CALIFORNIA/OKLAHOMA
The Worthy Adversary
June 15, 2017 Joelle Casteix
Jose Alexis Davila accepted a plea deal for battery against a 20-year-old female parishioner in 2012. The plea agreement came when the victim was too scared to testify. Why? Well, a parishioner ‘lynch mob’ tried to stop her mother from attending prayer group and accosted her brother. They also called her a liar and a slut. Nice.
Then-San Diego Bishop Cirilo Flores did nothing to help the victim or reach out to parishioners and warn them about the harm they were doing.
Prosecutors were able to get a sentence of three years’ probation and community service. Despite this, the Diocese of San Diego tried to reinstate Davila, until local outrage and media attention stopped the move.
Davila disappeared until 2016, when he showed up at a parish in in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. When parishioners became upset, Oklahoma Archbishop Paul Coakley said that he had all of the information necessary about Davila and considered him “fit for ministry” and safe.
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