ATLANTA — News out of California this summer of a Mexican church leader’s guilty plea for sexually abusing minors had a deep resonance for Erica Ortiz, a metro Atlanta resident since the late 1980s.
Ortiz grew up going to the Marietta outpost of La Luz del Mundo, or “Light of the World,” a Mexico-based megachurch that claims to have more than 5 million followers worldwide. In June, the towering figure at the head of the church, Naasón Joaquín García, became a convicted sex offender, sentenced to 16 years in jail.
García is considered by La Luz del Mundo (LLDM), which has at least half a dozen locations across Georgia, to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. Church critics accuse García of creating a cult of personality around him and describe LLDM as akin to a sect rather than a church.
