Author: sarah

New evidence shows Pope Leo XIV granted dispensation to accused Peruvian priest to end internal investigation of his own conduct

In new audio recording, Diocese of Chiclayo calls pope’s investigation a “joke” 

SNAP to file updated Vos estis lux mundi complaint using new evidence of cover-up

CHICAGO, December 4, 2025 – Survivors of clergy sexual abuse held a press conference to release new evidence showing Pope Leo XIV wielded his new papal authority to avoid testifying about his involvement in covering up child sex abuse in Peru.

This evidence included internal Vatican documents, emails from Pope Leo, and recordings of meetings with church officials discussing the cases of sexual abuse reported by Ana María Quispe Díaz and two other victims from the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru.

Quispe previously traveled to Chicago in July to testify in a press conference alongside representatives of SNAP.

Her full statement regarding the recent updates in her case can be found here. 

Él no lo considera un delito / He doesn’t consider it a crime

On April 9, 2025, as Pope Francis’ prognosis was questionable following a five-week hospital stay, Fr. Giampiero Gambaro, OFM Cap., vice rector of the Universidad Católica Sedes Sapientiae, called Ana María Quispe Díaz and two other clergy abuse victims to a meeting at the Bishopric of Carabayllo in Lima on April 23rd. Gambaro, the delegate instructor appointed by the bishop of Chiclayo to carry out the administrative work in the canonical investigation into Quispe and the other victims’ reports, can be heard in newly released recordings of this meeting making several shocking claims about Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, and his management of their case.

In the April 23 meeting, taking place just two days after Francis’ death, Gambaro affirmed that one of the accused priests, Fr. Eleuterio Vásquez Gonzáles (Fr. Lute) had acknowledged the acts of abuse they reported, stating, “It may be that he considers it a sin. But he doesn’t consider it a crime.” (🎧Listen to audio with English transcription)

The “sins” in question include the following acts detailed in victims’ direct reports to Prevost:

  • In a 2022 in-person meeting with Prevost, Ana María Quispe Díaz and two other victims reported that when they were between the ages of 9-14 years old, Fr. Lute took off his clothes and, while making sexually inappropriate comments, touched his own genitals as well as the private areas of the victims on several separate occasions on mission trips to rural towns outside Chiclayo. 
  • In a 2020 report made to Prevost by phone, Ana María Quispe Díaz alleged that Fr. Ricardo Yesquén Paiva kissed her on the mouth when she was 10-years-old, placing her on his lap and inserting his tongue, in the rectory of a parish in Chiclayo.

Despite assertions by Prevost that the accused priests ceased exercising public ministry, Facebook photos show that both Lute and Yesquén continued public ministry during Prevost’s tenure as Bishop of Chiclayo.

Lute leads a eucharistic celebration on March 26, 2023 at Parroquia San Jose Obrero, posted on the parish’s official Facebook page
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

Though most of the media reports surrounding Quispe’s case have focused on Lute, Yesquén also continued representing himself as a priest, despite statements by Prevost that he suffered from a debilitating physical and neurological condition that would have prevented him from exercising a proper defense in a canonical investigation. In an official statement from the Diocese of Chiclayo on September 10, 2024, responding to Quispe’s public statements, the church wrote, “Regarding the case of Father Ricardo Yesquén, due to the serious degenerative disease he suffers from, he is unable to defend himself, and therefore a case cannot be opened against him. He has not exercised the priestly ministry for years.”

Contrary to the Diocese of Chiclayo’s claim that Yesquén had not exercised priestly ministry for years, a post from the official diocesan Facebook page wished Yesquén a happy birthday on behalf of Prevost, referring to him as the Parochial Vicar of Santa Lucía de Ferreñafe in January 2023.

According to the victim’s testimonies and available evidence, Prevost appears to have violated canon law quite significantly in his failure to initiate proper canon law proceedings into alleged crimes committed by both priests, offer canonical legal advice, procedural transparency, and spiritual and psychological support, and take effective precautionary measures to protect his diocese and the public from the potential dangers posed by Lute and Yesquén. Furthermore, his statement to the victims that a canonical investigation could not be initiated in the absence of a civil complaint is not consistent with canon law. 

In the April 23 meeting, Gambaro characterized Prevost’s initial investigation of the victims’ claims as una tomadura de pelo, a “joke,” and admitted that SNAP’s March 25, 2025 filing of a Vos estis lux mundi report with the Vatican triggered the meeting, saying, “SNAP, in the wake of the conclave, to determine which cardinals should not be voted for as pope, included Prevost because of this case.”

Una tomadura de pelo / A joke

Gambaro went on to state that Prevost’s “preliminary investigation was very poorly conducted. The [Dicastery of the] Doctrine of the Faith claims that the case is closed, because the prosecution declared it was time-barred, that it had expired under Peruvian law…But the church’s statute of limitations is clearly quite different.”

Gambaro noted that this is an exceptional argument, saying, “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.” He adds that an unknown church official, believed by the victims to be Prevost, “signed a letter saying the [canonical] process should not be carried out.” (🎧Listen to audio with English transcription)

Calling Prevost’s investigation a “joke” in the presence of the three victims, Gambaro admitted, “They asked [Lute] practically nothing. He didn’t answer anything.” (🎧Listen to audio with English transcription)

These characterizations by the delegate instructor stand in stark contrast to public statements regarding Quispe and the other victims’ case by Prevost and other high-ranking Catholic officials. 

In a July 15, 2024 email to InfoVaticana, shared with SNAP, Prevost responded to a question surrounding the reasoning behind Lute’s departure from his parish in Etén and relocation to Santa Cruz, writing, “This was one of the precautionary measures. Santa Cruz is the (civil) province where his family lives. He went to their home without publicly exercising his ministry.” 

This claim is reiterated in an authorized Spanish-language biography, Pope Leo XIV: Global Citizen, Missionary of the 21st Century, authored by Elise Allen, a journalist who considers herself a friend of Prevost. Allen writes, “Father Vásquez Gonzales denied any abuse, claiming the situation was a misunderstanding. However, Bishop Prevost opened a preliminary investigation and imposed restrictions, banning him from public ministry and, consequently, from serving as a parish priest and hearing confessions, although he could still celebrate Mass privately.”

