had touched her inappropriately without her consent on more than one occasion. In 2018, a woman called the diocese to report having been abused by Langlois as a minor, resulting in his restriction from ministry. Langlois was laicized in 2021.
Fr. Reinhard J. Sternemanndied in 2024. In 2007, a man reported having been assaulted by Sternemann while a 15 or 16-year-old student at St. Augustine Seminary in Saugatuck, Michigan. An obituary published in Midwest Augustianian Magazine mentions Sternemann’s assignments at Austin Catholic High School, St. Monica Novitiate, and St. Augustine Seminary. The AG’s report does not include any information about investigations into the allegations or restrictions placed on Sternemann, and there is no available public evidence that suggests Sternemann’s ministry had been restricted in any way.
Fr. Don Patrick Tufts was the subject of a 2002 report where a man alleged that he witnessed Tufts share a bed with a teenage boy on a camping trip. In 2003, a man called the diocese to report that in a counseling session where he sought help for trauma related to being a victim of incest and growing up in an alcoholic home, Tufts massaged and sexually assaulted him. Though Tufts apologized to the victim and the diocese paid for the victim’s counseling, Tufts was allowed to remain in ministry under “supervision.” When Tufts died unexpectedly in 2016, his obituary listed a number of assignments to parishes and hospitals in the area.
SNAP Executive Director Angela Walker said, “It is not enough to list the priests who have been accused. Until the structural mechanisms that shield the church and its leaders from accountability are dismantled, survivors will not see justice.”
Michigan currently has the strictest statute of limitations for sexual assault victims in the United States. Though most survivors take decades to report child sex abuse, the civil statute of limitations only gives child victims until age 28 to file a claim. There is no criminal statute of limitations for first-degree sexual assault of a child, but child victims of second, third, or fouth-degree criminal sexual assault only have 15 years or up until their 28th birthday, whichever date is later.
Survivors, their friends and family, or anyone who has information about the church’s response to abuse are urged to contact the Michigan AG’s office by calling 1-844-324-3374 or reporting abuse through their website.
SNAP Survivors Network is the world’s oldest and largest community of survivors of clergy and institutional sexual abuse. Through public action and peer support, SNAP is building a future where no institution is beyond justice and no survivor stands alone. Our global community works to end sexual abuse in faith-based organizations by transforming laws, institutions, and lives.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, right, and his successor Ronald Hicks arrive to lead a mass at St.Patrick’s Cathedral in the Manhattan borough of New York City on Dec. 18, 2025. Pope Leo XIV has accepted Dolan’s resignation and named Joliet Bishop Hicks to replace him. (Charly Triballeau/Getty-AFP)
Pope Leo XIV made his most important U.S. appointment to date Thursday, naming a fellow south suburbanite as the next archbishop of New York to lead one of the biggest archdioceses as it navigates relations with the Trump administration and its immigration crackdown.
Joliet Bishop Ronald Hicks will replace the retiring Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a prominent conservative figure in the U.S. Catholic hierarchy.
During a news conference in New York Thursday morning, Hicks noted he grew up in South Holland, which is right next to Dolton in the south suburbs.
“South Holland and Dolton might not mean anything to you, but Dolton is where our holy father, Pope Leo XIV, grew up and is from, and our houses are literally 14 blocks away from each other,” Hicks said.
Hicks will be installed as archbishop Feb. 6 at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, according to the Joliet Diocese. Until then, he will continue serving as bishop of Joliet, where he has been since 2020.
“The past five years in Joliet have been a true blessing for me,” Hicks wrote in a statement. “The relationships we have built, the faith we have shared, and the journey we have walked together are treasures I will carry with me to New York.”
Hicks takes over after Dolan last week finalized a plan to establish a $300 million fund to compensate victims of sexual abuse who had sued the archdiocese.
Dolan submitted his resignation in February, as required when he turned 75. But the Vatican often waits to make important leadership changes in dioceses if there is lingering abuse litigation or other governance matters that need to be resolved by the outgoing bishop.
