A Roman Catholic order has agreed to pay $1.35 million to a woman who alleged that she and other parishioners were not protected from a sexually predatory priest. The woman, who said she was impregnated by the priest when she was 17, got the settlement from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate of Texas on the brink of a jury trial last week.
The woman said she met the priest, Anthony Gonzales, in 1981 while she was living with her mentally ill mother in an abandoned house in Houston. He was then the assistant pastor at Immaculate Conception Church in Houston.
"Father Tony had sex with me all over the church, in the confession rooms, the rectories and behind the altar and pews, and any opportunity he had to fondle me and kiss me and caress me," she said in a deposition.
Gonzales, now 80, was forced out of the priesthood in 1985. He declined to comment about the case when reached by the San Antonio Express-News, but in his court deposition he did not deny allegations against him.
Oblate officials and lawyers for the order declined comment, but in court filings lawyers for the Oblates argued unsuccessfully that Doe's claims should be tossed because they described events from the 1980s that were barred by statutes of limitations. They also claimed the order had "used due diligence to prevent the ... wrongful acts."
The lawsuit, filed in 2006, said that before Gonzales was ordained in 1957, it was clear he had sexual problems including "a psychosexual disorder characterized by abnormal sexual attraction to young girls." The lawsuit says he was repeatedly admonished by his superiors and ordered to get psychiatric treatment, but he was also moved from parish to parish as problems arose.
"Father Tony has confirmed that he fathered at least four illegitimate children, but perhaps many others, by impregnating minor girls when he was a priest," reads the suit.
The woman said Gonzales told her he would leave the priesthood and marry her, but that he never did. She said that when she tried to contact him, other priests and church personnel told her he had died. So at 17, she was left to raise the baby by herself.
The woman said she learned in 2003 that Gonzales was living in Taylor, married with five children, so she called him.
"I said, 'This is (Jane), the girl that you left pregnant in Houston,' and he said, 'I'm so sorry. I left a lot of girls pregnant. Can you tell me more about you?'" she recalled in her deposition.
During his 28 years as a priest, he served in about a dozen parishes in Texas, including in San Antonio, Laredo, Brownsville, Uvalde, Elgin, Sabinal, Eagle Pass and Austin. He also served at churches in Louisiana and in Canada, his final posting, where he was sent in 1983 after leaving Houston.
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