Not only is this reporting contradicted by Gambaro’s statements and the photos of Lute saying public mass posted on official diocesan Facebook pages during Prevost’s tenure in Chiclayo, Rev. Julio Ramírez, the priest tasked with overseeing the Diocese of Chiclayo’s “Listening Center” under Prevost’s leadership, told Quispe in a recorded phone conversation on November 11, 2023, “What Monsignor Roberto [Prevost] did was take him out of (Chiclayo) and leave him at his home in Santa Cruz…I’m not going to lie to you, it’s not that they took away his licenses. Monsignor Roberto’s only comment was that he shouldn’t come to Chiclayo.” (🎧Listen to audio with English transcription)

In another audio recording from March 2025, Gambaro can be heard explaining very clearly to the victims the very limited extent of Lute’s restrictions, confirming “Prevost’s decree of April 2022 states, (1) to prohibit Father Eleuterio from administering the sacrament of penance, (2) the exercise of the functions inherent to his office as parish priest in the parish of Santa María Magdalena, in the city of Etén, and nothing more, nothing more. It does not prohibit him from celebrating Mass, receiving it, or anything else.” (🎧Listen to audio with English transcription)

Buenas noticias / Good news

In the April 23 meeting, Gambaro presented an update on Lute’s status to the victims, characterizing it as “good news,” stating that Lute had requested voluntary dispensation from the priesthood, citing the psychological exhaustion their accusations had caused him, framing Lute as a victim of the three women who reported he had abused them as young girls. Gambaro told the victims that this meant there would be no further investigation of the abuse. 

In response, the victims requested two things: 

  1. A letter of apology for the handling of the case and public statements made by the diocese denigrating Ana María Quispe Díaz’s testimony
  2. Financial reparations to cover the cost of psychological and psychiatric care – services that are required under Vos estis lux mundi, but were not provided to the victims prior to Prevost’s election in the May 2025 conclave.

Over the course of the next several months, Quispe and the other victims exchanged multiple letters with Gambaro and the Diocese of Chiclayo concerning the lack of public apology, the Diocese of Chiclayo’s instructions to avoid speaking to the press, severe delays in reimbursements for psychological care, and false statements made about the case by high-ranking Vatican officials. 

Though the current Bishop of Chiclayo Edinson Farfán and other unnamed Vatican sources speaking to Crux have stated that the victims had received adequate psychological care through the Diocese of Chiclayo’s “Listening Center,” the diocese has since delayed promised payments for the victims’ psychological care – leading recently to a brief termination of services and medication.

This is evidenced through the communication between the victims and the Diocese of Chiclayo from July through October 2025. 

On November 11, 2025, Gambaro wrote to Quispe and the other victims informing them that Lute had been granted voluntary dispensation on September 15, 2025. In his letter, he makes several statements that are at demonstrable odds with his characterization of aspects of the case in the April 23, 2025 meeting with the victims and canon law prescriptions. 

In Quispe’s public response to this news, she states, “Granting a [dispensation] to Eleuterio Vásquez is also especially irresponsible given that there are witnesses who have publicly stated to the media that he frequently took other children to the same room where we were abused. That information, which should have triggered every alarm, demanded a deep and urgent investigation — not the definitive closure of the case.”

Gambaro astonishingly claims that the “receipt and handling of the complaints” have followed canon law. One might ask – does Gambaro believe that an investigation in which the accused is not compelled to answer basic questions about allegations, one that he himself called a “joke” – is canonically sanctioned?

With no acknowledgement of the anxiety and emotional pain produced by the diocese’s delays in reimbursing the costs of psychological and psychiatric care, detailed in the six letters victims sent to the Diocese of Chiclayo in September and October, Gambaro claims that the diocese is fulfilling its duty under canon law for the “well-being” of the victims. 

Finally, Gambaro frames Lute’s dispensation as a loss of “dignity” and “rights,” implying, as he did in the April 23 meeting that this is a punishment for Lute though he has been granted an “honorary discharge” from the priesthood with no trial, no finding of guilt, and no public record of his crimes. 

Most significantly, the only person in the 1.4 billion member Catholic Church empowered to sign off on this dispensation, is the man who stands to lose the most by an investigation and trial: Pope Leo himself, who serves as both judge and interested party in a case that directly implicates his own oversight. 

Creí…que querías que renunciara / I thought…you wanted me to resign

Pope Leo revealed to Elise Allen in his authorized biography that he understood his vulnerability in this case from Chiclayo and that it caused him a significant amount of anxiety leading up to the conclave.  

In Pope Leo XIV : Global Citizen, Missionary of the 21st Century, the new pontiff recounted to Allen his anxiety leading up to the conclave. He first describes a meeting with Pope Francis immediately following SNAP’s Vos estis lux mundi complaint saying, “I received a phone call asking me to go secretly to Santa Marta, and they told me, “Don’t tell anyone.” The Pope wanted to see me. And they didn’t tell me anything else. So I didn’t tell anyone in the office, not my secretary, not anyone. I simply disappeared and went. I went up the service stairs, and no one saw me. Then, after he’d told me what he wanted, which concerned work, bishops, and other matters he had in mind, I said to him, “For your information, Holy Father, I thought that perhaps the reason you called me that way was because you wanted me to resign.”

Pope Leo further acknowledged that his handling of the aforementioned abuse cases in Chiclayo were a cause for concern with other Catholic cardinals, telling Allen, “But I also thought about the case you asked me about before [the one of the complaints in Chiclayo, which worried some of the other cardinals, whether this issue of sexual abuse could be a problem.” 

In an August 2, 2025 email, just two days after Quispe spoke at a press conference in Chicago “for herself, for her family…and for children in danger” calling for justice, Pope Leo wrote to InfoVaticana regarding her case. He begins by saying, “Against all the advice I’ve been given, I’ll answer the main question briefly.” This question pertained to his alleged knowledge of an email sent by Quispe to request information about her case to be corrected on InfoVaticana’s website. On the eve of the conclave, the reporter described a conversation with Prevost in which this email was mentioned. 

This reporter later wrote, “What surprised me, Your Holiness, was that you were already aware of that email just a few hours after it arrived. No one else knew about it. And it was you yourself who, in that brief but difficult encounter we had at the entrance to the Holy Office, made explicit reference to its contents. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop wondering how it came into your possession and why.”