Hicks thanked Dolan for his backing during Thursday’s news conference.
“He said to me, ‘Ron, I want you to do well here, and you have all my support,’” Hicks said.
A call for solidarity with immigrants
Like Leo, who spent 20 years as a missionary in Peru, Hicks worked for five years in El Salvador heading a church-run orphanage program that operated in nine Latin American and Caribbean countries.
“Taking a new position as archbishop of New York is an enormous responsibility, but I can honestly say that Bishop Hicks is up to the task,” said the Rev. Eusebius Martis, who has known Hicks since the mid-1980s and worked with him at Mundelein Seminary, the Chicago archdiocesan seminary.
He said New York was lucky to have him.
“He is a wonderful man, always thoughtful and attentive to the needs of seminarians,” Martis, professor of sacramental theology at the Pontifical Liturgical Institute of Sant’Anselmo, the Benedictine University in Rome, said in an email.
In November, Hicks endorsed a special message from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemning the Trump administration’s immigration raids, which have targeted Chicago in particular.
In a statement then urging Catholics to share the message, Hicks said it “affirms our solidarity with all our brothers and sisters as it expresses our concerns, opposition, and hopes with clarity and conviction. It is grounded in the church’s enduring commitment to the Catholic social teaching of human dignity and a call for meaningful immigration reform.”
Hicks reiterated his call Thursday for solidarity by invoking New York City’s history as a point of arrival for millions of immigrants, referencing Emma Lazarus’ famous poem about the Statue of Liberty, which concludes: “I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
“I feel the hope that so many to our shores had that came through this very harbor here in New York, including my own family,” Hicks said. “I am committed to working with the great variety and diversity of faith leaders and civic leaders to keep that hope alive, and to make real the promise of the golden door.”
Neighboring hometowns
Though they both hail from the south suburbs, Hicks only met the future pope in 2024, when then-Cardinal Robert Prevost visited one of Hicks’ parishes in New Lenox and took part in a question-and-answer conversation for the public.
Hicks, who sat in the front pew, said he learned that day what sort of future pope Leo would be and said he liked what he saw both in his public remarks and in their private conversation.
“His talk was very clear and concise,” Hicks said Thursday. “Afterward he said, ‘Can I just get get five minutes with you?’ And that five minutes turned into about 20 minutes.”
Hicks said that he relates strongly to the pope, having grown up nearby.
“We would have played baseball in the same parks, gone swimming in the same public pool and we even share a famous pizza place that’s our favorite,” Hicks said.
The pope is famously a fan of Aurelio’s Pizza in Homewood, which has embraced the connection with pride, with a “Poperoni” pizza and a Pope Leo XIV table.
But unlike Pope Leo, a devoted White Sox fan, Hicks shared in New York Thursday what he called his first “controversial statement.”
“I’m a Cubs fan, and I love deep-dish pizza,” Hicks said. “I am going to remain a loyal Cubs fan. However, I am going to start rooting for the New York sports teams.”
Hicks was a parish priest in Chicago and dean of training at Mundelein Seminary before Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich made him vicar general of the archdiocese in 2015. Three years later, Hicks was made an auxiliary bishop, and in 2020 Pope Francis named him bishop of Joliet, serving about 520,000 Catholics in seven counties.
“I was formed in Chicago in the Archdiocese of Chicago, under the care of Cardinal (Joseph) Bernardin, through the witness of Cardinal (Francis) George and by the mentorship of Cardinal Cupich,” Hicks said. “For all them, I’m deeply grateful.”
Cupich, seen as a progressive in the U.S. church, has been a close adviser to both Francis and Leo, and Hicks’ appointment to such a prominent job likely could not have come without Cupich’s endorsement.
“Archbishop Hicks is a holy man with a heart for Jesus and the People of God,” Cupich said in a statement. “He will embrace the diversity of his new archdiocese and be an adept administrator.”
The New York Archdiocese is among the largest in the nation, serving roughly 2.5 million Catholics in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island in New York City, as well as seven counties to the north.
