LEO IS FOLLOWING FRANCIS’ ABUSE COVER-UP PLAYBOOK

LEO IS FOLLOWING FRANCIS’ ABUSE COVER-UP PLAYBOOK

Laicization used to cover up for abusers and punish whistleblowers 

Diarmuid Martin, after completing his studies for the priesthood in Ireland in 1969, worked in a Dublin parish before being sent to Rome for further studies in moral theology.  Even though we were both pursuing licentiate degrees at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), we didn’t meet in class. Rather, we met through a common friend, Swiss Guard Wachtmeister Hans Roggen.  After attending my diaconate ordination at the North American College in 1973, Diarmuid returned to Ireland only to come back to Rome in 1976 to spend most of his priesthood in the service of the Holy See.  After being made a bishop in 1999 while serving as the Holy See’s Permanent Observer at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Diarmuid was sent home to Ireland and installed as the Archbishop of Dublin in 2004. 

Coincidentally, it was in 2004 that Dominican Father Tom Doyle and I had our ecclesiastical endorsements to serve as military chaplains unjustly revoked by then-Archbishop Edwin O’Brien in retaliation for our work in exposing clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic Church. O’Brien grossly underreported abuse in the Archdiocese for the Military Services and was covering up the sexual predation of chaplains, including Washington Father John “Matt” Lee, who was later arrested and is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence.

If Doyle and I upset Church leaders for siding with abuse victims, so too did Diarmuid Martin suffer “ecclesiastical payback” for exposing clerical abuse and episcopal cover-ups. Martin “dug his political grave” by handing over some 80,000 chancery files to the Murphy Commission which revealed how his three predecessors had been covering up clerical sexual abuse for decades. Because Catholic bishops are promoted for covering up abuse and not exposing it, Pope Francis never made Martin a cardinal like Robert McElroy, even though he was recognized for his outstanding leadership of the largest archdiocese in all of Ireland.

Even though these events took place over 20 years ago, the way Church leaders deal with clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups has not changed. While some Catholics hoped that Pope Leo XIV would do a much better job than Pope Francis in handling the abuse crisis that has destroyed countless millions of lives worldwide, forced over 40 U.S. dioceses and religious orders to file for bankruptcy protection, and led millions of Catholics to leave the Church, it appears that it is only getting worse.

While Leo was the Prefect for the Dicastery for Bishops and later elected pope, he was responsible for the appointment and promotion of bishops like Cardinal Robert McElroy, Archbishop Edward Weisenburger, Bishop James Checchio, and others who are documented to have covered up abuse in San Diego, Washington, D.C., Oklahoma City, Salinas, Tucson, Metuchen, and at the North American College. 

It is no coincidence that out of the 133 cardinals who took part in the recent papal conclave, Cardinal Robert Prevost was one of six cardinal electors accused of engaging in or covering up abuse by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). Based on the way Leo mishandled the case of three Peruvian women who reported being abused as minors in the Diocese of Chiclayo, it is evident that he protects predators and bishops who cover up abuse far more than he cares for victims like Lisa Roers, canon lawyers like Msgr. Ricardo Coronado, or canceled priests like Tom Doyle, myself, and many other whistleblowers identified by BishopAccountability.org.

Abuse victims, Lisa Roers and Rachel Mastrogiacomo, sent an open letter/video to Pope Francis that was never answered. When Roers wrote to Pope Leo and later received a response from the Archdiocese of Omaha, she responded with a letter dated November 11, 2025, that has yet to be answered. Insofar as Leo has failed to discipline even one of the over 160 bishops credibly accused of abuse, Roers questions if Leo will discipline the priest who abused her, or the bishops who have been covering up the abuse she reported in 2003 and 2021. 

The three Peruvian abuse victims who accused Pope Leo of covering up their abuse were represented by Msgr. Ricardo Coronado, who also defended other victims who claimed that various Peruvian bishops, members of the Episcopal Conference of Peru, covered up abuse reported in their dioceses. Interestingly, in response to Coronado’s defense of Peruvian abuse victims, it was reported, “Prevost led that investigation into Coronado-Arrascue’s alleged offense during the future pope’s tenure as head of the Peruvian bishops’ commission.” In other words, Prevost, whom Coronado accused of covering up abuse along with other bishops, was also the one who undertook efforts to dispose of Coronado. Although Coronado was supposedly defrocked on the grounds of sexual harassment, a lack of evidence supporting the allegations and failure to follow due process could lead one to believe that his defense of abuse victims, and accusations of cover-ups by the Pope and other Peruvian bishops, was the real reason for his laicization.

Noting that he never even received proof in writing that he was laicized by the Pope, who alone has the authority to do so, Coronado wrote:

“I cannot accept a resignation ‘instructed’ by the Dicastery for the Clergy without the formalities of a trial, nor the guarantees inherent in a civilized legal system: without respect for the right to a defense, without knowledge of the accusations and the accusers, without respect for the principles of legality and due process. None of this has been observed, and what is worse, I am asked to take a leap of faith to accept what is not even proven: that Bergoglio signed the decree in question. Am I to concede that this manifestly flawed process is valid?”

One reason to suspect a cover-up and an abuse of ecclesiastical power is the fact that Pope Leo recently laicized Father Eleuterio “Lute” Vásquez, who was accused of abusing victims defended by Coronado, including Ana María Quispe Díaz. Appearing on August 28, 2025, in downtown Chicago alongside advocates from SNAP, Díaz said, “I have been quiet since the pope was elected, but I am not planning on being quiet forever.” According to InfoVaticana, Díaz and her two sisters, who accused Leo when he was their bishop of never opening an investigation into their abuse, reported that Leo recently laicized their abuser, Father Vásquez, in order to avoid a full canonical trial. 

According to Chris Jackson, “The victims wrote to Rome begging that no dispensation be granted until a proper investigation and judgment took place. Instead, they 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.”

The way Leo handled Coronado, who accused him of covering up for Vásquez, was similar to the way Francis dealt with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who accused him and other Vatican officials in his August 22, 2018, “Testimony” of covering up for the late ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. By laicizing Vásquez and McCarrick, while laicizing Coronado and excommunicating Viganò, Leo and Francis avoided an investigation which would have included a legal discoveryprocess.  By examining files pertaining to Vásquez and McCarrick found in the Diocese of Chiclayo, the Archdiocese of Newark, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the Dicastery for the Clergy, discovery could have revealed that Francis and Leo were guilty of covering up abuse which may have included far more victims than initially identified.

Had McCarrick not been laicized, it could have been shown that both then-Bishop Robert McElroy and Pope Francis covered up abuse allegations involving twelve priests and seminarians, reported by the late Richard Sipe, and intentionally left out of the “McCarrick Report.”  Had Vásquez not been laicized, an investigation preceding a trial might also have shown that Pope Leo, as Díaz told the Chicago Sun-Times, “never opened an investigation” of Father Eleuterio “Lute” Vásquez.  

Just like many mainstream and Catholic media outlets failed to report: 1) Allegations of abuse cover-ups by Francis as reported by Martin Boudot in Sex Abuse in the Church: Code of Silence; and 2) Accusations by Viganò and an Argentine priest working in Chicago that Francis preyed on Jesuit novices just like McCarrick preyed on seminarians and young priests, so too are biased Catholic media sources like NCR and Crux attempting to discredit whistleblowers while ignoring how Leo is following Francis’ playbook to cover up abuse by clerics and cover-ups by bishops.

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.

Gene Thomas Gomulka