THE JURY IS STILL OUT ON POPE LEO XIV

Will abuse victims have to endure a fourth pope who will betray them?

Many sex abuse victims and their advocates would say that “the jury is still out” on whether Pope Leo XIV will support them, or protect abusers and bishops who cover up their abuse. Just as the media and the White House staff covered up President Joe Biden’s serious cognitive problems, so too did the mainstream and Catholic media cover up how Pope Francis concealed thousands of abuse cases in Argentina, as documented in Sex Abuse in the Church: Code of Silence, despite having said that sex abuse “never occurred in my diocese.” Counted among those clerics whose abuse and homosexual misconduct he covered up before his election are Julio César Grassi, Napoleon Sasso, Rubén Pardo, Carlos Maria Gauna, Fernando Enrique Picciochi, and others. Francis proved to be equally complicit in protecting predators as pope when he failed, according to BishopAccountability.org, to discipline over 150 bishops worldwide credibly accused of abusing minors and vulnerable adults.

Unlike Pope Francis who was accused by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and an Argentine priest working in the United States of having preyed on Jesuit novices in Argentina between 1973 and 1980, there is no record of Robert Prevost ever being accused of sexual predation or homosexual misconduct before his papal election. Because we are often judged by the company we keep, there is also no record of Pope Leo XIV being close friends with clerics accused of predatory or homosexual behavior like Francis was with “Who am I to Judge?” Monsignor Battista Ricca, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, Bishop Emeritus Gustavo Zanchetta, and Father Marko Rupnik.

According to the Associated Press (AP), victims of a Catholic abuse group reported that “when Robert Prevost was a bishop in Peru, he met with them. He took their claims seriously when others did not. He got the Vatican involved and worked concretely to provide financial reparations for the harm they had endured.” This paints a very different picture of Prevost than the one sketched by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) that submitted a Vos estis lux mundi complaint against him 43 days before the opening of the papal conclave. SNAP claims that “Pope Leo XVI has a history of mishandling cases of sexual abuse committed by priests.” On May 8, 2025, when Prevost emerged on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica as Pope Leo XIV, SNAP published an “Exhortation to the New Pope” in which it asked, “Will the children and the vulnerable of his church have to endure a fourth pope that will betray them and all the innocent entrusted to his care? Or will you be the first pope to end this scourge and heal the open wounds left by the Catholic Church’s long history of sexual violence?”

One way to determine how Pope Leo XIV will respond to these questions is by following specific abuse cases that were covered up during the pontificates of St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis.

Deacon Wiesław Walawender was sex trafficked from Poland in 1989 during the pontificate of St. John Paul II. Not only was he sexually assaulted by then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick at his New Jersey beach house on May 6, 1994, but he was also drugged and sodomized by Msgr. Edward Staub in the rectory of St. John the Evangelist Church in Severna Park, MD on March 23, 1996. Because Vatican officials, as well as Church officials in Buffalo, Newark, and Baltimore have been covering up his egregious abuse for decades as documented in an online report at www.gomulka.net/Walawender.pdf, Walawender wrote to Vice President J.D. Vance on March 10, 2025, suggesting that “the Catholic Church’s work with immigrants is problematic and needs to be discontinued and investigated for criminal activity.”

During the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, Anthony Gorgia from Staten Island, NY, turned down a four-year college scholarship with a monthly stipend to study for the priesthood at a college seminary for the Archdiocese of New York. After graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Master’s in Philosophy, Gorgia was sent to study in Rome at the Gregorian University with residence at the North American College (NAC). During Christmas break of his second year of theology, Georgia was informed by Cardinal Timothy Dolan that he would not be allowed to continue his studies in Rome. Dolan feared that Gorgia would expose sexual grooming he observed by the vice rector, Father Adam Park, and cover-ups on the part of the rector Father Peter Harman. After failing to secure justice from both Vatican and New York archdiocesan officials, Gorgia was compelled to file suit which, after five years, continues to work its way through the New York Appellate Court system.

In 2021, during the pontificate of Pope Francis, Lisa Roers reported being sexually abused by Father Dennis Hanneman to Omaha Archbishop George Lucas. Without reaching out to a second victim that Roers reported to have been abused by Hanneman, Lucas dismissed her allegations as not "credible.” Roers, along with Rachel Mastrogiacomo, another victim of satanic ritual abuse, sent an open letter/video, “The Prayer of the Prey,” to Pope Francis that was opened and read at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C. on September 30, 2024, at 10:35 p.m. When neither Roers nor Mastrogiacomo received a response from either Pope Francis or Cardinal Christophe Pierre, Roers wrote a private letter to Pope Leo XIV which was received and read at the Nunciature on May 22, 2025, at 7:10 p.m. Hoping that Pope Leo XIV will not ignore her plea, Roers wrote, “Tragically, countless clerical abuse victims have become alcoholics, drug addicts, and have committed suicide often after having been revictimized by abuse reporting procedures like Vos estis lux mundi which almost always result in whitewashes where victims’ complaints like mine are fraudulently deemed ‘unsubstantiated’ and predators escape justice….I invite you to read and/or watch our open letters/video to Pope Francis, along with my attached letter to Archbishop Lucas, and prayerfully decide what our Lord, Jesus Christ, would have you do. Rachel, I, and countless abuse victims around the world eagerly await your response.”

I myself wrote a letter to Pope Leo XIV that was received at the Nunciature on May 10, 2025, at 10:50 p.m. In that letter, I gave the Pope a choice when I wrote: “Even though you may feel indebted to cardinals guilty of covering up abuse, you have to choose whether you will side with predators or the victims; with those who cover up abuse or those who report it.” Not knowing if my own “Open Letter to Pope Leo XVI” will be answered and acted upon, I encourage all readers to join me and abuse victims in writing to Pope Leo XIV at nuntiususa@nuntiususa.org and requesting that he implement a “zero tolerance policy” not only by disciplining clerics who prey on minors and vulnerable adults, but also by removing bishops who cover up abuse or retaliate against those who report it.

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Gene Thomas Gomulka is a sexual abuse victims’ advocate, investigative reporter, 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.