Overseeing abuse settlements
In one of his biggest initial tasks, Hicks will have to oversee the implementation of the abuse settlement fund that Dolan finalized, which is to be paid for by reducing the archdiocesan budget and selling off assets. The aim is to cover settlements for most, if not all of the roughly 1,300 outstanding abuse claims against the archdiocese.
“As a church, we can never rest in our efforts to prevent abuse, to protect children and to care for survivors,” Hicks said. “While this work is challenging, it’s difficult, it’s painful, I hope it will continue to help in the areas of accountability, transparency and healing.”
Hicks is no stranger to managing the fallout of the abuse scandal, after the Joliet Diocese under his predecessors and the rest of the Illinois church came under scathing criticism by the state’s attorney general in 2023.
A five-year investigation found that 451 Catholic clergy abused 1,997 children in Illinois between 1950 and 2019. Hicks had been appointed to lead the Joliet church in 2020. The attorney general’s report was generally positive in recognizing the diocese’s current child protection policies, but documented several cases where previous Joliet bishops moved known abusers around, disparaged victims and refused to accept responsibility for their role in enabling the abuse.
Following the publication of the 2023 report, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests criticized Hicks, saying he lacked transparency. The organization said he should have notified the public and parishes when the Joliet Diocese’s public list of priests credibly accused of sexual assault was added to, and called on him to add additional names of accused priests.
“Bishop Hicks is unfit to oversee the settlement of abuse claims in New York,” the survivors network said in a statement following Thursday’s announcement. “Survivors do not trust him, and for good reason. His record of stonewalling, secrecy, and betrayal is the kind of behavior that has kept the Catholic abuse crisis going for decades.”
NEW YORK, December 17, 2025 – SNAP condemns the Archdiocese of New York’s abuse settlement fund as a mechanism designed to block accountability through the courts, shielding church records from disclosure and church officials from sworn testimony. Under Cardinal Timothy Dolan, a $300 million fund uses desperately needed but inadequate compensation as damage control, capping liability and suppressing the full truth about decades of abuse and cover-up.
Throughout his career in St. Louis, Milwaukee, and New York, Cardinal Dolan has become known as a chief architect of strategies designed to withhold justice by sealing records, narrowing survivors’ access to the courts, and protecting church officials who facilitated abuse. That legacy is how he will be remembered by survivors.
The legal processes tied to these settlements compound survivors’ trauma – forcing them through prolonged, dehumanizing proceedings that prioritize the institution’s assets over human dignity. Survivors are reduced to claim numbers, their testimony constrained, and their pain negotiated behind closed doors. SNAP stands in unwavering solidarity with all those harmed in New York, those who participated in these processes and those who were shut out entirely.
Adding insult to injury, Cardinal Dolan now passes leadership to Bishop Ron Hicks of Joliet, Illinois, another Catholic leader with a documented record of concealing abuse, allowing accused predators to remain in ministry, and obstructing justice. This handoff underscores a pattern of continuity by the Vatican.
“No amount of money can repair the trauma inflicted by sexual abuse or decades of institutional cover-up,” said Angela Walker, SNAP’s Executive Director. “Courts must hold the Archdiocese of New York fully accountable under the law. Survivors deserve more than settlements – they deserve justice, transparency, and consequences for institutions that permitted clergy to commit devastating acts of sexual violence with impunity.”
New recordings of church officials spurred the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, to file an updated complaint with the Vatican.
Chicago Sun-Times, Violet Miller, December 4, 2025
Peter Isely, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse from Wisconsin and SNAP founder, speaks Thursday during a news conference in Chicago.
Survivors of clergy abuse are calling for an investigation into Pope Leo XIV during his tenure as bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, alleging he played a role in covering up how priests and clerics accused of sexual assault were allowed to continue their roles in the Catholic Church.
