LOUISIANA
WWL-TV
February 4, 2021
By David Hammer, WPO-TV, and Ramon Antonio Vargas, The New Orleans Advocate
https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/crime/priest-at-catholic-retirement-home-in-mandeville-convicted-of-battery-on-recently-widowed-resident/289-7193340b-f1ee-411d-92de-191cc036bae6
Weeks after commending her dying husband’s soul to God, the chaplain at a Catholic retirement home in Mandeville forcefully reached under an elderly woman’s blouse multiple times in an unsuccessful attempt to seduce her, according to authorities.
The Rev. Michael Mulenga was convicted of a simple misdemeanor battery charge Wednesday and was immediately sent to prison for five months, officials said.
Mulenga — who reports to a diocese in the East African nation of Zambia, but was in the area as a visiting priest — met Lynn Michler in 2019 while working as the chaplain of Rouquette Lodge, an independent living facility run by an Archdiocese of New Orleans nonprofit that provides affordable housing to low-income seniors.
Michler’s husband of more than 50 years, George “Butch” Michler, was dying at the time. Mulenga administered the Catholic sacrament known as the Anointing of the Sick — or the “last rites” — to the 74-year-old Butch Michler before his death on Nov. 4, 2019, according to records filed in 22nd Judicial District Court in St. Tammany Parish.
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