Audio Reveals Procedural Failures Made By Bishop Prevost in Abuse Case
The recording is from a pastoral/legal meeting held on April 23, 2025, aimed at resolving the case. It contains a dialogue between the diocesan investigator, Father Giampiero Gambaro, an Italian-born canon lawyer, and the victims and their legal representative.
Father Gambaro encouraged the victims to accept a resolution without a canonical trial. He proposed that Father Lute quietly request a dispensation from the clerical state instead.
He mentioned that Padre Lute had admitted to touching the girls aged nine and eleven.
Improper Case Closure
Father Gambaro admitted that the ecclesiastical investigation lacked serious interviews, examinations of places or evidence, and substantial questioning of the accused priest.
Furthermore, he acknowledged that the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith closed the case, citing Peruvian civil-law prescription.
However, church law does not follow civil statutes of limitations for abuse cases.
Bishop Prevost Never Suspended Abuser
The main point: Father Gambaro confirmed that Padre Lute was not suspended from public ministry. Cardinal Robert Prevost, the Diocese of Chiclayo, and journalist Elise Ann Allen made this claim.
In April 2022, a decree was issued against Padre Lute that removed him from his parish and prohibited him from hearing confessions. However, it did not bar him from celebrating Eucharists or exercising his priestly ministry.
In July 2024, Cardinal Prevost wrote in an email to Infovaticana.com that Padre Lute was not publicly exercising his ministry.
On September 10, 2024, the Diocese of Chiclayo stated that Lute was prohibited from publicly exercising his priestly ministry.
In her biography of Leo XIV, Allen claimed that Bishop Prevost had prohibited Lute from public ministry.
However, Father Gambaro explicitly states that Lute retained his faculties and continued to perform ministerial functions.
"Sexual abuse is only the complete sexual act"
Another point: Father Gambaro mentioned that Lute acknowledged the actions described in the accusations, yet did not consider them to be crimes. In his view, only "full sexual acts" would be criminal.
Father Gambaro describes Father Lute as a macho man with a narcissistic mentality.
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