HOUSTON (TX)
SNAP Network
October 2, 2018
For immediate release, October 2 2018
A Houston-area priest was recently arrested for sexual abusing a child. Reports from the AP and other news outlets show that the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston had been specifically warned about Fr. Manuel LaRosa-Lopez. Unfortunately, those warnings went unheeded.
According to reports, when they were first contacted about Fr. LaRosa-Lopez by one of LaRosa’s victims, the church told her that he would be removed from active ministry. Instead, they moved him to another parish, 70 miles away. Despite knowing about credible allegations of abuse against him, no parishioners, staff, or others were warned.
Ten months ago, the church was contacted again about Fr. LaRosa-Lopez, this time by a different victim. Archbishop DiNardo met with the victim personally but only removed Fr. LaRosa-Lopez a week before his arrest. When he finally was removed from ministry, rather than be upfront about the reasons, parishioners were told that their priest was away on a retreat. Today, prosecutors are publicly saying that there may be more victims and they are in the process of researching new information.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.