According to LA officials, Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of 69-year-old LA Auxiliary Bishop Alexander Salazar after he was accused of molesting a minor.The Los Angeles Times reports that Archbishop Jose H. Gomez stated that police investigated the accusation in 2002, but that the L.A. archdiocese did not know until 2005. The case was then directed to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Gomez says “imposed certain precautionary measures on the ministry of Bishop Salazar.”

Gomez found the findings inadequate and received permission from the Vatican to submit Salazar’s sexual abuse allegations to the L.A. archdiocese’s independent misconduct board.

“The board found the allegation to be credible and I submitted its findings and recommendations along with my own votum to the Holy See to make its final determination as to Bishop Salazar’s status,” Gomez said.

The Roman Catholic Church has an extensive history of child pornography, orchestrated child sexual abuse, and serious attempts to block legal accountability. Pope Francis himself has been accused of undermining the rampant sexual abuse of his clergy by protecting them through inaction.

After a Philadelphia grand jury reported on the decades of sexual abuse of over 1,000 children by clergy, the pope summoned over 100 leading bishops to an international meeting in February 2019. Rampant sexual abuse has been uncovered throughout America, Europe, the Philippines and more.

Peter Isely, a co-founder of the group Ending Clerical Abuse, told the New York Times, “They better deliver in February.”