Abuse survivors to press Church on accountability during pope's trip to South America
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survivors → press → America
As Pope Leo prepares to return to South America, Peruvian abuse survivor Pedro Salinas sees reason for both hope and unease in the pope’s record confronting clerical abuse.
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Salinas → prepare → abuse
For a decade, Salinas watched as the Catholic Church investigated Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, the Peru-founded Catholic community he helped expose.
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he → watch → Vitae
Then, in the final days of Pope Francis' papacy last year, the Vatican dissolved the group and its branches.
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Vatican → dissolve → group
"What was achieved, nobody, absolutely nobody, could even have imagined.
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nobody → achieve → ?
But it happened," said Salinas, 63, a journalist and former member whose reporting helped expose allegations of sexual, physical and psychological abuse inside the group.
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reporting → happen → group
Robert Prevost, as Leo was known when he was a bishop in Peru and later a Vatican cardinal, quietly worked with survivors and advocates, Salinas said, attending meetings, gathering information and communicating by WhatsApp and email.
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Salinas → know → WhatsApp
"Without him, the needle didn't move," Salinas said.
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Salinas → move → him
The first US-born pope will travel through Uruguay, Argentina and Peru November 6 to 17, ending with six days in Peru, where he arrived as a missionary in the 1980s and later became a citizen and served as bishop of Chiclayo.
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he → bear → Chiclayo
The Vatican said he will meet clergy abuse survivors there, as he has done on other recent trips.
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he → say → trips
Survivors say they wonder whether Leo's approach in Peru, which they credit with helping bring about the rare step of dissolving a Catholic community, can translate into broader change across a Church where they say accountability is uneven.
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accountability → say → Church
“What is lacking are bishops everywhere in the world committed to this issue," Salinas said.
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Salinas → lack → issue
Peru is preparing for a tourism bonanza during Leo's visit.
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Peru → prepare → visit
José Enrique Escardó, 56, president of a Peruvian survivors network, views the excitement from a different perspective.
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Escardó → view → perspective
While Escardó acknowledged that some survivors credit Leo with helping dissolve Sodalitium, he said the Church's actions have not delivered sufficient justice, accountability or reparations.
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actions → acknowledge → justice
“Survivors have grown tired of being told things, of being promised things, but nothing being done,” Escardó said.
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Escardó → grow → things
“We feel more abandoned.
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We → feel → ?
We feel deceived.”
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We → feel → ?
He wants survivors to become involved in shaping Church policy and wants reparations to include psychological care and education.
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reparations → want → care
The Vatican did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
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Vatican → respond → story
'TIP OF THE ICEBERG'
Francis, the first Latin American pope, left a complicated legacy, survivors say.
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survivors → leave → legacy
Juan Carlos Cruz, the survivor whose case became central to Francis' 2018 reckoning with abuse in Chile, credits Francis with changes including revisions to canon law, removal of the pontifical secret — the Church's highest level of confidentiality — surrounding abuse cases and Vos Estis Lux Mundi, a Vatican framework for bishops accused of abuse or cover-up.
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case → become → abuse
"We're still at the tip of the iceberg," said Cruz, whom Francis appointed in 2021 to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
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Francis → say → Minors
"The commission has been working for years on universal safeguarding guidelines and those standards need to be applied around the world."
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of the watchdog group BishopAccountability.org, which tracks Catholic Church abuse allegations worldwide, called Vos Estis the most significant action Francis took on abuse.
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Francis → work → abuse
But she said the Vatican rarely makes clear whether an accused bishop's resignation represents punishment.
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resignation → say → punishment
“The public is left in the dark,” she said.
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she → leave → dark
Barrett Doyle said the Vatican has not released global disciplinary data comparable with figures it provided to a United Nations committee in 2014.
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it → say → 2014
Her group relies on public records, media reports and investigations by prosecutors, governments and commissions to track cases.
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group → rely → cases
She wants Leo to make permanent removal from ministry the universal rule for priests found under canon law to have sexually abused children, extending worldwide a policy adopted by US bishops in 2002.
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removal → want → 2002
"To say that no child molesters should be out to practice as priests is just such a no-brainer," she said.
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she → say → priests
“It's a step that Leo could take now.”
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Leo → take → that
Vatican officials have previously cited the difficulty of creating a single abuse reporting law across all countries and argued that removing priests can put them beyond Church supervision.
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removing → cite → supervision
Angela Walker, executive director of the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said survivors increasingly turn to civil authorities because of the Church's "incredible failure" to police itself.
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survivors → base → itself
"There needs to be more transparency, more openness, and more accountability," she said.
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she → need → ?
"I will believe it when I see it.
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I → believe → it
In Mexico, survivors pressed the Vatican on clerical abuse decades before it became a defining crisis across Latin America.
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it → press → America
Among the most notorious cases was that of Marcial Maciel, the Mexican priest who founded the Legion of Christ order and whose accusers took allegations to the Vatican in the 1990s.
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accusers → found → 1990s
The Vatican ordered Maciel in 2006 to withdraw from public ministry.
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Vatican → order → ministry
He died in 2008, without ever facing his accusers.
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He → die → accusers
The scale of his abuse became clearer after his death.
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scale → become → death
…and 13 more, not listed.
The Aporia
