At the suburban New Orleans healing chapel he once helped build in his role as a Roman Catholic priest, hours after he had been convicted on Friday in Texas of criminal clergy sexual assault, Anthony Odiong’s name had already been removed.
But what still remained inscribed among lists of hundreds of benefactors outside the Our Lady of Guadalupe healing chapel in Luling, Louisiana, were the names of two women whom Waco, Texas, prosecutors revealed were part of a broader group whom Odiong victimized before his conviction on charges of illicitly exploiting his spiritual authority as a clergyman to pursue sex with devout female parishioners.
The scene illustrated how the legally adjudicated sex offender’s legacy had been erased, and now only the survivors stood, providing a poignant coda to a high-stakes, four-day trial whose outcome left Odiong facing up to life imprisonment.
Odiong, 57, had reportedly raised about $600,000 to construct and open Luling’s Our Lady of Guadalupe chapel in 2020, while he was the pastor at the adjacent St Anthony of Padua church. That was years before authorities criminally charged him in Waco, where he had ministered prior to his arrival in Luling, in 2015.
Inscriptions on and around Our Lady of Guadalupe itself provided reminders of Odiong’s hand in founding the chapel, whose name commemorates reported 16th-century apparitions of the Virgin Mary in what is now Mexico.
One engraved quote attributed to Odiong read: “This Mission of building Mother Mary’s house in Luling, Louisiana, is a labor of love.”
Another engraved quotation attributed to Odiong beseeched its reader, when distressed, to recite the Hail Mary prayer seven times. Right below that quote, on a marble pedestal, were words attributed to Jesus Christ: “I am love and mercy itself. When a soul approaches me with trust, I fill it with such an abundance of graces that it cannot contain them within itself, but radiates them to other souls.”
But then the Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans, to which St Anthony belongs, announced in late 2023 that it had suspended Odiong from public ministry over allegations of misconduct with multiple women. He had also publicly made a string of anti-LGBTQ+ comments to his congregation as international Catholic leaders were seeking to make their church more inclusive.
The Guardian and reporting partner WWL Louisiana then published an interview with one of the women over whom Odiong had been suspended, who met the cleric years earlier at Ohio’s Franciscan University and accused him of sexual coercion as well as abusive financial control.
Her story prompted another woman, who would later be referred to in legal documents as Jane Doe, to contact the Guardian and publicly recount how – while in Waco – Odiong offered to counsel her on marital problems that she was enduring.
She maintained that in 2010 he successfully directed her to submit to a form of intercourse that was painfully uncomfortable for her for the sake of her marriage, which ultimately failed. She also revealed that Catholic church officials whose purview included Waco had informed her that they banned Odiong no later than 2019 from ministering in and around there over misconduct allegations. They said to her that they contemporaneously – and privately – alerted their New Orleans counterparts to that decision, too, though at least four more years passed before his removal from St Anthony.
Jane Doe’s account to the Guardian in turn prompted another woman, who would eventually be identified in court papers as Mary Doe, to go to Waco police and tell a then detective named Bradley DeLange that Odiong initiated a years-long sexual relationship with her. Mary Doe told DeLange that Odiong had done so in 2008 as he provided her with spiritual direction in the aftermath of a tumultuous divorce which left her with primary custody of seven children – and it all but ended when her son walked in on them having sex after a family party in 2011.
Texas law considers the kind of conduct described by Mary Doe felony sexual assault. And the ensuing investigation that DeLange mounted – and Waco prosecutors Ryan Calvert and Liz Buice would later try in court – brought him into contact with Jane Doe.
DeLange also identified several other additional Odiong accusers meeting the legal standard of probable cause. Among them were at least three Luling congregants he was said to have targeted with various clerically improper behaviors – two given the names Lisa Smith and Presley Jones, and another who has otherwise been anonymous throughout the legal proceedings, according to shoe-leather reporting by the Guardian in Louisiana and names Calvert said in court during the trial.
Importantly, the total number of accusers was high enough that, under Texas law, it did not matter how long ago the crimes reported by Mary and Jane Doe occurred. Authorities therefore could – and did – charge, arrest and try Odiong in connection with first-degree and second-degree sexual assault of those two women.
Each testified at Odiong’s trial in downtown Waco’s courthouse. So did Lisa Smith.
Smith described under oath how Odiong approached her as she mourned over her father’s grave site, invited her to speak with him about her mourning whenever she needed, and proceeded to kiss and grope her on subsequent occasions. He made his desire for intimacy with her clear as she assisted his efforts to build Our Lady of Guadalupe, she said – but medical issues with which she was grappling prevented that.
The jury of eight women and four men who deliberated Odiong’s fate also heard of Presley Jones. DeLange and his colleagues obtained statements and DNA samples establishing that Jones had a daughter with Odiong after he met her in his role as St Anthony’s pastor – living, breathing proof of his pattern of pursuing women whom he met through his ministry, according to testimony.
Calvert at one point showed jurors a picture of Odiong holding his baby girl next to her mother. He stood inside a church in the New Orleans area where the Guardian confirmed through parochial records that the child was baptized. He wore a white priestly vestment that matched the color of the girl’s baptismal gown and Jones’ dress.
Jurors took just two hours on Friday to find Odiong guilty of all pending charges.
He became at least the fifth clergyman serving in the archdiocese of New Orleans to either plead guilty or be convicted of sexual violence since the organization pleaded
With a sentencing phase scheduled to begin three days later, few involved in Odiong’s trial offered public reactions to the verdict.
And it was equally quiet as night fell outside Our Lady of Guadalupe about an eight-hour drive east of Waco. Yet the locale said it all.
The Guardian had learned and reported that local church officials began planning to remove Odiong’s name from the healing chapel as his trial loomed. The outlet verified that officials had fulfilled those plans some time before Friday evening.
Black tape covered Odiong’s name where it once was inscribed, including over the quotes about building Mother Mary’s house and of being love and mercy itself.
Some distance away the setting sun shone over the inscribed names of two of the St Anthony congregants whom Waco police alleged had been preyed on by Odiong.
One was that of Lisa Smith. The other was that of the one who, as of Friday, has remained anonymous.
