Mexico: priest sentenced for sexually abusing a girl during confession before her First Communion at a Ciudad Juárez-area parish

Proceedings

1. 2025-07-23 · conviction

   Tribunal Superior de Justicia (Superior Court of Justice), Chihuahua, Mexico. Eliseo R. S. was sentenced to 4 years, 10 months and 15 days' imprisonment for aggravated sexual abuse of a child, arising from an incident inside Nuestra Señora de Fátima parish, Guadalupe, on 2 June 2013, during which he abused the child while hearing her confession ahead of her First Communion. The court's ruling explicitly found that he exploited the access and trust his priestly position gave him inside the church. As of the July 2025 reporting he remained free pending expiry of the appeal window (the court's summer recess extended procedural deadlines to 4 August 2025); he was to report to prison only once that window closed without a successful appeal.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• his position hearing the child's confession in preparation for her First Communion, a sacrament under his sole clerical authority to administer
• the court's own finding that he 'took advantage of the means and circumstances that his position as a priest provided' inside the church building itself