Pope Leo XIV has been accused of mishandling allegations of child sex abuse.
The accusations refer to allegations before Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost’s election as the 267th leader of the Catholic Church.
Cardinal Prevost is said to have failed to properly investigate multiple claims made against Catholic priests in Peru and, according to reports in the US, gave refuge to an accused paedophile in a monastery without informing a nearby school in Chicago.
As leader of Chicago’s Augustinian Province in 2000, he apparently allowed Father James Ray, an Augustinian priest whose ministry had been suspended nine years previously over allegations of child abuse, to stay at the St John Stone Friary in the city.
Cardinal Prevost did not tell the nearby Catholic school that Father Ray had been installed there, according to the Chicago Sun Times.
Father Ray’s name was later added to a list of “abusive clerics and religious brothers” by the Illinois attorney general, which claimed he had at least 13 alleged victims between 1974 and 1991 at different locations in the state.
Elsewhere in Illinois, in nearby New Lenox, the Augustinians also ran the Providence Catholic High School, which was headed by Father Richard McGrath.