Pope Leo denied knowledge of the email, but wrote that “recent events,” implying Quispe’s public advocacy, “will only cause her more harm, because they continue the revictimization of someone who is seeking peace and healing.” He continued, “I believe that the insistence on publishing the same stories over and over again only harms Ana María and [the other victims].” Despite these comments that ignored Quispe’s agency and thoughtful decision to speak publicly, painting her rudderless and impressionable, the pontiff spoke at length about Quispe’s case in interviews with Elise Allen that were published in his authorized biography the following month. 

Conclusion

SNAP will file a updated Vos estis lux mundi complaint next week with the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and other Vatican and civil authorities, including the American and Peruvian ambassadors to the Holy See and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, urging a full investigation into Pope Leo XIV’s role in authorizing the voluntary dispensation of Lute and suppressing the Chiclayo case. This case from Chiclayo is not isolated, and sadly, not unique – it exposes a system that allows bishops and cardinals to control and close cases that implicate themselves. 

For this reason survivors have insisted on a binding, universal zero tolerance law that would eliminate the structures that allow the Catholic hierarchy to cover-up abuse and shield offenders with impunity.

Leading role: Mixed reactions pour in as Oklahoma archbishop takes on influential leadership role

The Oklahoman, Carla Hinton, November 16, 2025

Archbishop Paul Coakley attends a service with the casket of Stanley Rother after it was exhumed and driven to The Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Oklahoma City on Sunday, Feb. 12, 2023. (Nathan J. Fish/The Oklahoman)

A secular news outlet described an Oklahoma City archbishop as a “conservative culture warrior,” while a religious magazine said he is “far from an extremist.”

Reactions to the Most Rev. Paul S. Coakley’s election to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ presidency have come as onlookers seek to define what his rise to the top of the nation’s primary arm of the Roman Catholic Church says about the American Catholic hierarchy’s relationship with Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S-born pope.

Coakley, 70, is the first bishops’ conference president to be elected during Pope Leo’s papacy. And the hyper focus on the bishops’ choice of leadership is also undoubtedly tied to the fact that he is taking the organization’s helm as its first president elected during President Donald Trump’s second term.

On the political front, pundits and commentators have questioned whether Coakley, widely known as a staunch conservative, will, during his three-year term as its president, steer the bishops’ conference on the right-leaning path it has appeared to follow in the last several years.

The Associated Press called Coakley a “conservative culture warrior” chosen as the USCCB doubles down on its “conservative bent.” He is connected to the Napa Institute, a conservative Catholic organization, as its ecclesiastical adviser.

By contrast, The Catholic Herald said he was “far from an extremist,” and has dutifully fulfilled his duties as a Catholic bishop.

“In short, if one treats pro-life and pro-family teaching as ‘conservative,’ then one would hope all US bishops are conservatives,” the London-based Catholic monthly magazine said.

On another front, organizations that advocate for people sexually abused by religious clergy, and survivors of such abuse, said that choosing Coakley as their leader means that the nation’s Catholic bishops have no sense of justice or urgency about holding faith leaders who prey on others accountable.

Peter Isely, a longtime spokesperson and activist for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Coakley’s election as president of the bishops’ group “only reinforces what we already know: survivors waiting for justice should not look to the USCCB.”

“Only public exposure and action on the part of civil society will force the U.S. bishops to remove offenders and disclose the vast amount of criminal evidence of rape and sexual assault in their possession,” Isely said in a statement.

Coakley called for an independent investigation on the archdiocese’s response to sexual abuse claims over a period of about 20 years. Under his leadership, the archdiocese hired the law firm McAfee & Taft to conduct an investigation and compile the report, which was released in 2019.

Steady advancement

Coakley, a Norfolk, Virginia, native, was ordained to the priesthood in 1983. He was appointed by Pope John Paul II to serve as bishop of the Diocese of Salina, Kansas, in 2004. Pope Benedict XVI appointed him archbishop of Oklahoma City in 2010, and he was installed in 2011, succeeding the Most Rev. Eusebius J. Beltran, who retired.

How did Coakley ascend to the apex of America’s Roman Catholic hierarchy?

He was in a key position to be considered for the role of USCCB president, and his style of leadership has become widely known among his fellow bishops due to his membership on several of the organization’s committees.

Most notably, Coakley was serving as the USCCB’s secretary, considered the bishop conference’s third most senior post, behind the president and vice president, when he was tapped to become the group’s president on Nov. 11.

And, he has served on 12 USCCB committees, three of which he served as chair. Coakley served on the USCCB’s Domestic Justice and Human Development Committee from 2019 to 2022. The archbishop has also served on the USCCB’s Committee on Priorities and Plans from 2022 to the present.

He served on Catholic Relief Services’ ‘board of directors from 2012 to 2019, serving as chair from 2014 to 2016. Catholic Relief Services is the USCCCB’s official international relief and development agency.

Leadership in Oklahoma

As others share their opinions on what Coakley will bring to his role as USCCB president, there’s no question that he has risen to prominence both in and outside Oklahoma due to his high profile stance on several issues. These include immigration, abortion and the death penalty.

Oklahomans, including those who have worked alongside Coakley and those who fall under his leadership, discussed how he has made the position of Oklahoma City archbishop his own since being appointed to the role. They said he has been willing to publicly weigh in on hot-button issues.

The Rev. Don Heath, co-pastor of Disciples Christian Church in Edmond, said the archbishop has spoken out numerous times over the years in opposition to the death penalty. Heath served as chairman of the Oklahoma Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty for eight years.

“Every time I gave a statement, Coakley gave one, too,” Heath said. “He’s been faithful to that. He’s also a fierce advocate for the immigrants, and I hope he will continue.”

The Rev. Tim Luschen, an Archdiocese of Oklahoma City priest serving as senior pastor of Little Flower Catholic Church in south Oklahoma City, offered similar comments. Luschen is also a member of Voices Organized in Civic Engagement, or VOICE, a coalition of congregations, nonprofits, worker associations and schools on a mission to help Oklahoma City metro-area families face a wide range of challenges.

Luschen said Coakley has been given an opportunity to weigh in on issues of vital importance from a national platform, and he thinks the role suits the archbishop.

“This election has really given him an opportunity to speak for all the bishops in the U.S. on issues like sanctity of life — from the womb to natural death,” Luschen said. “He’s going to be speaking out on different things that affect our families like immigration, but also also how people are going to afford health care and how they are going to put food on their table.”

Like Heath, Monsignor Don Wolf, pastor of Sacred Heart Church and rector of the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine, said Coakley’s opposition to the death penalty has been well known in Oklahoma.

