{"id":215435,"date":"2026-03-22T13:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T13:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/215435\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T13:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T13:20:12","slug":"im-not-a-john-doe-survivor-of-priest-sexual-abuse-tells-his-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/215435\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019m not a John Doe\u2019: Survivor of priest sexual abuse tells his story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse and references to suicide that may be disturbing to some readers. If you or someone you know has experienced sexual abuse, confidential help is available through the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or via online chat at rainn.org<\/a>. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts or emotional distress, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the United States for free, confidential support 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n

In 1981, 14-year-old Isaac Melendrez Jr. was sexually abused by a man he now refers to as \u201ca monster\u201d \u2013 his parish priest in Do\u00f1a Ana, New Mexico.<\/p>\n

The boy told his mother, who didn\u2019t take any action and later sent him on out-of-town trips with the priest. He said he told a Catholic Church official in Las Cruces in 1982, then never heard back. In 1985, El Paso\u2019s bishop sent the priest to a California facility that diagnosed and treated clergy for sexual misconduct and other mental health disorders. In 1994, officials in the El Paso diocese interviewed Melendrez and other abuse victims and found that the priest\u2019s actions were \u201cconsistent with the behaviors of a pedophile\u201d \u2013 but never shared that finding with Melendrez.<\/p>\n

He battled depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide throughout his life. Now 59 and living in Las Cruces, Melendrez is angry and frustrated that the El Paso diocese is seeking bankruptcy protection in the wake of lawsuits filed in New Mexico by him and 17 others who were abused by priests as children.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey basically get to throw a blanket over a mass group of people and our voices are squashed. We were never afforded, once again, that opportunity to have them defend or to tell the public why they did what they did,\u201d Melendrez said in an interview with El Paso Matters. \u201cThey can issue all the statements on how terribly they feel about it now, how this \u2018alleged\u2019 abuse occurred, how this is in the interest of the victims. It\u2019s not in the interest of the victims.\u201d<\/p>\n

The El Paso Catholic Diocese sought reorganization<\/a> under the federal Bankruptcy Code on March 6, saying it was the best way to ensure that victims of clerical sex abuse are compensated while allowing the diocese to continue operating. El Paso is the 38th Catholic diocese or archdiocese in the country to seek bankruptcy protection as a result of lawsuits brought by victims of decades of sexual abuse by priests.<\/p>\n

\"\"Isaac Melendrez Jr. at age 14<\/p>\n

Melendrez said he is speaking out to ensure that the voices of victims are heard as the bankruptcy process moves forward. He is the only one among 18 clerical sexual abuse victims who\u2019ve filed suit in Las Cruces to do so under his actual name. The others are named as John Doe or Jane Doe in their lawsuits to protect their privacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf something wrong is done to you, you have the right to speak up and stand up for yourself,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I also felt very strongly that I\u2019m not a John Doe, I\u2019m not a Jane Doe, I\u2019m Isaac Melendrez. What happened to me, number one, was no fault of mine. Number two, I had no control over it. And in order for me to feel that I was doing justice to myself and other victims, I felt like I needed to put a person behind the story, not just a pseudonym.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement to El Paso Matters, the El Paso diocese acknowledged the bankruptcy reorganization filing \u201chas reopened memories of terrible wounds that have inflicted great suffering to all abuse survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened to me, number one, was no fault of mine. Number two, I had no control over it. And in order for me to feel that I was doing justice to myself and other victims, I felt like I needed to put a person behind the story, not just a pseudonym.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaac Melendrez Jr.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The diocese didn\u2019t respond to El Paso Matters\u2019 questions about Melendrez\u2019s abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have turned our tragic past into a continued commitment to keep policies that prevent these abuses against the God-given dignity of the person from ever happening again,\u201d Bishop Mark Seitz said in the statement. \u201cMy prayer is that, as this reorganization process moves forward, the church will have an opportunity to make amends and that we will be a place where survivors can find healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The amount of damages to be paid to the 18 plaintiffs who sued the El Paso diocese in New Mexico will be determined by the federal Bankruptcy Court in El Paso. El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz said the diocese expects most of the money will come from insurance policies, but it also expects to have to use some of its own assets to compensate the plaintiffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bankruptcy process doesn\u2019t include extensive testimony from people with legal claims against the diocese. The amount of payments to individuals will be decided by a process overseen by an independent trustee.<\/p>\n

A horrific betrayal of trust<\/p>\n

About to turn 15 in August 1981, Melendrez was small for his age, weighing about 70 pounds, he recalled. His family lived in Do\u00f1a Ana, a rural enclave near Las Cruces. At his parents\u2019 urging, he volunteered to do groundskeeping work at their parish, Our Lady of Purification Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

A new priest, the Rev. Richard Nesom Jr., had arrived at the parish in January of that year. A Mississippi native, he was ordained as a priest by the El Paso diocese two years earlier, shortly before his 40th birthday.<\/p>\n

