28 Priests Were Accused of Sex Abuse in Late 2018. Here's a Running List.

El Paso Times
January 31, 2019

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2019/01/31/el-paso-catholic-diocese-list-priests-accused-abuse/2735704002/

In November 2018, the Diocese of Las Cruces released the names of 28 priests identified as credibly accused of sex abuse. It included at least six priests with ties to the El Paso Diocese. The Las Cruces Diocese was created from the El Paso Diocese in 1982.

Previously identified accused priests

Santiago Almaguer

Allegations of abuse were reported to the Las Cruces Diocese in 2012, and the incidents are alleged to have occurred between 1975 and 1978. Almaguer was assigned to St. Anthony Seminary in El Paso in 1975. Almaguer officiated several funeral Masses in the early 1980s, according to El Paso Times archives.

Rosario Lopez

In 2010, a man identified as "John Doe" accused the Rev. Rosario Lopez and another priest, Manuel Perez Maramba, of sexual misconduct. He sued both the Las Cruces and El Paso dioceses. The case was settled in 2011. The alleged abuse occurred in 1974, while he was assigned to St. Genevieve in Las Cruces, and Lopez officiated at several funeral Masses in El Paso in 1975, according to El Paso Times archives.

Manuel Perez Maramba

The same man, identified as "John Doe," named Maramba in his suit against the Las Cruces and El Paso dioceses, but that was not the first allegation against Maramba. The church has settled at least three cases involving Maramba. The Las Cruces Diocese says allegations against Maramba were reported from 2004 to 2012. The sexual misconduct by Maramba is alleged to have occurred between 1976 and 1977. He was assigned to the Diocese of Las Cruces in 1976, to the St. Francis Newman Center in Silver City, New Mexico, in 1976 and 1977; and at St. Genevieve in 1977.

According to a 2007 article in the El Paso Times, a former altar boy said Maramba sexually assaulted him during sleepovers with other altar boys at Maramba's residence on church property and during trips, including one to Disneyland in California. Maramba, a Benedictine, is believed to have returned to the Philippines in the 1970s. He is believed to still be alive.

Arthur O'Sullivan

O'Sullivan was accused of engaging in sexual misconduct in the 1950s, and the abuse was reported to the Las Cruces Diocese in 1993. O'Sullivan's status was not provided by the diocese, but an obituary in the El Paso Times indicates that he retired in 1968 and died in 1973, at the age of 53. He had been assigned to the El Paso area since 1957, the obituary said, and he served at St. Pius X Catholic Church and St. Matthew's Catholic Church before being assigned to the Holy Family Catholic Church in Deming, New Mexico, from where he retired.

Kerry Guillory

Guillory was assigned to the Diocese of El Paso, which included portions of New Mexico, from at least 1972 to 1974, and incidents of sexual misconduct are alleged to have occurred from 1975 to 1978. He was reported to the diocese in 2007.

An El Paso Times article says he was assigned to the Catholic Youth Department of the Diocese in the fall of 1974. The article says he was first appointed to Our Lady of Grace Parish in Artesia, New Mexico, where he assumed responsibility for the parish youth program. He was at St. Edwards School in Carlsbad in 1972. He was made a full-time employee of the Catholic Youth Department in 1974 and was appointed Youth Coordinator for the Carlsbad Deanery, which included Carlsbad, Artesia, Hobbs, and towns in between. He served until 1978. His current status was not provided by the Diocese of Las Cruces, but an Associated Press article from 2008 indicated he was named as a defendant in a civil lawsuit, which also named the El Paso and Las Cruces dioceses. The article said Guillory had denied the accusations. The lawsuit accused the church entities of trying to hide Guillory's alleged behavior while he was a youth counselor.

Dennis Tejada

Tejada served in various roles throughout New Mexico from 1978 to 1996. The native Las Cruces resident was ordained in Las Cruces in 1972, according to newspaper archives. Sexual misconduct allegations were reported to the Diocese of Las Cruces in 2002. Tejada was "laicized" in 2007, meaning he was removed from the clergy, according to the diocese. El Paso Times and Herald-Post funeral and marriage notices indicate he served in El Paso throughout the early 1970s, and a 1976 Herald-Post article indicated that Tejada would "continue to serve" as assistant pastor at St. Matthew's in El Paso even after being assigned to St. Thomas More, in Chaparral.

Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth

The Diocese of Fort Worth had already released a list of credibly accused priests, and it included one priest who had served in El Paso from 1948 to at least 1951 based on El Paso Times archives.

