EL PASO (TX)
El Paso Matters [El Paso, TX]
March 6, 2026
By Robert Moore and Daniel Perez
The El Paso Catholic Diocese, faced with potential “astronomical” judgments in a dozen lawsuits alleging clergy sexual abuse, filed for bankruptcy reorganization Friday.
The 12 lawsuits involving 18 plaintiffs, filed between 2022 and 2025 in Las Cruces, allege sexual abuse by priests at a number of New Mexico parishes between 1956 and early 1982, when southern New Mexico was part of the El Paso diocese.
“First of all, let me say we don’t see it as a way to duck out of our responsibility,” El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz said in an interview with El Paso Matters. “It’s the only way, with the resources at hand, that we can begin to address this many claimants in an equitable way.”
A 59-year-old Las Cruces man who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits said the El Paso diocese is using the bankruptcy process to evade accountability.
“Today, just like in the past, the diocese is only doing what is best for them. By filing for bankruptcy, they have removed the opportunity for us to hold them accountable for their failures in a court of law. Bankruptcy brings no justice to the victims, only blanket protection to the diocese,” Isaac Melendrez Jr. said in a statement to El Paso Matters.
Melendrez alleges in a 2024 lawsuit in Las Cruces that he was sexually abused beginning in 1981, when he was 15, by the Rev. Richard Nesom at Our Lady of Purification Catholic Church in Las Cruces. Nesom is on the El Paso diocese list of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse. He died in 2022.
The survivors of clerical sexual abuse who sued the El Paso diocese want accountability and transparency, said Levi Monagle, an Albuquerque attorney who is representing several of the New Mexico plaintiffs.
He said the diocese had informed the New Mexico plaintiffs of the possibility of the bankruptcy filing, which by law would pause the lawsuits.
“The diocese could have filed its petition anytime they wanted to, and it made a lot of sense for the folks involved in those cases to try to, for lack of a better word, extract concessions from the diocese as to what a bankruptcy would look like in advance of its filing,” Monagle said.
He declined to discuss the negotiations with the diocese, but he said the survivors he represents want the diocese to establish a public archive of documents related to decades of sexual abuse. The archdiocese of Santa Fe established such an archive in its bankruptcy reorganization that was approved in 2022.
Another attorney representing survivors, Wouter Zwart of Albuquerque, said the bankruptcy filing was “retraumatizing” for some. Melendrez is among his clients.
“And I think the bankruptcy filing feels like another delay tactic, even if there’s light at the end of the road of this process,” Zwart said, saying some pending diocesan bankruptcy reorganizations are in their third or fourth year.
The first hearing in the bankruptcy case will be at 11:30 a.m. Monday.
El Paso Catholics reacted with a mixture of sadness and anger at the latest impact of one of the church’s horrific chapters.
“It’s a shame that a few sinful priests are bringing down people of faith,” said Gilbert Aguirre, a lay minister at St. Patrick Cathedral. “I feel terrible. This news upsets me and saddens me, but it definitely will not affect my faith.”
Carlos Viesca, 55, is a deacon at St. Luke Parish in West El Paso. He said the bankruptcy reorganization would be a struggle.
“At the end of the day, we’re here to serve Christ, not the institution,” he said.
State Rep. Joe Moody, a Catholic, said in a post on Facebook that he supported the steps taken by the bishop.