Wolf said he thinks Coakley will continue to weigh in about the need for the humane treatment of undocumented migrants, even as he voices his agreement with nations having sovereign borders.

“Everyone wants a good and well-ordered society, and you can do that in a way that’s more humane, in a way that respects human dignity, and I think that’s what the archbishop has talked about,” the priest said.

“He’s trying to thread the needle when it comes to that. I think the archbishop has been pretty careful about that. He makes an attempt to speak clearly and carefully, and I know he’ll bring that to the national stage. His desire to communicate is on point.”

The Rev. Shannon Fleck, executive director of Faithful America, a national nonprofit organization that mobilizes Christians to take action for social justice, racial equality and democracy, worked with Coakley in her former role as executive director of the Oklahoma Faith Network, an ecumenical coalition of more than 16 Christian denominations and individual churches that partner with other organizations, including those affiliated with other faith traditions.

In 2018, the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City had been a longtime member of the network, then called the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, when Coakley withdrew the faith organization from the statewide coalition, which continues to include the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma United Methodist Conference and several Black faith denominations, among others. In his statement regarding the matter, Coakley cited what he deemed as coalition leadership’s shift from ecumenism to secular politics as the reason for his decision.

Fleck, who continues to reside in Oklahoma, said she had only been on the job a few months, and she felt that Coakley had pre-judged her and her work when he withdrew the archdiocese from the faith coalition. She said she is hoping in his new role at the helm of the USSCB, Coakley will see the importance of working with people with who he disagrees, for the sake of the common good.

“It was disappointing that he walked away from a table that sought to bring diverse voices together in dialogue, and I would hope that as he chooses to lead in this capacity, he is intentional about being in spaces with people that do not agree with him because that makes us better leaders,” Fleck said.

Read story at The Oklahoman

U.S. Bishops elect Archbishop Paul Coakley, a known enabler of abusive priests, as president

This afternoon, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) selected Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley as their next president. 

“While it is not surprising that the USCCB has once again chosen a leader who has kept known abusers in ministry and misled Catholic families, survivors are furious that the U.S. bishops will take direction from a man with a history of minimizing criminal sexual assault and endangering the public,” said SNAP Board President Shaun Dougherty.

In 2016, SNAP criticized Coakley after he issued a statement justifying his assignment of Father José Davila to a parish, five years after Davila entered a guilty plea for three counts of sexual battery of a 19-year-old woman in his home. San Diego prosecutors charged Davila when the victim alleged he touched her buttocks, put his finger in her vagina, and touched her left breast against her will. 

In his statement, Coakley argued Davila had “accepted the consequences of his lack of judgement” and that Davila understood his “actions were perceived as inappropriate.”

Coakley only removed the priest after widespread public outrage from Oklahoma Catholics and abuse survivors, citing vague “new information” he refused to disclose.

During his tenure as Archbishop of Oklahoma City, Coakley allowed at least two priests later identified as “credibly accused” by the archdiocese to serve in parishes without any apparent restrictions on their ministry. 

  • Father Benjamin Zoeller was laicized in 2011 for abuse of a minor. A victim from Minnesota contacted the archdiocese in 2018, shocked and outraged that Zoeller was permitted to serve as a volunteer in one of Coakley’s parishes. The victim’s brother had previously contacted the archdiocese in 2006 regarding Zoeller. 
  • A victim filed a lawsuit against Father James Mickus in 2002 after reporting his rape and sexual abuse to the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City through a hotline. Mickus was investigated and reinstated by the archdiocese, serving at more than a dozen parishes across the Oklahoma City metro area. Under Coakley’s leadership, Mickus served almost eight years until he was removed in 2018. 

“Today’s announcement only reinforces what we already know: survivors waiting for justice should not look to the USCCB,” said Peter Isely, a longtime spokesperson and activist with SNAP. “Only public exposure and action on the part of civil society will force the U.S. bishops to remove offenders and disclose the vast amount of criminal evidence of rape and sexual assault in their possession.”

Sex abuse lawsuit against Libasci dismissed after mediation

InDepth NH, Damien Fisher, October 31, 2025

Bishop Peter Libasci (Matthew Lomanno Photography)

The New York sex abuse lawsuit filed against Manchester Bishop Peter Libasci is getting dismissed weeks after the case was sent to mediation.

Lawyers for the defendants, Libasci and the Roman Catholic order the Sisters of St. Joseph, and the estate of the alleged victim, Charles O’Connor, filed a joint stipulation this month in Suffolk County Supreme Court in New York to dismiss the case with prejudice. The agreement to permanently dismiss the case comes weeks after Judge Leonard Steinman sent the lawsuit to mediation.

Michael Connolly, Libasci’s attorney, said in an email Saturday: “The civil lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court in Suffolk County against Bishop Peter Libasci of the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, has been dismissed with prejudice.

“The allegations in the lawsuit were false. Bishop Libasci never abused anyone. The proof revealed as much during the course of the lawsuit, and the lawsuit has been discontinued with prejudice and without Bishop Libasci paying any money,” Connolly said.

Manchester’s Communications Director Tara Bishop sent InDepthNH a brief statement: “The Diocese of Manchester is not a party to the lawsuit filed against Bishop Libasci.”

O’Connor filed his lawsuit against Libasci in the summer of 2021, but the case was frozen by the bankruptcy proceedings involving the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island. The diocese filed bankruptcy after being hit with hundreds of child sex abuse lawsuits. Libasci served as the auxiliary bishop in Rockville Centre until he took over Manchester in 2011.

O’Connor died last summer before a federal bankruptcy court approved Rockville Centre’s $323 million settlement with the survivors. After O’Connor’s passing, his estate took up the claims against Libasci and the organizations connected to the alleged abuse.

The bankruptcy settlement resulted in three defendant organizations named in O’Connor’s lawsuit getting dismissed; the Saints Cyril and Methodius Roman Catholic Church, the Saints Cyril and Methodius, and there Our Lady of Guadalupe School. That left Libasci and the Sisters of St. Joseph to face O’Connor’s accusations.

The parish and parochial schools where Libasci was assigned were named as defendants, as O’Connor’s lawsuit states the parish and school officials should have known Libasci should not have been around children.

O’Connor claimed the abuse happened when he was an altar boy in the 1980s, while Libasci was a parish priest. The lawsuit alleges Libasci groped the 13-year-old boy. Libasci has maintained his innocence since news of the lawsuit first broke. Libasci’s legal team filed a motion in 2021 that denies all of the allegations.

