A Roman Catholic priest replied “we are but men” when confronted after the son of a woman to whom he was providing spiritual guidance caught the clergyman having sex with his mother, according to court testimony in Texas on Wednesday.
That version of events emerged at the second day of the trial of Anthony Odiong, who has been criminally charged with illicitly abusing his status as a clergyman to pursue sex with spiritually vulnerable female congregants.
A son of one of those women, now 29, told jurors at the state courthouse in Waco, Texas, that he was about 14 in 2011 when his devoutly Catholic mother – fresh from a tumultuous divorce – hosted a party at the home she shared with her seven children. Among the guests was Odiong, who was a priest at a Catholic church attended by students and employees of Waco’s Baylor University, where the son’s mother worked.
Odiong had been meeting the mother frequently in the aftermath of her divorce, ostensibly to provide her with spiritual direction, in sessions at his office or even her home, according to the son and separate testimony on Wednesday from one of his younger sisters.
But the night of the party, he said he was locked in the woman’s bedroom with her, and the son – who had even been an altar server of Odiong – suddenly heard noises coming from behind the door. He burst in, saw a bottomless Odiong was lying on the floor atop his mother, and deduced they had been having sex.
The son said he ran to the home of a neighbor – Baylor’s theological seminary dean, Todd Still – and, in a panic, described what he saw. Baylor’s longtime university chaplain and spiritual life dean, Burt Burleson, then learned about the situation from Still, and he testified on Wednesday that he relayed the “profoundly inappropriate” matter to a supervisor of Odiong at the Catholic diocese of Austin.
Burleson testified that he also confronted Odiong – and was surprised at the priest’s nonchalant reaction.
“We are but men,” Burleson recalled Odiong saying.
The son later spoke to a diocesan official about everything – along with Odiong while the priest supposedly took his confession. But the son said he did not want to get anyone in trouble, especially his mother, who could be fired from Baylor if she was ever found to be conducting herself in a manner that was inconsistent with Christian values.
He said he told the diocesan official that what he saw with his mother and Odiong may have been ambiguous. He also acknowledged in court that a continuing battle with substance abuse had already started that night, when he had been drinking well under the legal age.
Odiong’s career largely continued unimpeded, with his then spending time studying in Rome and eventually transferring to a church in the New Orleans suburb of Luling, Louisiana, until late 2023. His mother eventually saw a Guardian news story published after the end of Odiong’s time in Luling about other women who accused him of sexual coercion, unwanted touching and abusive financial control in his capacity as a priest, including in Texas.
The story described how a Texas state law considers it assault for clergymen to exploit congregants’ emotional dependency on them to engage in sexual conduct with them. The woman went to Waco police to report what she said Odiong had done to her. That prompted an investigation that culminated in the identification of two more women Odiong was alleged to have assaulted by exploiting his clerical status, resulting in criminal charges against him and the trial in Waco.
One of those two additional women – whom the Guardian had interviewed in its coverage of Odiong – testified late on Wednesday afternoon. She recounted how she was in the throes of an abusive, failing marriage with a Baylor instructor when Odiong began spiritually directing her on her marital troubles.
At one point during that direction, she testified, Odiong convinced her to subject herself – for the sake of her marriage – to a form of intercourse with her husband that was painfully uncomfortable for her, which prosecutors contend qualifies as assault by the clergyman. Odiong had her discuss that encounter to him – and said the hurt it inflicted was “good for her humility”, she testified.
Odiong kissed her against her will once, too, she said. She also said he said her marriage was not “true” and proposed she instead enter into a “spiritual” one with him.
She said she eventually left that marriage after another priest who provided her spiritual guidance asked her to consider doing so for her physical safety. Odiong berated her when she told him she would be seeking a divorce, she said.
She said she did not speak out about Odiong as soon as she would have liked because she thought he had genuine if inappropriate feelings for her.
“I feel very ashamed at so many ways that I allowed myself to be treated,” that woman testified. She added, “I … so completely missed” on judging his character.
Odiong, 57, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to the five charges of first-degree and two counts of second-degree sexual assault that he faces. He could face life imprisonment if convicted on any of the first-degree charges.
Waco prosecutors Ryan Calvert and Liz Buice were able to secure criminal charges against Odiong without regard for how long ago his alleged crimes may have occurred because investigators established there were as many as 10 women the priest was suspected of sexually preying on.
In her opening statement, Buice indicated that she and Calvert planned to call as witnesses at least some of those women, even if not all of their cases resulted in formal charges against Odiong.
A Waco police detective, Zach Koenig, on Wednesday testified about an interview with one woman whose case did not produce charges. The woman, from Pennsylvania, had also spoken to the Guardian – and aspects of her account echoed some of the testimony heard earlier in the day, Koenig testified.
Prosecutors say all of the women’s stories establish Odiong’s pattern of pursuing female congregants. And they have previously noted how – despite Catholic priests’ promise to practice sexual celibacy – there is evidence Odiong even had a child with one of the women whose case did not lead to formal charges against him.
The Guardian is not naming any of the women or those close to them as it generally does not identify people who allege they are sexual assault victims.
While cross-examining witnesses on Wednesday, Odiong’s attorneys, Gerald Villarrial and Carolina Truesdale, sought to challenge the reliability of the recollections of the witnesses whose mother reported his client to police. They established that Odiong was not the only priest known to go to that woman’s house – and questioned whether the clergyman could ever carry out certain behaviors while, in a sense, he was off-duty from his clerical role.
They drew out testimony that there is such as a thing as sinful but not criminal sex for priests under Catholic church law. And Villarial posited that he found it unfair for a woman to accuse Odiong of a sexual assault she says was actually carried out by her husband at the time.
Calvert, meanwhile, elicited witness testimony from a University of Notre Dame canon – or church – law lawyer, John Paul Kimes, that Roman Catholic priests like him and Odiong are never off the clock. And Kimes also testified that priests do hold a spiritual authority over congregants that they must take care to not exploit.
“We never stop being on duty,” said Kimes, whose credentials include having prosecuted more than 1,100 Catholic clergy sex abusers under canon law for the Vatican entity handling such cases.
Odiong’s trial could last through at least Monday.
