Chiclayo, the letter of accusation from the victims of abuse

On November 13, 2025, the Church informed us in writing that the Pope has granted the dispensation from the clerical state to the priest from Chiclayo, Eleuterio Vásquez González, who sexually abused us when we were children.
This decision means that the facts we reported —which were never even minimally investigated by the Church— will now remain definitively unresolved.

With this dispensation, there will be no canonical investigation, no process, no trial. And therefore, there will never be justice nor true moral reparation.

In a meeting on April 23, 2025, this dispensation was presented to us as something positive, taking advantage of the fact that we were not assisted by a canon lawyer. But victims of abuse, as well as the institutions that are meant to protect them, know that reparation can only be built upon truth, without tricks or deception. Avoiding investigations and closing cases through dispensations that prevent a canonical penal trial is a path that should never be taken, because it leaves unprotected those who have had the courage to speak out and seek light amid their pain — something extremely difficult and personally exhausting.

Only after investigating, judging, and issuing a sentence is it possible to take responsible decisions regarding the situation of an abusive priest. Acting beforehand causes suffering and confusion that are hard to describe. Victims are often questioned and stigmatized, accused of lying, and subjected to public persecution. The lack of an investigation and a sentence supporting our report leaves us defenseless against the accusations we face when we take this step. How can we encourage victims to come forward if they will be left exposed without their cases being investigated?

In our case, this decision is even more hurtful because the Church itself has acknowledged serious mistakes and negligence by the authorities involved, including the one who was originally responsible for the case, Bishop Robert Prevost:
“The preliminary investigation was a joke. Very poorly done. With formal errors, even,” (Giampiero Gambaro, priest and instructor of the case file, April 23, 2025).
Yet we have had to witness how, in recent months, some media outlets and widely followed journalists have manipulated our testimony to conceal these errors.

Granting a dispense to Eleuterio Vásquez is also especially irresponsible given that there are witnesses who have publicly stated to the media that he frequently took other children to the same room where we were abused. That information, which should have triggered every alarm, demanded a deep and urgent investigation — not the definitive closure of the case.

It is incomprehensible that instead of seeking the truth and repairing the victims, the decision was made to close the case through a papal grace that frees the abuser from facing the responsibility that corresponds to him, leaving us in a vulnerable situation with no reparation, where the only thing offered to us is payment for therapy.

Despite this situation, we will continue to defend that shortcuts must never be used to prevent access to the truth. Victims of abuse in the Catholic Church have the right to justice. And justice requires transparency, investigation, and a real commitment to those of us who have suffered.

For this reason, we announce:

- The initiation of legal actions before the competent canonical authorities against all ecclesiastical officials who participated in or were responsible for these acts of negligence.
- The formal presentation of our case to victims’ associations around the world, so that it may be heard and to work together for real change within the Church.
- The immediate communication of the case to the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, requesting that they analyze what has happened and take measures in response to the violation we have endured.
- The request for a personal audience with the Pope, to explain the pain that situations like this cause victims and to ask him for a change of course in the Church’s handling of abuse cases.

Ana Maria Quispe Diaz