INDIANA/TEXAS
WNDU
By: Brandon Kusz
A decorated priest and member of the University of Notre Dame faculty has been accused of sexually molesting a minor.
The allegations were made in a civil lawsuit filed May 22 in Bexar County, Texas.
The unnamed plaintiff alleges that Father Jesus Armando Dominguez and Father Virgilio Elizondo sexually molested him while he lived in a San Antonio orphanage in the early 1980s.
Elizondo, who became known as the “father of U.S. Latino religious thought,” has been a member of the Notre Dame faculty since 2002.
He was also presented with Notre Dame’s highest honor, the Laetare Medal, in 1997.
“I came from a neighborhood where no one thought I would make it out or amount to anything,” he said, in a quote posted on his Notre Dame faculty webpage. “Even as a boy, I knew I wanted to do something good for the world.”
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