Two contrasting cases raise questions of Pope Leo's actions on sex abuse

Chiclayo, Peru: The contrasts are glaring.

In one case, Pope Leo XIV -- then known as Bishop Robert Prevost -- sided with victims of sexual abuse, locking horns with powerful Catholic figures in Peru. He sought justice for victims of a cultlike Catholic movement that recruited the children of elite families and used sexual and psychological abuse to subordinate members.

In another case, Prevost was accused of failing to sufficiently investigate claims by three women that they had been abused by priests as children. The accused were two priests in Prevost's diocese in a small Peruvian city, including one who had worked closely with the bishop, according to two people who work for the church.

As Leo assumes the papacy, becoming leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, his handling of clergy sexual abuse will be closely scrutinized, and the two cases have left him open to starkly diverging judgments -- praise for helping victims in one, claims that he let them down in the other.

In the first, victims have hailed as heroic his work taking on the ultraconservative group, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, which had grown more influential after Pope John Paul II gave it his pontifical stamp of approval.

Breaking with other powerful Catholic figures in Peru, Prevost arranged talks between victims and church leaders and helped those who suffered abuse to get psychological help and monetary settlements. As he rose through the Vatican's ranks, Prevost kept raising the pressure on Sodalitium, which was ordered to disband only weeks before he became the first American to lead the Catholic Church.

In the second case, in the northern Peruvian city of Chiclayo, the three women and victims' advocates say, Prevost conducted a superficial investigation that led the Vatican to close the case relatively quickly.

They also say that despite a church order prohibiting one of the accused priests, the Rev. Eleuterio Vásquez, from practicing amid the inquiry, he continued leading public Masses.

Photographs and video posted on Facebook and verified by The New York Times showed Vásquez leading church ceremonies during the investigation, raising questions among some critics about what oversight, if any, Prevost put in place to ensure that victims were protected from a potential abuser.

Vatican guidelines discourage "simply transferring" an accused priest to another parish while an investigation is ongoing.

Prevost also appointed a priest, the Rev. Julio Ramírez, to counsel the women. Ramírez warned them that they should not expect much accountability from Rome because their abuse had not involved "penetration."

"I don't want it to sound bad," Ramírez told one of the women in a recorded telephone conversation, a copy of which was obtained by the Times. "Nor are we defending him. But since it hasn't reached a situation -- I know what you've experienced is traumatic -- but it hasn't reached a situation of rape, it seems that they've given priority to other cases."

The Vatican says Prevost followed church protocol after the women went to him with their abuse claims, conducting an initial investigation and sending his findings to Rome, where a final decision would be made.

Ulices Damián, a lawyer for the Chiclayo diocese, said it was "false" that the bishop did nothing to help the women. "He acted in accordance with the procedures," he said.

The Times also identified a second case of a priest accused of abusing a minor who was able to continue his clerical duties for years while Prevost led the diocese in Chiclayo -- even after the church ordered him to cease work in his parish while an investigation was conducted.

The Vatican has struggled to rebuild trust after years of clergy misconduct and what advocates for abuse victims say has been a woeful response by church leaders.

The Vatican's existing rules to protect children, even if the pope followed them when he was in Chiclayo, are one of the fundamental problems, advocates say, failing to provide full accountability or justice.

Activists have asked for changes that include a universal zero-tolerance law, which would permanently remove from ministry clergy who are found guilty by a church tribunal of abuse or covering up wrongdoing. Currently, only Catholic authorities in the United States have imposed such standards. The law would also mandate independent oversight of bishops handling abuse cases.

In Leo's past, some see a man who will take strong steps against abuse. Some of Sodalitium's victims say the criticism of his actions in Chiclayo has been exaggerated and amplified by forces favorably disposed to Sodalitium, as an act of retaliation.

"He was never at all an indifferent, indolent or cowardly bishop," said Pedro Salinas, a journalist and Sodalitium abuse victim.

But others look at the pope's time in Chiclayo and see a man who will push few boundaries when it comes to rooting out abuse.

"Survivors don't trust him," said Peter Isely, a founding member of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "He's going to have to prove his trust and he's going to have to bend over backwards to prove it."

'Half Monk, Half Soldier'

The reporting stunned the Catholic establishment.

Just as Prevost took over as leader of the Chiclayo diocese in 2015, two Peruvian journalists released a book containing shocking details about Sodalitium, which was founded in 1971 by a layman, Luis Fernando Figari.

The book, "Half Monk, Half Soldier," by Salinas and Paola Ugaz, said the group evolved into a fanatical far-right movement with a culture of sexual abuse.

In a subsequent independent probe, investigators, including a former FBI official, found that Figari would use a whip with metal points to punish members, make his dog bite them, burn them with a lit candle and make them wear a belt that caused electric shocks.

In interviews with the Times, several survivors said few church leaders in Peru were willing to take their claims seriously.

Of those who did, "the most important was Robert Prevost," said Oscar Osterling, who recalled Figari summoning him as a youth, making him strip naked and filming him.

Dozens of victims eventually came forward.

Sodalitium members included Archbishop José Antonio Eguren, a powerful church leader in the northwest city of Piura, a three-hour drive from Chiclayo.

In 2018, Prevost helped organize a meeting in Lima, the capital of Peru, between senior clergy and Sodalitium victims, helping them obtain mental health counseling and financial payments, victims said.

