Fr. Jose Alexis Davila, the Venezuelan national, San Diego priest, and misdemeanor sex offender, has vanished.
There has been no comment or statement from Diocese of San Diego, who just a few months ago, said that the “sex-probation priest” was “fit for ministry.”
This past New Year’s Eve, Davila, the associate pastor of St. Jude Shrine of the West, went to a young woman’s Southcrest home and forced himself on her. She called the police and he was arrested.
Parishioners and the priest’s friends rallied on behalf of the priest. In fact, parishioners supporting the priest formed a “lynch mob” at the victim’s mother’s home, in the hopes of forcing the victim to recant her story. It didn’t work.
In April, Davila pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “unlawful touching of an intimate part” and was sentenced to probation.
In May (less than one month after his guilty plea), I received an anonymous call from a parishioner at St. Jude Shrine of the West. The caller was disgusted that Davila was back on the job and working with women and children. When the Diocese was asked why the priest was put back in the parish, here is what Bishop Robert Brom, through his Chancellor Rodrigo Valdivia, said:
Pastoral concerns? The priest wouldn’t even pass a background check.
And now? He’s gone. The Diocese has made no announcement about Davila’s absence. We don’t know if he’s a priest, if he’s around children, or if he’s even in the country. The diocese has dumped him somewhere, and no one knows where.
The only clues we have are in Davila’s self-congratulatory YouTube Channel, where he paints himself as a rock star and posts videos of himself with men like Salt Lake City Bishop Charles Wester, Pope John Paul II and lots of young women. He also claims to have been scuttled out of his country by “security personnel” in 2002.
Bishop Robert Brom owes San Diego some answers.
Check out Blessed Sacrament in Lawton Oklahoma. That is where he is.
Of course this is not the first time a priest has disappeared under his watch. The Rev Emmanuel Omamago also dropped out of sight in 1993 before authorities could grab him for raping a 13 year old girl at a parish in Chula Vista and hasn’t been seen since.
Brom himself was accused of coercing seminarians into sex while bishop of Duluth, MN in the 80s. A settlement of $100,000 was said to have been paid to make the accusations go away.
One has to believe that Bishop Robert Brom and his attorney/Diocesan General Counsel found another LOOPHOLE in the law of any moral and decent society–a loop that ENABLES Davila to disappear for a while, hoping that the media, Bishop Brom and the faithful in the pews (those that deserve guarantees their children will be safe from sexual predators), will forget all about Davila’s abuses of power/sexual improprieties just in time to allow another statute of limitation will expire.
The legal negligence, malpractice and arrogant attitudes of Catholic leaders and their attorneys are now documented RICO patterns.. they are all operating a criminal enterprise for self-serving, political and financial gain, while children and their parents are placed at serious risk. Bishop Brom’s 75th birthday has passed or will be here soon — Brom will disappear into the sunset with Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod Brown, Cardinal Roger Mahoney. The incompetent attorney advisors that made fools of them and the teachings of the Church, will continue to pad their financial portfolios.
I hope everyone reads the very recent article in the New Yorker about pedophiles and how they are able to fool so many people. They work hard to be charming, helpful, etc. Every time I see parishioners rallying behind a credibly accused priest or other church worker, I think of this article. If the bishops really mean what their PR consultants feed the media, then they would get multiple copies to every parish for distribution.