CHICAGO (IL)
The Tablet [Market Harborough, England]
August 5, 2025
By Bess Twiston Davies
‘I have been quiet since the Pope was elected, but I am not planning on being quiet forever,’ said Ana María Quispe Díaz at an event in Chicago.
A Peruvian woman assaulted by a priest aged nine said the future Pope Leo XIV failed to investigate her allegations while he was bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo.
Ana María Quispe Díaz and her two sisters reported being sexually molested by two priests in the diocese to Robert Prevost, then Bishop of Chiclayo, in April 2022.
“He told us how he appreciates us for coming forward,” Quispe said last week, speaking in Chicago. “He told us, ‘You are very brave, and I believe you.”
Speaking through a translator, Quispe continued: “Prevost never investigated, Prevost never offered us psychological support.”
“I have been quiet since the Pope was elected, but I am not planning on being quiet forever,” said the 29-year-old, who spoke surrounded by advocates from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
The Diocese of Chiclayo has denied Quispe’s version of events, saying Prevost commissioned a preliminary investigation into the allegations whose findings he submitted to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on 21 July 2022.
In a statement last year, the diocese said the sisters had initially attended a diocesan “listening centre” for abuse victims opened by Prevost. They decided – Quispe said on Prevost’s advice – to open a civil claim against one priest accused of assault.
The Vatican closed its inquiry into the case in 2023 after civil authorities in Peru said the allegations were beyond the statute of limitations. Prevost informed them of the outcome.
Last summer, Prevost’s successor as Bishop of Chiclayo Edinson Edgardo Farfán Córdova said the Quispe sisters’ case had been “improperly handled” and opened a fresh investigation.
According to a spokesperson for SNAP, one priest accused of molesting the sisters continued to work for the church and is now about to voluntarily retire from the priesthood. The new inquiry has been delayed.
“For all the bishops and cardinals in the Catholic church who have been a part of the cover-up, there needs to be accountability,” said SNAP’s spokesperson Sarah Pearson. “That accountability is not going to come through the Church itself. Civil society needs to demand this type of change.”
The Vatican informed The New York Times last year that Prevost had done more than had been then required by Church procedures and investigated at least one of the cases.