Under church law, Libasci now faces an internal investigation into the abuse claim, known as a Vos Estis investigation. That investigation is being handled by Worcester, Massachusetts Bishop Robert McManus. Under the internal process, the Vos Estis investigation cannot start until the civil lawsuit is resolved. Worcester diocesan spokesman Ray DeLisle has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Sarah Pearson, with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said O’Connor, lay Catholics, and the rest of the public deserve more than the Vos Estis investigation.

“We don’t put a lot of stock in the accuracy of those investigations that are conducted by the Vatican,” Pearson said.

McManus is a problematic figure for sex abuse survivors, Pearson said, and should not be in charge of investigating a fellow bishop.

“He has his own history of actions related to concealing abuse,” Pearson said,

In 2023, McManus released a report on sex abuse allegations made in the Worcester diocese going back to 1950 which did not include the names of any credibly accused priests. The report also claimed that just one abuse case occurred in Worcester after 1998.

Pearson wants to see an independent third party investigation take over and make its findings public.

“We just want to see the truth come out,” Pearson said.

Whatever the outcome of the Worcester investigation, Libasci’s term in Manchester is coming to a close. He turns 74 in November, and the Vatican imposes a retirement age for priests and bishops when they turn 75.

Read story at InDepth NH

Pope Leo’s first major appointment is a reversal on progress toward zero tolerance

September 26, 2025 — Today, the Vatican announced that Pope Leo XIV has appointed Archbishop Filippo Iannone, prefect of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, to head the Dicastery for Bishops.

Peter Isely, SNAP’s Global Advocacy Chair said:

“Iannone’s promotion sends a chilling message to abuse victims around the world, not only to expect advancement toward zero tolerance to be blocked, but a rollback on the hard-fought progress of clergy abuse survivors and advocates over the years. It was Iannone who shaped the church law on sexual abuse to guarantee that zero tolerance for abusers, and accountability for the bishops who covered it up, would never be included. Leo is putting the oversight and management of bishops in the hands of a man who has fought to enshrine the concealment of abusers in Vatican policy.”

This announcement comes just one week after Leo used his first public interview to redirect the conversation on abuse to “false accusations” and “priests’ rights” after throwing cold water on any hope for a zero tolerance law that would permanently remove abusers from ministry and institute a mechanism by which bishops could be held responsible for facilitating and concealing abuse.

As head of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, Iannone took significant actions to stop progress toward zero tolerance:

  • He “updated” descriptions of criminal abuse in church law to ensure priests could not be subjected to a mandatory zero tolerance law for sexual abuse. Such a law would require the permanent removal from ministry or the priesthood of any cleric proven to have raped or sexually assaulted children or vulnerable adults.

  • Earlier this year, the Dicastery for Legislative Texts instructed bishops to avoid publishing news that could damage the reputation of priests accused of rape and sexual assault, emphasizing the potential to harm their “good reputation” and privacy, even in cases where the church possesses ample evidence of sex crimes and their concealment from the public.

  • In response to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) of England and Wales, the English and Welsh bishops wrote to the Vatican in 2021 requesting a removal of language in canon law defining the rape and sexual assault of children as a violation of the Sixth Commandment (“Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery”). The Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts refused to remove this language, continuing to define child victims of rape and sexual abuse as co-conspirators in adultery.

The pope’s appointment of Iannone to one of the Vatican’s most powerful dicasteries underscores why survivors cannot rely on Pope Leo to reform the Vatican. Civil governments and the international community must act to hold the Holy See accountable for the grave human rights violations identified by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee against Torture. Without external accountability, under Pope Leo’s leadership, the Vatican will continue to shield predators, deny justice to survivors, and endanger future generations.

Quincy mayor under fire for linking clergy sex abuse crisis to ‘homosexual issues’

Boston Globe, Travis Andersen, September 25, 2025

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch in 2023 (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

Mayor Thomas P. Koch of Quincy came under fire this week for comments he made linking the clergy sex abuse scandal to homosexuality.

Koch, who is Catholic, made the comments Monday during an interview with Dan Rea on WBZ News Radio.

When Rea at one point criticized the Catholic church over its response to the abuse crisis, chronicled extensively in a 2002 Boston Globe Spotlight team investigation, Koch said, “That was mostly homosexual issues, not pedophilia.” After Rea mentioned adolescent victims, Koch said pedophilia is defined as attraction to “a younger age” than a teenager.

Koch’s comments were swiftly condemned by Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney who has long represented victims of clergy sex abuse.

“For the Mayor of Quincy to blame mostly homosexual issues for the Catholic Church scandal is baseless, ill-advised, and harmful to victims or survivors,” he said in a statement. “After my review over the decades of thousands of Catholic Church documents involving childhood clergy sexual abuse, I have discovered no evidence to support the Mayor’s assertion.”

Such comments contradict “the evidence and [are] disrespectful to courageous clergy sexual abuse victims,” he said.

Koch told the Quincy-based Patriot Ledger that he was “inartful” in his comments, while also citing studies that he said showed most abuse victims were teenage boys.

“Having said that, I don’t believe that homosexual abuse is higher than heterosexual,” Koch said, adding that “if I offended anybody, I apologize. That was never the intent. … I have gay friends and relatives and all. I treat everybody the same.”

Koch could not immediately be reached for comment.

He was also criticized by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, which said Wednesday that it was “appalled” by his comments.

“The conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia has been repeatedly refuted by medical and scientific experts,” the group said in a statement. “Mayor Koch’s comments serve to scapegoat gay men, imply that middle-school and high-school boys are not actually victims of abuse, and completely dismiss every girl or woman who has been assaulted in the Catholic Church.”

During the interview with Rea, Koch said he believes the church has been unfairly singled out in the press for its abuse issues, which have also arisen in areas such as youth sports and schools.

“The church was not very popular with the secular media,“ Koch told Rea. ”They took a beating. … You don’t read about it every day when it happens around the country in other circumstances.”

Koch had come onto Rea’s show mainly to discuss a lawsuit filed by a group of Quincy residents seeking to block the installation of two Catholic statues outside the public safety building. The suit remains pending.

