By Olivier Acuña Barba •
Printed: 09 Could 2025 • 22:18
• 3 minutes learn
Allegations he ignored sexual abuse claims beneath his watch have solid a darkish shadow over his papacy | Picture: Marco Iacobucci Epp/Shutterstock
Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, made historical past on Thursday as the primary American pontiff within the Catholic Church’s 2,000-year historical past. 2025. However his ascension is tainted by whispers of a grim previous.
Allegations swirl that he shielded pedophile monks in Chicago and Peru, casting a pall over his papacy. Survivors and advocates demand solutions, their voices uncooked with ache. A survivors’ group accused Robert Prevost of failing to behave upon allegations of abuse within the US and Peru – considerations they relayed to the cardinals who chosen him, the Each day Mail reported on Friday.
“Staying silent is a sin,” Eduardo Lopez de Casas, a sufferer of clergy abuse and nationwide vp of the Survivors Community of these Abused by Monks (SNAP), instructed the Each day Mail. “It’s not what God desires us to do. Jesus desires us to cease this stuff, not make a wholesome backyard for sexual abuse to develop.”
New pope allegedly tolerated a pedophile
Prevost was mentioned to have seemed previous allegations in Chicago, the place he grew up, after Augustinian priest Father James Ray was allowed to dwell on the St. John Stone Friary in Hyde Park regardless of having been faraway from ministering to the general public years prior over accusations of abusing minors, the UK information outlet added.
“It’s a betrayal,” survivor Lopez de Casas instructed the Mail, hoping Pope Leo XIV’s election exposes hidden abuses.
The brand new pope allegedly didn’t notify the heads of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic faculty, an elementary faculty half a block from the friary, as a result of, the church mentioned on the time, Ray was imagined to be intently monitored within the friary.
Faces criticism for ignoring alleged abuses in Peru
Prevost additionally confronted criticism for not having opened a proper church investigation into alleged sexual abuse carried out by two monks within the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, which he led from 2014 to 2023.
SNAP and different teams say they’d made certain the 133 eligible cardinals who chosen him have been conscious of Prevost’s alleged inaction on the allegations.
Prevost led the Augustinians’ Midwest province in Chicago from 1998 to 2010 and globally final yr. Because the Chicago Solar-Occasions reported, the spiritual chief “for years refused to answer a request for remark.”
The 2024 Chicago Solar-Occasions article additionally uncovered a festering wound: Rev. Richard McGrath, Windfall Catholic Excessive College’s president, confronted abuse claims for the reason that Nineteen Nineties.
Beneath Prevost’s watch
A pupil, Robert Krankvich, alleged rape, profitable a $2 million settlement in 2018. But McGrath stayed in his submit beneath Prevost’s watch, and his title was omitted from the
In Peru, as Bishop of Chiclayo (2015–2023), Prevost faces harsher scrutiny. Three sisters accused monks Ricardo Yesquén and Eleuterio Vásquez Gonzáles of 2007 abuse, claiming Prevost ignored their 2022 criticism.
Newsweek reported that the SNAP filed a Vos estis lux mundi criticism in April 2025, alleging that Prevost obstructed investigations in each Chicago and Chiclayo. The Vos esti lux mundi is a Vatican protocol set by Pope Francis in 2019 requiring bishops to research abuse cover-ups.
“He didn’t droop accused monks,” SNAP’s Sarah Pearson mentioned, noting no sufferer testimony was gathered. América Televisión reported the Church’s probe was half-hearted, leaving the sisters stranded.
Prevost’s defenders push again
In keeping with Wikipedia, Chiclayo’s diocese claims he met the sisters, urging civil motion whereas beginning a canonical investigation. In keeping with CNN, the diocese denied the ladies’s allegations, saying that Prevost met with them personally after they filed their preliminary criticism. The diocese mentioned it suspended one priest after the criticism, and that the opposite was not in ministry due to his age and poor well being.
In 2019, Prevost instructed La República, “We reject cover-ups and secrecy,” advocating for victims. His Augustinian tenure noticed youngster safety protocols by 2010, per the Solar-Occasions. But SNAP’s submitting, ignored by the Vatican, fuels doubts. “These are severe allegations,” Pearson instructed Newsweek. “They deserve investigation.”
Proof is murky. Settlements and complaints affirm abuse beneath Prevost’s watch, however no court docket has dominated him complicit. The Solar-Occasions and SNAP level to inaction, not energetic concealment. X posts amplify outrage, with @AshtronautGirl citing Prevost’s Chicago oversight failures.
Nonetheless, with out authorized findings, the cover-up cost teeters on testimony and inference. Leo XIV’s papacy begins beneath a cloud. For survivors, advocates, and lots of Catholics, the demand is obvious: reality, transparency, and a break from the silence that has outlined the Church’s darkest chapters. His mission at present is to unify 1.4 billion Catholics haunted by cries for justice.