Recordings of a meeting from in April between the Rev. Giampiero Gambaro with Ana María Quispe Díaz and others accusing Peruvian clerics of assault revealed the man they accused had confessed to church officials years ago, and in September was granted an “honorable discharge.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reviewed a translated version of the recordings made public by Conclave Watch.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests plans to file an updated vos estis lux mundi complaint, the church’s pathway for documenting accusations of abuse or mishandling of cases, in light of the newly surfaced recordings. The group said these cases were representative of “a system that allows bishops and cardinals to control and close cases that implicate themselves.”
“We cannot have another pope in this institutional system who has covered up child sex crimes,” said Peter Isely, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse from Wisconsin and SNAP founder, at a Thursday news conference in Chicago. “I’ve been at this 35 years, and the only way things change is when there are consequences and accountability. … We don’t want this to happen to another child.”
Vatican officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Díaz, of Chiclayo, Peru, alleges she was abused by a priest when she was 9 years old, and her two sisters were assaulted by the same priest. In April 2022, she said, the three of them brought their allegations to Pope Leo XIV, then known as Robert Prevost and serving as bishop of Chiclayo, though he never opened an investigation.
The Vatican ended its investigation into the alleged abuse in 2023 after civil authorities said the allegations were beyond the statute of limitations, according to The New York Times. The Vatican told the paper that Prevost had done more than was required in at least one of the cases.
The new evidence shows that church officials admitted the Rev. Eleuterio Vásquez Gonzáles, known as Father Lute, had confessed to removing his clothes, making sexually inappropriate comments and touching himself and the victims, according to SNAP.
Gambaro said Prevost’s “preliminary investigation was very poorly conducted” — describing it as a “joke” — and that “the church’s statute of limitations is clearly quite different.” He added that an unknown church official, believed by the victims to be Prevost, “signed a letter saying the [canonical] process should not be carried out.”
“This is the first time I’ve dealt with this type of situation where they invoke the statute of limitations under civil law in this way,” Gambaro says in the recording.
Lute and the Rev. Ricardo Yesquén Paiva, who Díaz says also assaulted her as a child, continued to be shown in Facebook photos serving in church roles despite Prevost’s claims they had been removed, according SNAP’s analysis of social media.
One Facebook photo shows Prevost standing with Paiva at his birthday party in 2023 — three years after the allegations surfaced — with both dressed in clerical garb.
In a January 2023 photo posted on Facebook, Prevost can be seen standing next to Yesquén, dressed in clerical garb, at a birthday celebration for the priest accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl
By 2024, the church saidthe accused cleric who had been pictured with Prevost couldn’t be investigated and had already exited ministry due to a neurological condition, according to SNAP.
“It is incomprehensible that instead of seeking the truth and repairing the victims, the decision was made to close the case through a papal grace that frees the abuser from facing the responsibility that corresponds to him, leaving us in a vulnerable situation with no reparation, where the only thing offered to us is payment for therapy,” Diáz said in a statement.
Contributing: Kaitlin Washburn
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to correct Peter Isely’s name.
NEW ORLEANS, December 8, 2025 – SNAP extends its deepest solidarity and support to all survivors of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, both those who participated in the bankruptcy proceedings and those whose voices were never heard in court.
The process remains profoundly unjust: it forces survivors to enter a bankruptcy arena as “creditors,” reducing the widespread rape and sexual assault of children, the extensive institutional cover-ups, and the financial manipulation that enabled these crimes to mere matters of debt. By removing these cases from the hands of justice officials and placing them before a bankruptcy judge, the church forces victims into a traumatizing, degrading, and drawn-out legal battle that severely limits their ability to seek reparations.
SNAP is encouraged that documents related to the archdiocese’s management of abuse claims will be made public, an essential step toward exposing the truth. We urge continued accountability for every official – Catholic or otherwise – whose actions allowed abusers to harm children and vulnerable people.
“There is no way to place a dollar amount on the devastation caused by abuse or the church’s long history of covering it up,” said Angela Walker, SNAP Executive Director. “We wish healing for every survivor, and we also know that the fight for justice must continue until the institution and all its enablers are fully held responsible.”
SNAP stands with all survivors of New Orleans today and every day.