Read story at the Boston Globe

Documentary brings Father Marko Rupnik abuse allegations to big screen

Catholic News Agency, Francesca Pollio Fenton, Hannah Brockhaus, September 20, 2025

“Nuns vs. The Vatican” includes the detailed stories of Gloria Branciani (left) and Mirjam Kovac, two of three former members of the Loyola Community in Slovenia in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Father Marko Rupnik, a co-founder of the community, is accused of having committed sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse against dozens of women religious. (Filippo Piscopo/Film2 Productions)

A documentary on Father Marko Rupnik’s alleged abuse of consecrated women, the personal fallout for two of his alleged victims, and what happened when the claims became public decades later premiered at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month.

“Nuns vs. The Vatican” includes the detailed stories of Gloria Branciani, Mirjam Kovac, and Klara (identified only by her first name), three former members of the Loyola Community in Slovenia in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Rupnik, a co-founder of the community, is accused of having committed sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse against dozens of women religious.

Through the stories of Branciani and Klara, the film, which premiered Sept. 6, argues that Rupnik’s alleged abuse was inextricably linked to his religious art. It also claims he was protected in the Catholic Church, in which he shot to stardom in the 1990s, and interviews experts who say the Vatican’s response has been inadequate.

Branciani was part of the Ignatius Loyola Community in Slovenia, which was co-founded by Rupnik in the 1980s. In the documentary, she recalls how Rupnik allegedly groomed and then sexually and psychologically abused her in the early ’90s and how the abuse was intricately connected with the creation of his art.

According to Branciani, her complaints about Rupnik went unanswered, she was punished by the community’s mother superior at the time, Ivanka Hosta, and forced out of religious life by Father Tomáš Špidlík, a Czech cardinal and Jesuit who died in 2010. Špidlík, who was close to Rupnik and the priest’s art and spirituality center in Rome, the Centro Aletti, allegedly wrote the resignation letter on her behalf.

In addition to testimony from the alleged victims and their lawyer, it includes the voices of journalists, psychologists, and other abuse experts, including Barbara Dorris, a former director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), who was sexually abused by a priest between the ages of 6 and 13.

Dorris and Laura Sgrò, a lawyer for some of Rupnik’s alleged victims, are highly critical of the Church hierarchy’s response to clerical sexual abuse throughout the documentary.

No one from the Vatican participated in the documentary. The film said requests for comment from Rupnik and the former head of the Loyola Community, Hosta, were ignored.

Sarah Pearson, a spokesperson for SNAP, said in a statement to CNA that “SNAP is proud of the legacy of Barbara Dorris, a longtime leader and tireless advocate for the 1 in 3 nuns who experience sexual abuse by priests.”

Pearson continued: “The case of Jesuit priest Father Marko Rupnik illustrates this catastrophe with tragic clarity. Despite overwhelming reports of abuse, Rupnik was shielded for years — kept in ministry through the Vatican’s intervention under Pope Francis. Only after prolonged public outrage was he finally subjected to a canonical process.”

Italian Lorena Luciano directed the film. It was produced by Filippo Piscopo. “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay is among the documentary’s executive producers.

A spokesperson for “Nuns vs. The Vatican” told CNA the documentary will continue to be shown at film festivals in North America, and they are working on getting a screening at the Vatican.

“We are also waiting to see whether Pope Leo will push for the ecclesiastical trial against Rupnik to happen in the fall,” a spokesperson for the production company added.

Earlier this year, the Vatican removed artwork by Rupnik from its official websites. Digital images of the Slovenian priest’s sacred art, which were frequently used by Vatican News to illustrate articles of the Church’s liturgical feast days, are no longer found on the digital news service.

The changes to the Vatican News and the Dicastery for Communication websites came soon after Pope Leo XIV met with members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on June 5.

Read story at the Catholic News Agency

Madison priest was set to escort young adults on Rome trip despite allegations of abuse

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Laura Schulte, September 4, 2025

Patricia Moriarty, left, speaks about an assault at the hands of Fr. Andrew Showers last year in Chicago. She is comforted by advocate Sarah Pearson, right. (Laura Schulte/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

MADISON – Despite reports of abuse involving a priest in the Madison Diocese, officials were planning to allow him to escort a group of young adults to Rome next year, according to the diocese’s social media.

Andrew J. Showers’ arrest in Clintonville last month on suspicion of child sex crimes came after the diocese had already received complaints about his behavior, including a report of an assault of a young woman in Chicago last year.

At a Sept. 4 media conference, Patricia Moriarty said Showers approached her and her friends at a social event, introduced himself as a priest, then groped her underneath her clothes before sharing his business card with her.

Moriarty’s father, John Moriarty, said he called the diocese at least five times reporting the abuse, but was unable to speak directly with Bishop Donald Hying. John Moriarty did reach someone at the diocese and reported the abuse, he said. The family reported the incident to the Chicago Police, who conducted an investigation.

Patricia Moriarty said she wanted to share her story after hearing of Showers’ arrest to hold the diocese accountable and show others they knew the priest had assaulted others before.

“I made the decision to share my story in hopes that others will feel empowered and encouraged to speak their truth as well,” she said. “In my experience, this decision was far from easy. It meant revisiting an experience that left me feeling powerless, that I knew staying silent would only protect those who are selfish and wrong.”

Peruvian woman who alleges Pope Leo XIV mishandled her sexual abuse case visits Chicago

Ana María Quispe Díaz of Chiclayo, Peru, says a priest there assaulted her when she was 9 years old.

Chicago Sun-Times, Kaitlin Washburn, July 31, 2025

Ana María Quispe Díaz of Chiclayo, Peru, speaks about her experience in Peru during a news conference Thursday in the Loop by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to hear from sexual abuse survivors. (Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times)

A Peruvian woman assaulted by a priest alleges Pope Leo XIV, while he was a bishop in Peru, neglected to investigate her case.

Ana María Quispe Díaz of Chiclayo, Peru, appeared publicly for the first time in downtown Chicago alongside advocates from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a group representing survivors of clergy abuse.

“I have been quiet since the pope was elected, but I am not planning on being quiet forever,” Díaz, 29, told reporters Thursday through a translator.

Díaz alleges she was abused by a priest in Chiclayo when she was 9 years old. Her two sisters were also assaulted by the same priest. In April 2022, she said, the three sisters brought their allegations to Robert Prevost, who was then Bishop of Chiclayo.

“He told us how much he appreciates us for coming forward,”Díaz said. “He told us, ‘You are very brave and I believe you.’”

But Prevost never opened an investigation into the priest, Díaz alleged.

Vatican officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Vatican ended its own 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 by church procedures in investigating the allegations in at least one of the cases.

