PROVIDENCE, RI, March 4, 2026 – SNAP applauds the courage and perseverance of every survivor and witness who came forward to share their testimony with investigators in the Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha’s investigation into clergy sexual abuse in the Diocese of Providence.
“Survivors’ willingness to speak the truth made this report possible,” said Angela Walker, SNAP’s Executive Director, at today’s report launch in Providence. “SNAP stands in solidarity with all Rhode Island survivors, including those who were unable or chose not to participate. This report has been years in the making and proves the tenacity and perseverance of Rhode Island’s survivors who would not remain silent and demanded accountability.”
The Attorney General’s findings confirm what survivors have said for decades: leaders of the Catholic Church in Rhode Island repeatedly endangered their congregations, giving known sex offenders full access to children and the vulnerable and moving them from parish to parish, resulting in a prolonged campaign of preventable sexual violence.
SNAP strongly condemns church officials who obstructed justice by refusing to be interviewed and by withholding their full cooperation to investigators. Claims that the Church has now “cooperated” with this investigation are highly questionable when investigators were only permitted access to documents curated by the diocese, limited to a self-selected list of priests the Church had already publicly named, while critical evidence of criminal abuse and institutional cover-up was withheld. The Attorney General stated that 10 new names were revealed during their investigation, and four arrests were made.
SNAP also strongly urges immediate action by the Rhode Island General Assembly to address the unfinished business of justice. Last year, the House passed legislation to open a civil window for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse to seek accountability from institutions that enabled their abuse. The Senate’s previous refusal to take up this legislation denied survivors their day in court. In light of the Attorney General’s findings, there can be no justification for further delay in the new legislative session.
SNAP actively believes that survivors, their families, and the people of Rhode Island deserve complete transparency and a full accounting of what happened, who knew and how abuse was allowed to persist.
You can find a link to the presentation delivered today at the press conference by Rhode Island State’s Attorney, Peter Neronha, as well as the full report.
A dedicated clergy abuse hotline has been set up by the Rhode Island State Police Special Victim’s Unit: 401-764-0142. In their own words at today’s press conference, “It’s never too late” to report.
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.
SYRACUSE, NY, February 26, 2026 – SNAP extends its steadfast support to all survivors of the Diocese of Syracuse, both those who participated in the bankruptcy proceedings and those whose voices were never heard in court.
The process remains profoundly unjust, allowing those responsible for decades of abuse to hide behind the shield of debt without exposing the truth of what happened to every single one of the 411 survivors in this case. 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 and achieve some measure of accountability.
Although an independent arbiter will be in charge of distributing the $176 million to survivors, SNAP is dismayed that the ability to declare bankruptcy gives “control” to the institution that enabled the abuse in the first place. We urge continued accountability for every official – Catholic or otherwise – whose actions allowed abusers to harm children and vulnerable people.
“It is ludicrous to convert years of pain suffered by hundreds of abuse survivors into a dollar figure,” said Angela Walker, SNAP Executive Director. “As every survivor is destined for a lifetime full of anguish, any complaint by the Catholic Church of financial hardship brought by a settlement is insensitive at best.”
SNAP stands with all survivors of Syracuse on this important day, and we applaud their ongoing courage and persistence.
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.
CAMDEN, NJ, February 18, 2026 – After years of legal battles and initial resistance from the Diocese of Camden, a $180 million settlement has been agreed to covering the cases of 330 survivors.
The agreement was announced today in a letter to parishioners by Bishop Joseph Williams. The settlement is pending approval by a US Bankruptcy Court judge. The diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2020 after the state expanded its statute of limitations on clergy abuse claims resulting in lawsuits spanning decades of abuse.
“SNAP applauds the determination and strength of the many survivors who saw this through, demanding accountability, justice and the truth about those that have abused our trust,” said Mark Crawford, who leads SNAP’s work in New Jersey and is himself a survivor of clerical abuse.
The resolution announced by the diocese and its insurers marks an important step toward long-overdue accountability and healing. For years, survivors endured painful court proceedings while carrying the lifelong burden of abuse inflicted upon them as children by trusted members of their faith community. SNAP deeply respects the courage of the survivors who came forward to tell their stories of profound betrayal.
Crawford recognized the leadership of Bishop Williams, whose commitment to resolving this matter helped bring these protracted negotiations to a conclusion. While no financial settlement can erase the trauma suffered, this agreement represents a meaningful effort to provide some measure of justice and to affirm that the suffering of survivors will not be ignored.
Equally important are the nonmonetary commitments, including the promise to release all the files of clerics credibly accused of abuse. SNAP hopes that this resolution contributes to continued transparency and accountability by the church as well as the continued healing of survivors.
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.
NEW YORK, NY, February 12, 2026 – SNAP condemns the Diocese of Brooklyn’s intention to pursue a global resolution of all of its approximately 1,100 remaining cases. This effort to settle more than a thousand cases in one fell swoop is merely a mechanism designed to block accountability through the courts, shielding church records from disclosure and church officials from sworn testimony.
SNAP rejects Bishop Robert J. Brennan’s premise that summary resolution will protect victim-survivors from the strain of individual court cases. This effort’s true aim is one of damage control, capping liability and suppressing the full truth about decades of abuse and cover-up.
The legal process of summary settlements shuts out survivors entirely from being heard, compounding their trauma and forcing them through mass dismissal. Survivors are reduced to claim numbers, their testimony muted, and their pain negotiated behind closed doors. SNAP stands in unwavering solidarity with all those harmed in New York, those who have long been waiting for accountability only to see proceedings that prioritize the institution’s assets over human dignity and no path to justice.
“Global settlement cannot repair the trauma inflicted by sexual abuse or decades of institutional cover-up,” said Angela Walker, SNAP’s Executive Director. “Courts must hold the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York fully accountable under the law. Survivors deserve more than summary settlements – they deserve justice, transparency, and consequences for institutions that permitted clergy to commit devastating acts of sexual violence with impunity.”
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.
WASHINGTON, DC, February 11, 2026 – The DOJ document release reveals that SNAP was a topic of discussion between Epstein and economist, Larry Summers, in early 2013.
Their conversation concerned SNAP’s work to initiate an investigation by the International Criminal Court into the pope and three Vatican officials over sexual abuse.
That these two men of privilege were tracking our efforts shows how they perceived SNAP as threatening to their own wrongdoing.
“It is clear that when those in power have something to hide, they closely watch global efforts to bring abuse into the light,” said Angela Walker, SNAP’s Executive Director. “SNAP continues the fight to hold abusers and their protectors accountable so that no one–not even the elite–can feel free to continue their crimes.”
SNAP stands with all survivors hurt by Epstein and his rich and powerful cronies, Walker said. No one is above the law, and all those who abuse children and women must be held to account. We will continue to ally with them, and all survivors, as they fight to bring their perpetrators and those that protected them, to justice.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 pageIn 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:
A letter of apology for the handling of the case and public statements made by the diocese denigrating Ana María Quispe Díaz’s testimony
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.
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.
