SHOULD LEO RESIGN DUE TO SEX ABUSE COVER-UP?

"Prevost's abuse investigation was a 'joke'."

In my November 23, 2025, article entitled, “Pope Leo is following Francis’ Abuse Cover-Up Playbook,” I wrote, “One reason to suspect a cover-up and an abuse of ecclesiastical power is the fact that Pope Leo recently dispensed Father Eleuterio ‘Lute’ Vásquez González (pictured above), who, along with Father Ricardo Yesquén, was accused of abusing victims defended by Msgr. Ricardo Coronado Arrascue, including Ana María Quispe Díaz.” Another reason I reached this conclusion was that then-Bishop Robert Prevost appeared to have been responsible for the unjust laicization of Msgr. Coronado Arrascue, not only in retaliation for accusing Prevost and members of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference of covering up abuse, but also because he claimed that Prevost revictimized victims like Quispe and her sisters.

Less than two weeks after I published my article, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on December 4, 2025, that they came into possession of an incriminating “recording of a meeting in April between the Rev. Giampiero Gambaro, OFM Cap. with Ana María Quispe Díaz and others accusing certain Peruvian clerics of sexual abuse and cover-ups. The recording revealed that Vásquez, one of Quispe’s abusers, “had confessed to church officials years ago, and in September was granted an ‘honorable discharge’.”

Gambaro, who was carrying out the canonical investigation into Quispe and the other victims’ reports in April 2025, is recorded to have called Prevost’s investigation a “joke” in the presence of the three victims. Gambaro admitted, “They asked [Vásquez] practically nothing. He didn’t answer anything.” Conclave Watch, a Chicago-based advocacy group of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), reported that “These characterizations by the delegate instructor [Gambaro] stand in stark contrast to public statements regarding Quispe and the other victims’ case by Prevost and other high-ranking Catholic officials.”

When asked about this incriminating recording, Vatican officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Accused predator, Father Ricardo Yesquén, is pictured above on the far right with then-Chiclayo Bishop Robert Prevost, along with Father Jorge Luis Sánchez Mora, the Judicial Vicar and Moderator of the Curia for the Diocese of Chiclayo. The January 2023 birthday party for Yesquén took place three years after Prevost was informed of his abusive behavior in 2020, and one year after Prevost met with the victims in 2022 who recounted being sexually assaulted by Yesquén and Vásquez when they were 9, 11, and 14 years old. The photo of Yesquén in clerical dress, along with Facebook photos, shows that both Vásquez and Yesquén continued public ministry during Prevost’s tenure as Bishop of Chiclayo. The birthday celebration took place just before Pope Francis appointed Prevost as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops on January 30, 2023. Prevost was later created a cardinal by Francis on September 30, 2023, less than two years before his papal election on May 8, 2025.

Interestingly, Prevost, as Prefect for the Dicastery for Bishops and as Pope, promoted bishops who, like him, were also guilty of keeping known predators in ministry. Even though former San Diego Father Jacob Bertrand admitted in 2014 to having satanically abused Rachel Mastrogiacomo, then-Bishop Robert McElroy kept him in ministry until August 2016 when Bertrand pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct. Mastrogiamo recently wrote a book, The Devil in Rome, which recounts how she survived satanic ritual abuse and found healing through Christ and the Traditional Latin Mass.

Just as no U.S. Catholic or mainstream media outlet (unlike Premieres Lignes) reported the thousands of abuse cases Pope Francis covered up in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, no U.S. Catholic media source (e.g., EWTN, CNA, NCR, Crux, The Pillar, Catholics for Catholics, Catholic Vote, etc.) reported or reposted what I published two weeks ago about Leo, Vásquez, Yesquén, Quispe, and Coronado Arrascue when I wrote:

“Appearing…in downtown Chicago alongside advocates from SNAP, Quispe said,‘I have been quiet since the pope was elected, but I am not planning on being quiet forever.’ Feeling revictimized by Leo and betrayed like many victims whose abuse is covered up by Church officials, Quispe asked, ‘How much more damage can he do now that he is the pope?’ According to InfoVaticana, Quispe and her two sisters, who accused Leo when he was their bishop of never opening an investigation into their abuse, reported that Leo recently dispensed their abuser, Father Vásquez, in order to avoid a full canonical trial.”