Last summer, the new bishop at the Diocese of Chiclayo said their case was “improperly handled” and opened an investigation, according to SNAP, the network of survivors. But the priest, who continued to work for the church, is now able to voluntarily retire from ministry and the investigation has been delayed, said Sarah Pearson, a spokesperson for SNAP.

“For all the bishops and cardinals in the Catholic church who have been a part of the cover-up, there needs to be accountability,” Pearson said Thursday. “That accountability is not going to come through the church itself. Civil society needs to demand this type of change.”

SNAP has repeatedly called on the Vatican to enshrine in canon law that the Catholic church has zero tolerance for sexually assaulting children and any clergy member who does so should be permanently removed from the church. That’s currently the standard in the United States but not globally.

In addition to the zero-tolerance law, SNAP demands the Vatican provide reparations for survivors, enter into international legal agreements, and establish an independent panel of survivors and experts overseeing how bishops handle abuse cases.

Peter Isley, global affairs chair for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, comforts Ana Maria Quispe Diaz as she speaks about her experience in Peru during a SNAP news conference Thursday in the Loop to hear from sexual abuse survivors. (Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times)

Read story at the Chicago Sun-Times

 

Is Pope Leo a man of action on sexual abuse cases? Or the opposite?

The New York Times, Julie Turkewitz, Simon Romero, Mitra Taj and Elisabetta Povoledo, June 28, 2025

Newspapers in Chiclayo the day after the selection of a new pope was announced by the Vatican. (Tomás Munita/New York Times)

The contrasts are glaring.

In one case, Pope Leo XIV — then known as Bishop Robert Prevost — sided with victims of sexual abuse, locking horns with powerful Catholic figures in Peru. He sought justice for victims of a cultlike Catholic movement that recruited the children of elite families and used sexual and psychological abuse to subordinate members.

In another case, Bishop Prevost was accused of failing to sufficiently investigate claims by three women that they had been abused by priests as children. The accused were two priests in Bishop Prevost’s diocese in a small Peruvian city, including one who had worked closely with the bishop, according to two people who work for the church.

As Leo assumes the papacy, becoming leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, his handling of clergy sexual abuse will be closely scrutinized, and the two cases have left him open to starkly diverging judgments — praise for helping victims in one, claims that he let them down in the other.

In the first, victims have hailed as heroic his work taking on the ultraconservative group, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, which had grown more influential after Pope John Paul II gave it his pontifical stamp of approval.

Breaking with other powerful Catholic figures in Peru, Bishop Prevost arranged talks between victims and church leaders and helped those who suffered abuse to get psychological help and monetary settlements. As he rose through the Vatican’s ranks, Bishop Prevost kept raising the pressure on Sodalitium, which was ordered to disband only weeks before he became the first American to lead the Catholic Church.

In the second case, in the northern Peruvian city of Chiclayo, the three women and victims’ advocates say, Bishop Prevost conducted a superficial investigation that led the Vatican to close the case relatively quickly.

They also say that despite a church order prohibiting one of the accused priests, the Rev. Eleuterio Vásquez, from practicing amid the inquiry, he continued leading public Masses.

Photographs and video posted on Facebook and verified by The New York Times showed Father Vásquez leading church ceremonies during the investigation, raising questions among some critics about what oversight, if any, Bishop Prevost put in place to ensure that victims were protected from a potential abuser.

Vatican guidelines discourage “simply transferring” an accused priest to another parish while an investigation is ongoing.

Bishop Prevost also appointed a priest, the Rev. Julio Ramírez, to counsel the women. Father Ramírez warned them that they should not expect much accountability from Rome because their abuse had not involved “penetration.”

“I don’t want it to sound bad,” Father Ramírez told one of the women in a recorded telephone conversation, a copy of which was obtained by The Times. “Nor are we defending him. But since it hasn’t reached a situation — I know what you’ve experienced is traumatic — but it hasn’t reached a situation of rape, it seems that they’ve given priority to other cases.”

The Vatican says Bishop Prevost followed church protocol after the women went to him with their abuse claims, conducting an initial investigation and sending his findings to Rome, where a final decision would be made.

Ulices Damián, a lawyer for the Chiclayo diocese, said it was “false” that the bishop did nothing to help the women. “He acted in accordance with the procedures,” he said.

The Times also identified a second case of a priest accused of abusing a minor who was able to continue his clerical duties for years while Bishop Prevost led the diocese in Chiclayo — even after the church ordered him to cease work in his parish while an investigation was conducted.

The Vatican has struggled to rebuild trust after years of clergy misconduct and what advocates for abuse victims say has been a woeful response by church leaders.

The Vatican’s existing rules to protect children, even if the pope followed them when he was in Chiclayo, are one of the fundamental problems, advocates say, failing to provide full accountability or justice.

Activists have asked for changes that include a universal zero-tolerance law, which would permanently remove from ministry clergy who are found guilty by a church tribunal of abuse or covering up wrongdoing. Currently, only Catholic authorities in the United States has imposed such standards. The law would also mandate independent oversight of bishops handling abuse cases.

In Leo’s past, some see a man who will take strong steps against abuse. Some of Sodalitium’s victims say the criticism of his actions in Chiclayo has been exaggerated and amplified by forces favorably disposed to Sodalitium, as an act of retaliation.

“He was never at all an indifferent, indolent or cowardly bishop,” said Pedro Salinas, a journalist and Sodalitium abuse victim.

But others look at the pope’s time in Chiclayo and see a man who will push few boundaries when it comes to rooting out abuse.

“Survivors don’t trust him,” said Peter Isely, a founding member of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “He’s going to have to prove his trust and he’s going to have to bend over backwards to prove it.”

The reporting stunned the Catholic establishment.

Just as Bishop Prevost took over as leader of the Chiclayo diocese in 2015, two Peruvian journalists released a book containing shocking details about Sodalitium, which was founded in 1971 by a layman, Luis Fernando Figari.

The book, “Half Monk, Half Soldier,” by Mr. Salinas and Paola Ugaz, said the group evolved into a fanatical far-right movement with a culture of sexual abuse.

In a subsequent independent probe, investigators, including a former F.B.I. official, found that Mr. Figari would use a whip with metal points to punish members, make his dog bite them, burn them with a lit candle and make them wear a belt that caused electric shocks.

In interviews with The Times, several survivors said few church leaders in Peru were willing to take their claims seriously.

