Ettore Ferrari / Epa
The newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, USA
In 2023, the newly elected Pope Leo XIV was involved in a great controversy-when three women victims pedophilia accused him of taking time to react to the complaints in relation to two Peruvian priests.
In March, well before it was known that it would become Pope, the Network of Survivors of Abuse by Fathers (SNAP) sent a letter to the Vatican leadership, detailing the conduct of the American cardinal, in two separate incidents of sexual abuse by priests. The association required an investigation.
According to, the letter detailed accusations of “inaction” During his time as a provincial Augustinian in the US and as Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, where Prevost was from 2014 to 2023.
The letter claimed that Prevost did not investigate serious complaints of sexual abuse to children – Including in a case of three Minors Peruvians who said their complaints were ignored and poorly treated.
À Will County Gazette, Eduardo Lopez de Casassurvivor of clerical abuse and national vice president of Snap, based in Chicago, tells the story of former president and priest of Providence Catholic H.S., Richard McGrathwho says he had predost green light to stay in that school, even in the midst of a sexual abuse scandal dating from the 1990s.
The former president and director of Providence Catholic H.S.McGrath, who worked at school from 1985 to 2017, was finally fired in 22017, after a student reported seeing an image of a naked boy on his mobile phone.
However, Houses Lopez states that Prevost covered McGrath, “allowing him to abuse students for more than a decade before his resignation in 2017.”
The other case reported is from the priest James Rayaccused of sexual abuse in Waukegan and Wauconda (USA), which prevost allegedly allowed to live in the zone where the sexual crimes was carried out.
“Prevost was accomplice”
“With PREVOST, we definitely don’t want to go to another situation where a cardinal who has bad things in the closet becomes Papa,” Lopez of houses told the newspaper even before the election.
“Because this is like a stab in the back of each victim. Survivors around the world should not have to see men Responsible for coverings reach the top of the Catholic Church“” If a priest knew of the abuses and said nothing, “he saw himself and was silent – he is not a good priest. It was complicit“He added.
“A priest doesn’t have to touch a child to be bad”
SNAP recently launched an initiative called to denounce Pope candidates who, according to the organization, covered sexual abuse. Among them was PREVOST.
“In any other organization, if someone is involved in covering, it is removed. But in the Catholic Church, these people continue to climb the hierarchy. And that’s unique. It is part of the reason why the church is in decline. And people are starting to realize,” Lopez of houses said.
A 2025 report from the University of Georgetown Document University 16,276 complaints of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the US until 2023. Most involved abuse that began before 1980.