Henry Herrera

Herrera, a Claretian Missionary, was included by the Fort Worth Diocese on a list of priests accused of “sexual misconduct with minors.” He was ordained in 1942 and taught in the El Paso Diocese from at least 1948 to 1951, according to El Paso Times archives. He was involved in the newly organized Catholic Youth Organization in El Paso, as well as Catholic Youth League sports. The Fort Worth Diocese says Herrera is deceased.

The Jesuits of U.S. Central and Southern Province

The Jesuits of the U.S.A. Central and Southern Province, a Roman Catholic religious order, released 42 names in December of 2018. Several of those Jesuit priests had ties to El Paso. They are:

Claude P. Boudreaux

Boudreaux, who died in 2016, spent time at Sacred Heart in South El Paso. He was ordained in 1955 and his abuses are alleged to have occurred in the 1960s. He was removed from the ministry in 2004.

According to El Paso Times archives, he was in El Paso in 1968, when he was listed as a survivor in his mother's obituary.

Edward D. DeRussy

DeRussy, who died in 2001, was at Jesuit High School in El Paso. He was ordained in 1957 and abuses are alleged to have occurred in the 1970s. He was restricted from ministry with minors in 1991.

According to El Paso Times archives, DeRussy was at Jesuit High in 1966 and was transferred in the summer of 1967.

Alfonso Madrid

Madrid, who died in 1982, was at Sacred Heart and St. Ignatius (under the Province of Mexico) in El Paso. He was ordained in 1950, and his abuses are alleged to have occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. He was dead before the church received any allegations against him.

The El Paso Diocese and the Jesuits of the New Orleans Province were sued in 2011 for Madrid's alleged sex abuse of an altar boy in the 1970s, according to El Paso Times archives.

Madrid was assigned to Sacred Heart from 1972 to 1982.

Thomas J. Naughton

Naughton, who left the Society of Jesus in 2009 and died in 2012, worked at the Jesuit High School in El Paso. He was ordained in 1965, and the estimated time frame of abuse was the 1970s. He was removed from ministry in 2002.

Claude L. Ory

Ory, who was removed from the ministry and now lives under supervision in Maryland, was at Jesuit High School in El Paso. His abuses are alleged to have occurred in the 1970s.

According to El Paso Times archives, he was transferred to Loyola University in 1963.

Austin N. Park

Austin N. Park, who died in 2013, was at Jesuit High School and Sacred Heart in El Paso. He was ordained in 1955 and his abuses are alleged to have occurred in the 1960s. He was removed from active ministry because of dementia before any allegations against him were filed.

According to El Paso Times archives, Park joined the faculty of Jesuit High in the fall of 1963. He taught Spanish and other languages and was listed as the director of the language program in 1965.

Benjamin Wren

Benjamin Wren, who left the Society of Jesus in 1996 and died in 2006, was at Jesuit High School in El Paso. He was ordained in 1961 and his abuses are alleged to have occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

According to El Paso Times archives, Wren was hired at Jesuit High in 1964 and taught religion and history. He also led the fencing club at the school, according to a 1965 article.

Other known allegations from newspaper archives

The Las Cruces Sun-News reported about abuse allegations against the now-deceased priest, Father Joaquin Resma, Nov. 15, 2018. Resma, who was assigned to Our Lady of Health parish, was not in the original list of clergy from the Las Cruces diocese, its predecessor organizations — the Diocese of El Paso and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

The lawsuits were leveled against the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, which, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, was the overseer of Our Lady of Health parish.

The Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces was formed in 1982, and the parish since then has been under its umbrella.

A third lawsuit over a now-deceased priest, Father Arnold Finochietto, was filed shortly after. The suit alleges the priest abused a boy in Las Cruces in the 1960s at the same parish.

Finochietto served as manager of the parish, which then was organized under the Catholic Diocese of El Paso.

An El Paso Times article, dated Nov. 22, 2015, notes a Rev. David A Holley had molested more than 32 boys during his three years in the 1970s as a parish priest at St. Jude's Mission in Alamogordo. At the time, the church was part of the El Paso Catholic Diocese.

Holly served in several parishes in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Massachusetts before justice caught up with him. He was a priest in various El Paso parishes, including St. Raphael, Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of the Valley. His service in New Mexico, in addition to Alamogordo, extended to the South Valley in Albuquerque.

According to the article, Holley, whom the church had sent to a treatment facility for pedophilia, pleaded guilty to abusing eight boys in Alamogordo. He was sentenced to 275 years in prison, and died in his cell in 2008 after serving 15 years of the sentence