SNAP Says Convicted Sex Offender Priest Serving In Oklahoma

Saturday, April 23rd 2016, 10:17 am

By: News On 6

A survivor's group says a priest who pleaded guilty in California to fondling a teenage girl in 2011 is now an administrator of three parishes in southwest Oklahoma.

KFMB, the CBS affiliate in San Diego, reports Father Jose Alexis DaVila, who admitted to abusing a 19-year-old woman, is working at at three churches in Caddo and Comanche counties.

David Clohessy, executive director for SNAP - Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests - is outraged DaVila vanished and resurfaced in Oklahoma.

A Lawton church's website stated on March 29, 2016 Father Jose Alexis DaVila had been assigned as an administrator of St. Ann Church in Elgin, the Mother of Sorrows Church in Apache and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Sterling.

"I think it's inappropriate, I think it's insulting. We believe this priest shouldn't be a priest at all, this priest should be behind bars," Clohessy told KFMB.

KFMB reports after his arrest in 2012, Father DaVila was reinstated and serving at a San Diego church. At the time, the diocese released a statement saying women and children were not at risk because of his return to the ministry.

Now, SNAP is calling on church leaders in California and Oklahoma to be held accountable.

DaVila was given three years probation following his conviction.