InfoVaticana called attention to the questionable dispensation of Vasquez when it reported,

“Granting Lute a dispensation in the midst of a process that has been blocked for years would be, according to legal experts consulted, an act of institutional cover-up of enormous gravity: it would eliminate any possibility of a sentence, deprive the victims of justice, and send a devastating message about the Church’s tolerance of sexual abuse committed by its clergy.”

Chris Jackson of Hireath in Exile reported how Quispe and her sisters were informed that Pope Leo had dispensed Father Vásquez when he wrote,

“The victims….were summoned in person, without their lawyer. An anonymous church functionary handed them a dirty, folded piece of paper, no envelope, no seal, no case number, telling them Leo had already granted the dispensation. No trial, no sentence, no formal recognition of what was done, no effort to see how many other children were harmed.”

Just as U.S. abuse victims, Lisa Roers and Rachel Mastrogiacomo, never received a response from Pope Francis when they wrote him on September 30, 2024, neither did Ana María Quispe Díaz or her sisters receive a response when they wrote an impassioned letter to Pope Francis on October 24, 2024, accusing “Monsignor Robert Prevost Martínez…[of] assuming a tenacious defense in favor of the priest accused of child abuse, who from the beginning admitted the acts of child abuse, however, the diocese now intends to deny it.” The letter to Pope Francis also made mention of how the Peruvian Episcopal Conference assumed illegal jurisdiction and arbitrarily intervened in their case by preventing their canon lawyer, Msgr. Coronado Arrascue, from representing them. They wrote, “This serious and flagrant act violated our right to have the lawyer of our choice and to exercise our right to defense.”

Recall that I mentioned Coronado Arrascue when I wrote, “Prevost, whom Coronado Arrascue accused of covering up abuse along with other bishops, was also the one who spearheaded efforts to dispose of Coronado Arrascue.” I opined that Coronado Arrascue’s defense of abuse victims, and his accusations of cover-ups by the Pope and other Peruvian bishops, may have been “the real reasons for his laicization as a penalty.”

Any trained investigator or experienced sex abuse victim’s advocate can look at this case and conclude that Pope Leo, with the help of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference, before and after being called to Rome, covered up the abuse of Ana María Quispe Díaz and her sisters. It is for this reason that Peter Isely, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse and a founder SNAP, said at a December 4, 2025, news conference in Chicago, “We cannot have another pope in this institutional system who has covered up child sex crimes. I’ve been at this 35 years, and the only way things change is when there are consequences and accountability.”

Just as Pope Francis lied when he wrote in his 2010 book, On Heaven and Earth, that clerical sex abuse “has never occurred in my diocese,” so too is it clear that Pope Leo XIV and some bishops of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference are lying about Leo’s cover-up of predatory behavior on the part of Fathers Vásquez and Yesquén.

What devout, holy young man or woman wants to be a priest or a nun in an institution where a canon lawyer like Coronado Arrusque, who defends female abuse victims, is laicized, whereas a priest like Father Marko Rupnik, who is accused of raping over twenty nuns while forcing them to drink his semen out of a chalice, is still kept in ministry? What devout Christian man or woman can take pride in being part of a faith group headed by a pope who, after six months in office, has yet to laicize or excommunicate even one of over 160 bishops credibly accused of sexually abusing children and vulnerable adults?

Enough is enough. The Catholic and mainstream media need to stop covering up for Leo as they did for Francis, beginning when he said about his promiscuous homosexual friend, Msgr. Battista Ricca, “Who am I to judge?” Leo needs to do the honorable thing and resign. The cardinals need to reconvene and elect a pope who has never engaged in abuse, covered up abuse, or reprised against someone who reported abuse. Until then, it will be difficult for any informed Catholic to respect a pope like Leo who allows priests like Vásquez, Yesquén, and numerous bishops to get away with abusing children like Quispe and her sisters, and vulnerable adults like seminarians and nuns.

As Christmas draws near, we are asked to be generous in sharing our blessings with others. If you truly appreciate my research and writings, please contribute to the “Save Our Seminarians” Fund that will help safeguard young men from becoming victims of homosexual predation in U.S. Catholic seminaries.

Gene Thomas Gomulka is a sexual abuse victims’ advocate, investigative reporter, author, and screenwriter. A former Navy (O6) Captain/Chaplain, seminary instructor, and diocesan Respect Life Director, Gomulka was ordained a priest for the Altoona-Johnstown diocese and later made a Prelate of Honor (Monsignor) by St. John Paul II. Email him at msgr.investigations@gmail.com.