LA JUNTA (CO)
La Junta Tribune-Democrat
Oct. 31, 2019
By Christian Burney
The late Father Delbert Blong was named in a report commissioned by the Colorado Attorney General’s office released last week indexing sex crimes against 166 children by variousRoman Catholic priests across Colorado over 70 years.
The report accuses Blong of sexually abusing six males from the 1950s to the 1970s in parishes in La Junta and Alamosa, according to the report prepared by former U.S. Attorney Robert Troyer, who conducted the probe with the cooperation of Colorado’s Catholic dioceses.
The report says Blong abused his first reported victims while serving as the assistant pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in La Junta. His second, third and fourth victims were targeted while he served as pastor at the same La Junta parish, the report states, adding that his fifth and sixth victims were abused during his tenure as pastor at the Sacred Heart Parish in Alamosa.
The report documents Blong’s predatory behavior across each of the six cases. In each example, the report said, Blong engaged in grooming behaviors with each of his victims, telling them in some instances they were special and that his love for them justified his actions.
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