Groups supporting clergy-molestation survivors say they are gravely concerned and insulted by the election of Pope Leo XIV after he overcame questions about his handling of clerical sexual abuse cases earlier in his career to become the Roman Catholic church’s first-ever US-born leader.
Before Robert Prevost’s ascent to the papacy at age 69, he was leading a chapter of the Augustinian religious order in his home town of Chicago when allegations surfaced that a priest and Catholic high school principal under his jurisdiction had molested at least one student as well as kept child-abuse imagery.
Prevost reportedly allowed that cleric to continue in his role despite the allegations, though the Augustinian order later paid a multimillion-dollar settlement to the abuse survivor and in December booted the priest from the order.
Meanwhile, Prevost also did not impede another priest – whose ministry had been restricted in the wake of allegations that he abused minors – from living at an Augustinian residence that was near a Catholic elementary school. And, while serving as a bishop in Peru, Prevost heard from three women who accused two priests there of sexually abusing them as minors and have since claimed there is no evidence that much was done to investigate the cleric.
That history prompted the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) to file a complaint against Prevost in March under church legislation implemented by the late Pope Francis that provided potential disciplinary measures against bishops who were found to have turned a blind eye to abuse of both children and adults considered vulnerable.
The complaint did not prevent Leo from being elected on Thursday after a short conclave at the Vatican, which prompted Snap to quickly issue a statement expressing “grave concern about his record managing abuse cases”.
“You can end the abuse crisis,” Snap’s statement said of Leo, who has not been accused of abuse himself and had previously headed the Vatican entity in charge of selecting new bishops from around the world. “The only question is: will you?”
In a separate statement, the Survivors of Childhood Sex Abuse (SCSA) said Leo’s election was “an insult” given that he was produced by the same Catholic hierarchy that has failed to grapple with the scale and systemic nature of the global church’s decades-old clergy molestation scandal.
“The Catholic hierarchy has not merely mishandled abuse allegations – it industrialized the process,” the SCSA’s statement said. “Pope Leo XIV … was in the rooms for all of it.”
Both organizations urged Leo to implement a true zero-tolerance policy with respect to taking action against clergy abuse claims as well as to provide victims of the scandal with reparations from church assets, among other demands.
Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney who represented abuse survivors amid the clergy molestation scandal depicted in the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight, added: “The Catholic church has to understand that the safety of innocent children cannot be sacrificed for an outdated and inexcusable need to protect the reputation of the Catholic church.”
The Vatican’s press office did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the statements from Snap and SCSA. It has generally maintained that Prevost is free of any wrongdoing or followed canonical norms in the clergy abuse cases he has confronted.
Some of the scrutiny surrounding Prevost’s handling of those cases dates back to his 11-year tenure leading the Augustinian order’s midwest chapter in Chicago beginning in 1999. During that time, claims reportedly surged that the principal of Providence Catholic high school in New Lenox, Illinois, which was part of Prevost’s territory, had molested a student and possessed images of child abuse on his phone.
Prevost – who was also the Augustinians’ worldwide leader for 12 years beginning in 2001 – left the principal, an Augustinian priest named Richard McGrath, in his post, a decision he has not explained, as the Chicago Sun-Times has previously reported.
McGrath retired in 2017 after being faced with an investigation into the claims against him.
The abused student, Robert Krankvich, then sued in 2018. And in late 2023 the church agreed to pay him $2m – before Krankvich died in April at age 43.
“Money doesn’t bring happiness,” Krankvich’s father, also named Robert, said to the Sun-Times. “It gave him no closure.”
During Krankvich’s lawsuit, McGrath declined to answer whether or not he possessed child abuse images, invoking his constitutional right against self-incrimination, the Sun-Times reported. Yet McGrath denied molesting Krankvich and was kept off a list of alleged Augustinian abusers published in 2024, though he resigned in light of the claims against him.
Nonetheless, in a statement issued on Tuesday, the Augustinians confirmed McGrath had been expelled from their order, according to New Lenox’s Patch news website.
The Augustinians reportedly did not disclose the factors behind McGrath’s dismissal, which occurred in December but was first reported on the eve of the start of the two-day conclave that vaulted Prevost to the papacy.
Separately, in 2000 and still early in Prevost’s stint as the midwestern US Augustinian chapter, the order stationed a member priest named James Ray in its St John Stone Friary in Chicago. The friary was adjacent to an elementary school, and since 1991, Ray was restricted from working around children because of accusations that he had molested minors. Survivors groups say those moves are not indicative of an organization doing everything it can to protect children. The Vatican has reportedly countered that Prevost was not the one who authorized Ray’s living arrangements at the friary.
Prevost subsequently spent eight years as the bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, beginning in 2015. According to a statement that they issued, three women told Prevost directly that they had allegedly been abused as minors by local priests named Eleuterio Vásquez González and Ricardo Yesquén.
But the women said they had no evidence any meaningful investigation into their claims ensued, and at one point they published several images showing Vásquez publicly celebrating mass on important occasions such as Easter despite purported assurances to them that he was suspended from such ministry, as the National Catholic Reporter noted in reporting on a case rife with conflicting claims.
Chiclayo’s diocese reportedly said the Vatican agency which investigates clerical sexual abuse cases found insufficient evidence to substantiate the accusers’ allegations – and that local law enforcement authorities reached a similar conclusion, in part citing the lapse of an applicable statute of limitations.
One of the accusers, Ana María Quispe, lamented in Spanish to the Peruvian television news program Cuarto Poder: “They have always told us the church is our mother – but a mother protects.”
For its part, Chiclayo’s diocese reportedly said “it is not true” that Prevost and the church “turned its back on the alleged victims”. The diocese reportedly said the accusers remained free to pursue complaints in civil court and have a standing offer of church-provided “psychological help if they required it”.
Francis, who died on 21 April, made Prevost a cardinal in September 2023. A reputation as a “moderating influence” among the ideologically disparate bishops in Peru evidently helped Leo clinch the papacy – somewhat unexpectedly – on Thursday.
