Priest accuser hopes Texas conviction will keep him from victimizing others

The first woman to publicly accuse a Roman Catholic priest who was convicted by a Texas jury on Friday of repeated adult, criminal clergy sexual abuse has said she “can only hope he is kept from continuing to use faith as his net, his snare and a tool to manipulate current and future victims”. “I’m grateful to the jury for listening to the evidence and seeing the truth” about the convicted clergyman, Anthony Odiong, said the woman in a statement on Saturday, referred to in court proceedings by the pseudonym Hadassah Doe. The woman added that it was “heartbreaking” to learn of the testimony that led to Odiong’s conviction after a four-day trial on first- and second-degree sexual assault charges in Waco, Texas, in connection with two women given the pseudonyms Mary Doe and Jane Doe. She alluded to how church officials, including in south-east Louisiana – where the clergyman most recently ministered – “could have prevented a lot of suffering and pain” if they “would have listened” to her attempts to report him years earlier. As Hadassah Doe eventually recounted to the Guardian and reporting partner WWL Louisiana, she met Odiong in the spring of 2007 while he studied for a theological master’s degree from Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. …