Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, USA · 1985

United States: Gilbert Gauthe — the first widely publicized American priest conviction

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

parish priest

Organization

Diocese of Lafayette

Spiritual nexus

Parish children and altar boys under their priest's direct charge — the template every later case repeated.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 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

Primary 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.

Related record

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