United States: Gilbert Gauthe — the first widely publicized American priest conviction
Request a correction or replyRecord class
Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
parish priest
Organization
Diocese of Lafayette
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
Parish children and altar boys under their priest's direct charge — the template every later case repeated.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
Evidence structure
Proceedings
1985-01-01 · guilty plea and sentence
Louisiana state court, USA. Gilbert Gauthe, who admitted abusing 37 children, pleaded guilty on 33 counts and was sentenced to twenty years — the case widely cited as opening the modern American clergy-abuse era, seventeen years before the Boston reporting.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- pastoral charge over parish children and altar boys
Cited record
Sources
- national newspaper court reporting conviction history report 'Catholic Church ignored 1985 report warning of child sex abuse crisis', NOLA.com.
Retrospective reporting anchored to the Gauthe case and its era.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.nola.com/news/catholic-church-ignored-1985-report-warning-of-child-sex-abuse-crisis/article_91ac5ee5-ed47-55b9-a6e9-ef72496a8900.html Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: conviction-history-report. SHA-256 dd65e6d8e0ee444f470b428e9fb697c0a52a0393582da5c7a21f02b9a1ffa3c1
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-27 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts
- 2018 · Harrisburg, PA, USA PA grand jury: 301 priests, 1,000+ child victims documented ('weaponized' faith)
- 2009 · Dublin, Ireland Ryan Commission: abuse 'endemic' in Catholic-run institutions (state inquiry)
- 2021 · Paris, France CIASE/Sauvé Report: est. 216,000 abused by French clergy since 1950
- 2019 · Vatican City McCarrick: ex-cardinal found guilty by Vatican canonical process, laicized
- 2010 · Oregon City, OR, USA Beagley faith-healing death: parents convicted (criminally negligent homicide)
- 2014 · Philadelphia, PA, USA Schaible: 3rd-degree murder, second child dead of untreated pneumonia
- 2001 · London, UK Victoria Climbié: murder convictions; possession belief; Laming Inquiry followed
- 2012 · London, UK Kristy Bamu: kindoki 'deliverance' murder convictions (30/25-yr minimums)