LAS CRUCES (NM)
Sun News
May 30, 2018
By Carlos Andres López
Las Cruces Bishop Oscar Cantú on Wednesday disputed allegations that the diocese conspired to cover up an investigation involving a Hobbs priest who has been charged with sexually assaulting a man. The bishop also maintained that diocesan officials did not receive complaints from Las Cruces parishioners over an eight-year period when the accused priest was at St. Genevieve Catholic Church.
Cantú spoke candidly about what he did — and didn’t do — when he learned about sexual abuse allegations involving Father Ricardo Bauza last year.
In October 2017, Hobbs police charged Bauza, 51, the former pastor at St. Genevieve who was relocated to Hobbs in 2014 to serve as the pastor of St. Helena Catholic Church, with one misdemeanor count of criminal sexual contact following an investigation into allegations that Bauza sexually assaulted an adult male in the rectory shower at St. Helena in 2016.
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