For a bishop in the Peruvian church, taking such measures was trailblazing. For years, prominent Catholic clergy opted to look the other way even as victim after victim came forward with harrowing tales of sexual, physical and psychological abuse by Sodalitium's leaders.

Then, in April 2023, Pope Francis brought Prevost from Chiclayo to the Vatican, where he was appointed to run an influential department overseeing the selection of many new bishops. Francis also made him a cardinal that year.

Soon, the Vatican sent two top investigators to Peru to look into claims against Sodalitium.

Part of their inquiry focused on Eguren, who Ugaz had said was involved in a scheme, together with companies tied to Sodalitium, to drive poor farmers off their lands.

One of the Vatican investigators, Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, told Spanish news media that Prevost had played an "essential" role in taking on Sodalitium, including demanding that Eguren resign.

The archbishop did, stepping down in April 2024.

But Prevost was already facing a different challenge.

'I Can't Stay Quiet'

Though he was called a champion for victims of Sodalitium, the three women from a working-class neighborhood in Chiclayo who claimed they had been victims of clerical abuse say they received very different treatment.

It started with a visit they made to the future pope in 2022.

As children, they told Prevost, they had been abused by two priests in the diocese. One, Vásquez, had taken two of the girls to a mountain retreat on separate occasions, they later told a news outlet, Cuarto Poder, and he had gotten into bed with them.

"He started lifting me up and rubbing me on him," one of the women told the television program. She was 11 at the time, according to the news report, and said she did not understand what was happening.

One of the women, Ana María Quispe, now 29, has since spoken out extensively on TikTok and Facebook and in Peruvian media, and said she had decided to go to Prevost because she was haunted by the idea that her silence might have let an abuser continue to do harm.

"This could happen to my daughter," she said on TikTok. "I can't stay quiet -- no more cowardice."

Quispe said on TikTok that Prevost told the women he believed them and even encouraged them to report the abuse to civil authorities, which they did.

But then, Quispe said, not much seemed to happen.

The diocese claimed in public statements that Vásquez had been "prohibited" from celebrating Mass amid an investigation.

Social media posts reviewed by the Times, however, showed Vásquez continuing to participate publicly in Mass at least three times during the period the Vatican said an inquiry was being conducted. He was even photographed jointly officiating Mass with Prevost.

In abuse cases, Vatican guidelines instruct church leaders to conduct an initial investigation and send their findings to Rome. The Vatican suggests that leaders assemble testimony and establish basic facts, but gives them broad latitude in deciding what to report to higher-ups.

A spokesperson for the Vatican, Matteo Bruni, said Prevost's investigation went "beyond the requisites" and included receiving a written report from the women and searching the archives of the diocese for similar accusations against Vásquez.

Prosecutors in Peru closed their civil investigation in 2022, according to the diocese, the same year the women went to Prevost with their accusations, because the claims went back so many years that they fell outside the statute of limitation. Prosecutors declined to comment.

The Vatican closed its own investigation into the women's claims in August 2023, citing the decision by civil authorities and a lack of evidence.

In the other case in Chiclayo identified by the Times, the diocese had ordered a priest, the Rev. Alfonso Raúl Obando, accused of sexually abusing a minor, to stop any clerical work in his parish.

But more than a dozen Facebook posts identified by the Times, many of them from the period when Prevost led the diocese, showed the priest continuing to work as a priest -- often with children. In one instance, Obando used a church Facebook page to ask children to send him their photographs directly on WhatsApp.

The Vatican recently stripped Obando of his clerical status, but he has continued working in Chiclayo. Obando did not respond to calls and text messages seeking comment.

Disappointment and Anger

Quispe was outraged over the handling of her case and, starting in November 2023, began speaking out on online, accusing church leaders of failing to deliver justice or accountability and laying part of the blame on Prevost.

"They always protect them," she said on TikTok of accused priests, giving them "total freedom to continue doing harm with no repercussions."

An intermediary eventually put the frustrated women in touch with the Rev. Ricardo Coronado, a priest with conservative leanings who had been photographed socializing with Sodalitium members.

It was Coronado who connected the women with the news program Cuarto Poder, he said in an interview, which further amplified the critique of Prevost.

Similar criticism of Prevost had already been ramping up in Peruvian media, especially on conservative websites like La Abeja, which had tried to discredit investigations into Sodalitium.

Some Sodalitium victims said they believed the group was behind these efforts, effectively weaponizing the women's claims to target Prevost.

"They mounted a smear campaign against Prevost, just as they did against me," said Rocío Figueroa, 57, who said she was sexually abused by a Sodalitium leader when she was 15.

Coronado's involvement in the case was brief. After a few months representing the women, he was defrocked amid separate claims of misconduct.

In the interview, he maintained that he was defrocked to remove him from the case. He also insisted that he had not acted on behalf of Sodalitium to represent the women.

A lawyer for the women declined to comment. The church declined to make Vásquez available for an interview.

A second priest accused by Quispe has a degenerative illness, the diocese said in a statement, and "is unable to defend himself, so no case can be opened against him."

In late 2023, citing Quispe's decision to speak out, the Chiclayo diocese said it had reopened the investigation into Vásquez.

With the case continuing, Vásquez recently asked to leave the priesthood, according to a person with direct knowledge of the case. The person asked not to be identified, fearing retaliation from the church. Vásquez is awaiting a decision from the Vatican.

Coronado, the defrocked canon lawyer, said he believed the new pope had mishandled the women's claims in Chiclayo -- not out of malice, but because of inexperience.

"The pope is another human being," he said. "He's not God."