MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Joel Currier St. Louis Post-Dispatch

TROY, MO. • Wearing his clerical collar, Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang sat in a courtroom Tuesday as lawyers on opposing sides of a civil lawsuit portrayed him as a sexual predator who betrayed Lincoln County family’s trust and as the brotherly savior to a teenage girl seeking refuge from her family’s religious cult rituals.

Jiang, 34, is on trial this week in a civil suit accusing him of molesting a 16-year-old girl during a visit to her home in 2012. At the time, Jiang was an associate pastor at the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End. The teen’s parents sued the priest, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson and the St. Louis Archdiocese in 2013, accusing Jiang of abuse and Carlson of failing to supervise Jiang despite knowing that Jiang was dangerous to children.

Jiang arrived…