While at least five women were accusing Texas priest Anthony Odiong of sexual misconduct, the Archbishop of New Orleans was busy writing him a glowing letter thanking him for his "fidelity and dedication" and handing him a six-year extension to keep doing ministry. Odiong just got sentenced to life in prison for sexual assault. The church, for its part, is very sorry about all of this.
The Letters, the Extensions, and the Absolute Audacity
According to internal church documents obtained by the Guardian, Archbishop Gregory Aymond sent Anthony Odiong a warm, celebratory note extending his pastoral assignment through 2027. This was after church leaders had already spoken to a woman who accused Odiong of a years-long abusive sexual relationship. She was at least the fifth woman to come forward.
That extension in 2021 was actually the second time church officials had kicked the can down the road. His original three-year posting at St Anthony of Padua church in Luling, Louisiana was supposed to run from 2015 to 2018. Misconduct complaints rolled in near the end of that window. Church leadership responded by giving him three more years. Then six more after that.
To be clear about the math here: the Diocese of Austin, Texas, where Odiong had previously worked from 2006 to 2012, quietly notified New Orleans officials about a significant number of misconduct complaints against him in September 2018. New Orleans kept him on for more than five years after receiving that warning. Five years. While women were coming forward. While he was still in the ministry.
A Waco Jury Did What the Church Refused To
A jury in Waco, Texas found Odiong guilty of first- and second-degree sexual assault on May 29. Four days later, the same jury sentenced him to life in prison. Civil law enforcement did in a matter of weeks what the Catholic Church spent years actively avoiding.
The Guardian reviewed more than 200 pages of internal church documents to piece this timeline together. What those documents reveal is an institution that knew, documented, filed, notified, corresponded, and then continued to employ a predator while writing him letters about his faithful service to Jesus Christ.
Odiong also fathered a child with a sixth woman he met through his clerical work. The church finally removed him from ministry not because of the parade of abuse allegations, but partly because he made anti-LGBTQ remarks from his pulpit. That happened mere months before his arrest by Texas authorities. So that's where the line was, apparently.
The Loophole They Hid Behind
Church officials had a ready-made explanation for why their existing anti-abuse protocols didn't apply: Odiong's accusers were not minors. The Guardian's reporting makes clear that church policy also has protections for "vulnerable adults," but officials decided the women didn't qualify because they didn't have severe intellectual, developmental, or psychological disabilities.
So adult women who came to a priest for spiritual guidance, trusted him in that capacity, and were subsequently abused by him? Not vulnerable enough. Got it. The Catholic Church, an organization that has spent decades and billions of dollars managing clergy abuse scandals across the globe, looked at multiple women accusing the same priest of the same pattern of behavior and concluded their existing rules just didn't quite cover the situation.
The church also took time during Odiong's active ministry to send letters to colleagues in locations where he traveled domestically and internationally, vouching that he was "a person of good moral character and reputation." Spreading the word, just not the word anyone needed to hear.
What the Church Has to Say for Itself
The Austin diocese issued a statement denying it concealed information, pointing to the fact that it did eventually send a letter to New Orleans about Odiong. It also said, and this is real: "The diocese sincerely regrets that an ordained priest working in the diocese caused harm to the victims."
The New Orleans archdiocese offered its own statement, noting that Archbishop Aymond retired in February. The statement said that if prior leadership had known "the extent and predatory pattern" of Odiong's behavior, "certainly different actions would have been taken." They also called his conduct "reprehensible" and said they were "disgusted" by what emerged at trial.
The extent and predatory pattern. The one that produced at least five formal accusers across two dioceses over more than a decade. That pattern. The one documented in more than 200 pages of their own internal files. The church is very disgusted by the thing it had extensive paperwork about.
The Dingo Take
Here's the thing about institutional evil: it almost never looks like a cartoon villain twirling a mustache. It looks like bureaucratic paperwork. It looks like a three-year posting extended to six, then extended again to twelve, with a warm letter attached. It looks like a diocese carefully drafting a notification to a neighboring diocese, checking a box, and then doing nothing else for five years while the complaints kept coming. That's how predators survive inside institutions. Not because everyone is in on it, but because the system is designed to protect itself first and ask hard questions never.
Odiong is going to spend the rest of his life in prison, which is exactly where he belongs. But the people who wrote those extensions, signed those letters, drafted those character references, and decided that adult women weren't vulnerable enough to warrant urgent action? They're retired, or they're issuing statements about how disgusted they are, or they're just still there. The Guardian did the hard work of pulling 200 pages of internal documents to show exactly who knew what and when. What happens with that information is a different question entirely.
The Catholic Church has been here before. It will probably be here again. Every time, the statement says the same thing: we are sorry, we have learned, we are committed to doing better. Every time, the documents tell a different story. The documents always tell a different story.
