“To stay informed”: the current personal secretary of Leo XIV shared on Facebook, the same day it was published, the statement from the Peruvian Episcopal Conference that disqualified Ricardo Coronado, the canonical lawyer of his teacher’s accusers
On August 24, 2024, Edgard Rimaycuna shared on his Facebook profile the press release from the Peruvian Episcopal Conference announcing the disqualification of canonist Ricardo Coronado, then the lawyer for the three victims of Father Eleuterio Vásquez, “Lute.” He did so on the same day it was published, with a single comment: “To stay informed.” Rimaycuna, now personal secretary to Leo XIV, is a disciple of the accused priest, according to the book The Shepherd and the Wolves by Santiago Roncagliolo.
The post
The CEP statement, dated in Lima on August 24, 2024, reported that during the 127th Plenary Assembly the bishops had “confirmed” that Rev. Ricardo Coronado Arrascue, of the clergy of Cajamarca, “cannot receive approval to serve as an ecclesiastical lawyer” and that he should be prohibited “from exercising representation in ongoing cases,” in accordance with art. 111 §2 of the instruction Dignitas connubii. At that time, Coronado was representing the three women who reported having suffered abuse by Father Lute when they were prepubescent minors.
That same day, Rimaycuna shared the statement on his personal profile — open and active, where he regularly posts diocesan and pontifical content — with the text “To stay informed.” InfoVaticana retains a screenshot and archive of the post.
The context
Coronado’s disqualification came weeks after he formally requested, in July 2024, access to Father Lute’s canonical file on behalf of the victims, access that had been denied to them. The measure also presents a fundamental legal anomaly: the statement invoked canon 1483 of the Code of Canon Law, but episcopal conferences lack the authority to disqualify lawyers — authorization corresponds to each tribunal. An organ without judicial competence thus issued a public statement against the lawyer of abuse victims just as he was demanding transparency. In December 2024, Coronado was dismissed from the clerical state by decree, following an expedited process without a judicial proceeding with guarantees. The complainants were left without legal representation, and the Church did not provide them with another.
In August 2024, Rimaycuna had been living in Italy for almost a year: he had left Chiclayo in October 2023 to move to the circle of then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. After Prevost’s election as Leo XIV, he was appointed his personal secretary on May 8, 2025, and in November 2025, Chaplain of His Holiness.
The connection with the accused
As InfoVaticana reported yesterday, The Shepherd and the Wolves (Seix Barral, 2026) — a work favorable to the Pontiff, prepared with sources from his circle — identifies Rimaycuna as “a disciple of Lute” when describing how Prevost “relied on Lute’s popularity to evangelize and create priestly vocations.” Rimaycuna celebrated his first Mass in 2014 at the San José Obrero parish in La Victoria, where Lute had been pastor and where the victims place part of the reported incidents.
The August 2024 post confirms that, from Rome and from Prevost’s immediate circle, Rimaycuna was following in real time the development of his teacher’s case. It is, as far as is known, his only public statement on the matter.
The case of Father Lute remains unresolved. The investigation opened in 2022 under then-Bishop Prevost was described by the ecclesiastical delegate Giampiero Gambaro, to the victims themselves, as “a joke”. The dispensation from the clerical state granted to Vásquez on September 15, 2025, was intended to close the canonical penal process without clarifying the facts or providing reparation to the complainants, who maintain their claims before the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.