Pope Leo has been accused of failing to properly investigate allegations of child sexual abuse against priests in his churches in Chicago and Peru.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) says it made the Vatican aware of Robert Prevost’s reported inaction on the allegations when he was a cardinal, filing an official complaint with Vatican officials against him in March. The group says it has not had a response.
The allegations focus on Leo not opening a formal church investigation into claimed sexual abuse carried out by two priests in the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, which the pontiff led from 2014 to 2023, as well as allowing a priest accused of sexually abusing children in Chicago to live near a school.
The Independent has approached the Vatican for comment.
In the first instance, three Peruvian women who alleged abuse against a local priest dating back to 2007, as well as against another priest, claimed that, under Leo’s watch in 2022, the Diocese downplayed details and documentation of their story after they sent it to the Vatican.
They also alleged that, in downplaying the claims, the Diocese intentionally prevented the church from taking action against the accused priests.
“The allegations ... are particularly significant, since Prevost's current post as head of the Dicastery for Bishops oversees complaints and investigations of episcopal negligence in abuse cases around the world,” The Pillar, a Catholic news outlet investigating the church, reported in a September 2024 article.
The outlet claims that Leo met the accusers in April 2022 and encouraged them to take their case to the civil authorities while the church investigated.
The church’s investigation was reportedly “shelved for lack of evidence and because the statute of limitations had expired”.
The Vatican has reportedly denied any wrongdoing in this case.
The second claim concerns allegations that Leo failed to notify St Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church, an elementary school in Chicago, that an Augustine priest accused of abusing children had moved to a friary half a block away.
That priest remained near the school for two years. He was relocated only after the US Conference of Catholic Bishops passed a law to keep priests suspected of abuse far away from children.
In the letter sent by Snap to the Vatican in March, the group requested that Vatican officials “conduct a thorough investigation” into Leo’s involvement in the two instances.
It has since called for the new pontiff to take "decisive action" within his first 100 days against sexual abuse within the church, including passing a zero-tolerance law and establishing a reparations fund supported by church assets.
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