Survivor of clergy sex abuse in Peru visits pope’s hometown to call for more reforms

A crucifix is silhouetted against a stained glass window inside a Catholic Church in New Orleans, Dec. 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

CHICAGO — A Peruvian survivor of clergy sex abuse brought her public campaign for reforms to the American hometown of Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, saying he failed in investigating her case when he was a bishop in her home country and needs to step up now as leader of the world’s Catholics.

“I’ve been quiet since the pope has been elected,” Ana María Quispe Díaz said in Spanish at a news conference in downtown Chicago. “But I’m not planning to be quiet forever.”

She appeared with members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). The advocacy group sent a letter to the pope on Thursday renewing demands for more accountability on clergy sex abuse complaints and released documents related to Díaz’s case.

The Associated Press doesn’t name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to being identified or decide to tell their stories publicly, as Díaz has. She began speaking out on social media in 2023, and has faced threats and harassment in Peru because of it, SNAP officials said.

Ahead of Leo’s May election, SNAP filed a formal complaint against then-Cardinal Robert Prevost with the Vatican secretary of state, alleging he abused ecclesiastical power in his handling of two cases.

Díaz said she is a victim in one of those cases which overlapped with Prevost’s tenure as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru. According to the complaint filed in March by SNAP, Prevost’s diocese didn’t fully investigate in April 2022 when three women accused priests Eleuterio Vásquez Gonzáles and Ricardo Yesquén of sexually abusing them as minors.

Díaz said Thursday that she had spoken briefly with Prevost on the phone in 2020, telling him how she was abused by Vásquez Gonzáles, but wasn’t given assurances that much could be done. All three women spoke with Prevost in person in 2022 about both priests, according to Díaz.

“How much more damage can he do now that he is the pope?” she asked, speaking through a translator.

Following a protocol set by Pope Francis

But Prevost did everything he was supposed to do, according to the Chiclayo diocese and Vatican, including restricting the priest’s ministry, sending a preliminary investigation to the Vatican’s sex crimes office, offering the victims psychological help and suggesting they go to authorities, who archived the case because it happened too long ago.

Pope Francis had a mixed record on responding to the clergy sexual abuse crisis, bungling a major case in Chile in 2018 before reversing course, ordering an investigation and apologizing to the victims. Ultimately, it became a turning point for how he directed the church to handle cases of priests sexually abusing children for the rest of his papacy.

In these cases, the Vatican investigation found Prevost acted correctly in imposing preliminary restrictions on Vásquez Gonzáles while Peruvian authorities conducted their own civil investigation. The Vatican office archived the case for lack of evidence, then reopened it in 2023 after it gained traction in the media.

Victims’ groups are demanding an accounting from Leo. Meanwhile, his supporters say the Chiclayo case is being exploited by his opponents to undermine him after he made enemies by helping shut down Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a scandal-plagued lay Catholic community in Peru.

No one has accused Leo of abuse himself, nor of knowingly keeping confirmed abusers in public ministry, which has been the biggest issue affecting the Catholic Church recently.

SNAP wants this accused priest removed ASAP

SNAP has asked for accused priests to be removed, which Díaz has sought as well.

The organization provided copies of letters sent in July between Peruvian church officials and Díaz. In them, Peruvian church officials say Vásquez Gonzáles requested earlier this year “to be dispensed from the obligations arising from his ordination as a priest and to leave the clerical state.”

The process would take at least six months to complete, according to the letters. Díaz said that’s too long.

Fidel Purisaca, director of communications for the Diocese of Chiclayo, neither confirmed nor denied Vásquez Gonzáles’ request. “That is a confidential matter between the priest, the bishop, and the Vatican Dicastery,” he told The Associated Press in a WhatsApp message.

The diocese said Yesquén was too sick to continue his ministry, and neither priest has commented publicly on the accusations.

While in Chicago, Díaz did interviews with Spanish language media and for podcasts. She also appeared at SNAP’s annual conference in Pennsylvania last week.

Now 29 and a mother of two young children, Díaz said she still isn’t always ready to talk about it. But she said something changed when her daughter turned 1.

“Everything came back to me about the abuse,” she said, wiping tears at times. “I couldn’t leave her alone. Since then it’s been a real fight for me to be able to leave them alone.”

___

Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield in Rome and Franklin Briceño in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.

Sophia Tareen, The Associated Press