Clergy molestation survivors concerned and insulted by election of Pope Leo XIV
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, 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.
“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.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...pe-leo-xiv
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, 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.
“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.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...pe-leo-xiv
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
