The chapel came down within hours. Not the structure itself, but the man's legacy inscribed upon it. By Friday evening, after a Texas jury found Anthony Odiong guilty of criminal sexual assault, the New Orleans archdiocese had already covered his name with black tape at Our Lady of Guadalupe healing chapel in Luling, Louisiana, the very institution he had helped finance and construct.
Yet the chapel's marble pedestals and engraved plaques still bore witness. Names of women Odiong victimized remained visible on lists of supporters outside the building, a stark reminder of what his removal could not erase.
Odiong, 57, had raised roughly $600,000 to build the healing chapel in 2020 while serving as pastor at the adjacent St. Anthony of Padua church. Inscribed quotes attributed to him spoke of a labor of love, spiritual guidance, and divine mercy. One read: "This Mission of building Mother Mary's house in Luling, Louisiana, is a labor of love." Another urged distressed visitors to recite the Hail Mary seven times.
What no inscription could capture was the pattern prosecutors laid bare during four days of trial testimony in Waco, Texas.
The case began to unravel after the archdiocese suspended Odiong from ministry in late 2023 following accusations of misconduct with multiple women. The Guardian, partnering with WWL Louisiana, published an interview with a woman who accused him of sexual coercion and financial control, dating back years to when they met at Franciscan University in Ohio.
That story prompted another woman to contact the Guardian with her own account. She said that in 2010, while Odiong was ministering in Waco, he coerced her into a sexual act during counseling about her failing marriage. Church officials in Waco had banned Odiong from ministry no later than 2019 over misconduct allegations, she learned, and had privately notified their New Orleans counterparts. Yet he remained at St. Anthony for roughly four more years.
Her public account prompted a third woman to approach Waco police. She told detective Bradley DeLange that Odiong had initiated a years-long sexual relationship with her starting in 2008 as she dealt with a traumatic divorce and custody of seven children. The relationship ended in 2011 when her son discovered them together after a family party.
The investigation expanded from there. DeLange, along with prosecutors Ryan Calvert and Liz Buice, identified multiple additional accusers. Two Luling congregants were identified in court as Lisa Smith and Presley Jones. At least one other woman came forward as an accuser. A third Luling woman remained anonymous throughout proceedings.
Smith testified that Odiong approached her while she mourned at her father's grave, offering spiritual comfort. He then kissed and groped her during subsequent conversations, she said, while making his desire for intimacy clear as she helped build Our Lady of Guadalupe. Medical issues prevented the relationship from becoming sexual, she told the jury.
Perhaps most damning was testimony about a child born to Odiong and another congregant. Detective DeLange and his team obtained DNA evidence and statements documenting the birth. At trial, prosecutor Calvert showed jurors a photograph of Odiong in his white priestly vestment, holding his infant daughter next to her mother, the child baptized in a New Orleans church.
That pattern of pursuing women through his ministry proved decisive. Under Texas law, prosecutors could charge Odiong with first and second-degree sexual assault of the two primary victims even though the alleged crimes occurred years earlier, because they demonstrated a broader pattern of predatory behavior.
The jury of eight women and four men deliberated just two hours before returning guilty verdicts on all charges. Odiong became at least the fifth clergyman in the New Orleans archdiocese to plead guilty or be convicted of sexual violence in recent years.
As night fell Friday, the chapel stood quietly eight hours east of the Waco courthouse. Black tape now covered the quotes about Mother Mary's house and divine mercy. But distance away, in the fading sunlight, the names of his victims remained inscribed in stone.
Author James Rodriguez: "A decade of institutional failure, a jury of two hours, and a priest's carefully built legacy erased by black tape. The permanence is what's left in the names of the women."
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