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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Ramon Antonio Vargas

New Orleans archdiocese plans on removing priest’s name from chapel as his Texas sexual abuse trial looms

A man stands outdoors with a thoughtful look on his face.
Anthony Odiong after his arrest in Florida on 16 July 2024. Photograph: Waco police

Plans are under way for the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans to remove a priest’s name from a chapel he helped build outside the city as a criminal trial looms in Texas for the clergyman on criminal charges that he sexually abused three spiritually vulnerable female congregants there, the Guardian has learned.

Anthony Odiong had reportedly raised $600,000 to build and then open Our Lady of Guadalupe Healing Chapel in Luling, Louisiana, in 2020, while he was the pastor at an adjacent church, years before authorities criminally charged him in Texas, where he had also previously ministered. His name has since appeared on various inscriptions outside the chapel and on the structure itself even as the criminal case against him has progressed toward trial.

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