Of those who did, “the most important was Robert Prevost,” said Oscar Osterling, who recalled Mr. Figari summoning him as a youth, making him strip naked and filming him.

Dozens of victims eventually came forward.

Sodalitium members included Archbishop José Antonio Eguren, a powerful church leader in the northwest city of Piura, a three-hour drive from Chiclayo.

In 2018, Bishop Prevost helped organize a meeting in Lima, the capital of Peru, between senior clergy and Sodalitium victims, helping them obtain mental health counseling and financial payments, victims said.

For a bishop in the Peruvian church, taking such measures was trailblazing. For years, prominent Catholic clergy opted to look the other way even as victim after victim came forward with harrowing tales of sexual, physical and psychological abuse by Sodalitium’s leaders.

Then, in April 2023, Francis brought Bishop Prevost from Chiclayo to the Vatican, where he was appointed to run an influential department overseeing the selection of many new bishops. Francis also made him a cardinal that year.

Soon, the Vatican sent two top investigators to Peru to look into claims against Sodalitium.

Part of their inquiry focused on Archbishop Eguren, who Ms. Ugaz had said was involved in a scheme, together with companies tied to Sodalitium, to drive poor farmers off their lands.

One of the Vatican investigators, Msgr. Jordi Bertomeu, told Spanish news media that Cardinal Prevost had played an “essential” role in taking on Sodalitium, including demanding that Archbishop Eguren resign.

The archbishop did, stepping down in April 2024.

But Bishop Prevost was already facing a different challenge.

Though he was called a champion for victims of Sodalitium, the three women from a working-class neighborhood in Chiclayo who claimed they had been victims of clerical abuse say they received very different treatment.

It started with a visit they made to the future pope in 2022.

As children, they told Bishop Prevost, they had been abused by two priests in the diocese. One, Father Vásquez, had taken two of the girls to a mountain retreat on separate occasions, they later told a news outlet, Cuarto Poder, and he had gotten into bed with them.

“He started lifting me up and rubbing me on him,” one of the women told the television program. She was 11 at the time, according to the news report, and said she did not understand what was happening.

One of the women, Ana María Quispe, now 29, has since spoken out extensively on TikTok and Facebook and in Peruvian media, and said she had decided to go to Bishop Prevost because she was haunted by the idea that her silence might have let an abuser continue to do harm.

“This could happen to my daughter,” she said on TikTok. “I can’t stay quiet — no more cowardice.”

Ms. Quispe said on TikTok that Bishop Prevost told the women he believed them and even encouraged them to report the abuse to civil authorities, which they did.

But then, Ms. Quispe said, not much seemed to happen.

The diocese claimed in public statements that Father Vásquez had been “prohibited” from celebrating Mass amid an investigation.

Social media posts reviewed by The Times, however, showed Father Vásquez continuing to participate publicly in Mass at least three times during the period the Vatican said an inquiry was being conducted. He was even photographed jointly officiating Mass with Bishop Prevost.

In abuse cases, Vatican guidelines instruct church leaders to conduct an initial investigation and send their findings to Rome. The Vatican suggests that leaders assemble testimony and establish basic facts, but gives them broad latitude in deciding what to report to higher-ups.

A spokesman for the Vatican, Matteo Bruni, said Bishop Prevost’s investigation went “beyond the requisites” and included receiving a written report from the women and searching the archives of the diocese for similar accusations against Father Vásquez.

Prosecutors in Peru closed their civil investigation in 2022, according to the diocese, the same year the women went to Bishop Prevost with their accusations, because the claims went back so many years that they fell outside the statute of limitation. Prosecutors declined to comment.

The Vatican closed its own investigation into the women’s claims in August 2023, citing the decision by civil authorities and a lack of evidence.

In the other case in Chiclayo identified by The Times, the diocese had ordered a priest, the Rev. Alfonso Raúl Obando, accused of sexually abusing a minor, to stop any clerical work in his parish.

But more than a dozen Facebook posts identified by The Times, many of them from the period when Bishop Prevost led the diocese, showed the priest continuing to work as a priest — often with children. In one instance, Father Obando used a church Facebook page to ask children to to send him their photographs directly on WhatsApp.

The Vatican recently stripped Father Obando of his clerical status, but he has continued working in Chiclayo. Father Obando did not respond to calls and text messages seeking comment.

Ms. Quispe was outraged over the handling of her case and, starting in November 2023, began speaking out on online, accusing church leaders of failing to deliver justice or accountability and laying part of the blame on Bishop Prevost.

“They always protect them,” she said on TikTok of accused priests, giving them “total freedom to continue doing harm with no repercussions.”

An intermediary eventually put the frustrated women in touch with the Rev. Ricardo Coronado, a priest with conservative leanings who had been photographed socializing with Sodalitium members.

It was Father Coronado who connected the women with the news program Cuarto Poder, he said in an interview, which further amplified the critique of Bishop Prevost.

Similar criticism of Bishop Prevost had already been ramping up in Peruvian media, especially on conservative websites like La Abeja, which had tried to discredit investigations into Sodalitium.

Some Sodalitium victims said they believed the group was behind these efforts, effectively weaponizing the women’s claims to target Prevost.

“They mounted a smear campaign against Prevost, just as they did against me,” said Rocío Figueroa, 57, who said she was sexually abused by a Sodalitium leader when she was 15.

Father Coronado’s involvement in the case was brief. After a few months representing the women, he was defrocked amid separate claims of misconduct.

In the interview, he maintained that he was defrocked to remove him from the case. He also insisted that he had not acted on behalf of Sodalitium to represent the women.

A lawyer for the women declined to comment. The church declined to make Father Vásquez available for an interview.

A second priest accused by Ms. Quispe has a degenerative illness, the diocese said in a statement, and “is unable to defend himself, so no case can be opened against him.”

In late 2023, citing Ms. Quispe’s decision to speak out, the Chiclayo diocese said it had reopened the investigation into Father Vásquez.

With the case continuing, Father Vásquez recently asked to leave the priesthood, according to a person with direct knowledge of the case. The person asked not to be identified, fearing retaliation from the church. Father Vásquez is awaiting a decision from the Vatican.

Mr. Coronado, the defrocked canon lawyer, said he believed the new pope had mishandled the women’s claims in Chiclayo — not out of malice, but because of inexperience.

“The pope is another human being,” he said. “He’s not God.”

Read story at the New York Times