By Olivier Acuña Barba •
Published: 09 May 2025 • 22:18
• 3 minutes read
Allegations he ignored sexual abuse claims under his watch have cast a dark shadow over his papacy | Photo: Marco Iacobucci Epp/Shutterstock
Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Francis Prevost, made history on Thursday as the first American pontiff in the Catholic Church’s 2,000-year history. 2025. But his ascension is tainted by whispers of a grim past.
Allegations swirl that he shielded pedophile priests in Chicago and Peru, casting a pall over his papacy. Survivors and advocates demand answers, their voices raw with pain. A survivors’ group accused Robert Prevost of failing to act upon allegations of abuse in the US and Peru – concerns they relayed to the cardinals who selected him, the Daily Mail reported on Friday.
“Staying silent is a sin,” Eduardo Lopez de Casas, a victim of clergy abuse and national vice president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), told the Daily Mail. “It’s not what God wants us to do. Jesus wants us to stop these things, not make a healthy garden for sexual abuse to grow.”
New pope allegedly tolerated a pedophile
Prevost was said to have looked past allegations in Chicago, where he grew up, after Augustinian priest Father James Ray was allowed to live at the St. John Stone Friary in Hyde Park despite having been removed from ministering to the public years prior over accusations of abusing minors, the UK news outlet added.
“It’s a betrayal,” survivor Lopez de Casas told the Mail, hoping Pope Leo XIV’s election exposes hidden abuses.
The new pope allegedly didn’t notify the heads of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic school, an elementary school half a block from the friary, because, the church said at the time, Ray was supposed to be closely monitored in the friary.
Faces criticism for ignoring alleged abuses in Peru
Prevost also faced criticism for not having opened a formal church investigation into alleged sexual abuse carried out by two priests in the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, which he led from 2014 to 2023.
SNAP and other groups say they had made sure the 133 eligible cardinals who selected him were aware of Prevost’s alleged inaction on the allegations.
Prevost led the Augustinians’ Midwest province in Chicago from 1998 to 2010 and globally last year. As the Chicago Sun-Times reported, the religious leader “for years refused to respond to a request for comment.”
The 2024 Chicago Sun-Times article also exposed a festering wound: Rev. Richard McGrath, Providence Catholic High School’s president, faced abuse claims since the 1990s.
Under Prevost’s watch
A student, Robert Krankvich, alleged rape, winning a $2 million settlement in 2018. Yet McGrath stayed in his post under Prevost’s watch, and his name was omitted from the
In Peru, as Bishop of Chiclayo (2015–2023), Prevost faces harsher scrutiny. Three sisters accused priests Ricardo Yesquén and Eleuterio Vásquez Gonzáles of 2007 abuse, claiming Prevost ignored their 2022 complaint.
Newsweek reported that the SNAP filed a Vos estis lux mundi complaint in April 2025, alleging that Prevost obstructed investigations in both Chicago and Chiclayo. The Vos esti lux mundi is a Vatican protocol set by Pope Francis in 2019 requiring bishops to investigate abuse cover-ups.
“He failed to suspend accused priests,” SNAP’s Sarah Pearson said, noting no victim testimony was gathered. América Televisión reported the Church’s probe was half-hearted, leaving the sisters stranded.
Prevost’s defenders push back
According to Wikipedia, Chiclayo’s diocese claims he met the sisters, urging civil action while starting a canonical investigation. According to CNN, the diocese denied the women’s allegations, saying that Prevost met with them personally when they filed their initial complaint. The diocese said it suspended one priest after the complaint, and that the other was no longer in ministry because of his age and poor health.
In 2019, Prevost told La República, “We reject cover-ups and secrecy,” advocating for victims. His Augustinian tenure saw child protection protocols by 2010, per the Sun-Times. Yet SNAP’s filing, ignored by the Vatican, fuels doubts. “These are serious allegations,” Pearson told Newsweek. “They deserve investigation.”
Evidence is murky. Settlements and complaints confirm abuse under Prevost’s watch, but no court has ruled him complicit. The Sun-Times and SNAP point to inaction, not active concealment. X posts amplify outrage, with @AshtronautGirl citing Prevost’s Chicago oversight failures.
Still, without legal findings, the cover-up charge teeters on testimony and inference. Leo XIV’s papacy begins under a cloud. For survivors, advocates, and many Catholics, the demand is clear: truth, transparency, and a break from the silence that has defined the Church’s darkest chapters. His mission today is to unify 1.4 billion Catholics haunted by cries for justice.