\"\"Richard Nesom<\/p>\n

In a March 1979 investigation that was required for candidates for ordination, priests at El Paso\u2019s St. Patrick Cathedral, where Nesom had been assigned as a deacon, said he was not a good candidate for the priesthood. Melendrez\u2019s attorneys obtained Nesom\u2019s employment records from the diocese as part of the lawsuit discovery process, and shared some of the records with El Paso Matters.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Stephen Gotwals, who was then the pastor at St. Patrick Cathedral, said Nesom \u201cseems proud and arrogant,\u201d and \u201chas sought money in ways which smack of a \u2018con\u2019 job.\u201d Gotwals said: \u201cI don\u2019t feel he has the humility requisite for any priest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said he reached those conclusions in consultation with other priests at St. Patrick Cathedral.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gotwals acknowledged the investigation was \u201cpro forma\u201d because the then-bishop of El Paso, Patrick Flores, had already issued what are known as dimissorial letters clearing the way for ordination for Nesom and other priest candidates.<\/p>\n

He said \u201cwe feel strongly that the ordination of Richard Nesom at this time with his attitudes would be a source of grief in the future for the diocese, for the people and, most probably, for himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFr. Nesom initially made small talk and then suddenly swooped down and accosted Plaintiff. Fr. Nesom, who was considerably larger than Plaintiff, put his hand down Plaintiff\u2019s pants, grabbed Plaintiff\u2019s penis, and kissed Plaintiff. Plaintiff hit Fr. Nesom on the chin\/throat area with his fist. Fr. Nesom recoiled. Plaintiff warned him that if he ever touched him again, Plaintiff would kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Language in lawsuit describing alleged sexual assault of Isaac Melendrez Jr. by the Rev. Richard Nesom<\/p>\n

The Rev. Joseph Alexander, rector of St. Mark\u2019s Seminary in Kentucky, where Nesom prepared for the priesthood, pushed back on Gotwals\u2019 findings and suggested in April 1979 that Nesom be initially assigned to a \u201csmall parish\u201d to test his sincerity about being a priest. In 2002, Alexander was removed from the ministry after acknowledging that he had sexually abused a teenage boy<\/a> at the seminary 40 years earlier.<\/p>\n

Nesom was ordained by Flores in August 1979 and was assigned to a parish in Monahans, a West Texas town of 8,000, before being assigned to Our Lady of Purification in January 1981.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One day, which Melendrez estimates was in July 1981, Father Nesom invited him into the rectory \u2013 the priest\u2019s home at the parish. This is how the lawsuit describes what happened next:<\/p>\n

\u201cFr. Nesom initially made small talk and then suddenly swooped down and accosted Plaintiff. Fr. Nesom, who was considerably larger than Plaintiff, put his hand down Plaintiff\u2019s pants, grabbed Plaintiff\u2019s penis, and kissed Plaintiff. Plaintiff hit Fr. Nesom on the chin\/throat area with his fist. Fr. Nesom recoiled. Plaintiff warned him that if he ever touched him again, Plaintiff would kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The rectory at Our Lady of Purification Catholic Church in Do\u00f1a Ana, N.M., where Isaac Melendrez Jr. was sexually abused by Father Richard Nesom in 1981. (Corrie Boudreaux\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

\u201cI ran home, and I told my mom right away, and that\u2019s the role you take as a child in your household,\u201d Melendrez told El Paso Matters. \u201cAnd I assumed that something would come of it, perhaps maybe there would be some type of conversation with the priest.\u201d<\/p>\n

His mother did nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that had a profound effect on me,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Melendrez\u2019s lawsuit says that Nesom provided money and a car to his parents.<\/p>\n

The parents are both deceased. Melendrez said he wasn\u2019t close to his father, and never was able to talk to his mother about what happened to him after he initially told her.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy prayer is that, as this reorganization process moves forward, the church will have an opportunity to make amends and that we will be a place where survivors can find healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

excerpt from a statement by El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mother unfortunately had this ability to just sweep things under the rug, per se, so it was not a topic that we had much conversation, if any conversation, moving forward in my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After the sexual abuse, Melendrez\u2019s parents sent him on a trip to Mississippi and Louisiana with Nesom, according to the lawsuit. In Mississippi, Melendrez said he barred his door with a chair to protect himself from the priest.<\/p>\n

The priest continued to pursue Melendrez with innuendos and advances, he said. Nesom bought him tennis shoes and would sometimes show up at Court Junior High School in Las Cruces and offer the boy a ride home, which he refused.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Nesom was transferred to Marfa, Texas, later in 1981, Melendrez\u2019s parents had him and his brother help the priest move.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis man made my life a living hell for the eight or nine months he was assigned to our parish. \u2026 I was mocked at school. He told other altar boys I was gay. He used the derogatory term for it that we don\u2019t use nowadays, called me fag,\u201d Melendrez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Isaac Melendrez Jr., third from left in the front row, was one of the smallest students in his class at Court Junior High School in Las Cruces. (Photo courtesy of Isaac Melendrez)<\/p>\n

After a few years in Marfa, Nesom moved to El Paso around 1986, and was assigned to St. Joseph Parish and St. Patrick Cathedral. He took out advertisements in El Paso and Albuquerque newspapers in the 1980s promoting tours of Europe and the Holy Land under his \u201cspiritual direction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He appears to have left El Paso in the spring of 1989, according to newspaper archives reviewed by El Paso Matters, and returned to his native southern Mississippi by 1991. Newspaper archives from that region show him performing funeral rites until the spring of 1994; a 1998 article in the Hattiesburg American described him as \u201ca priest on disability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nesom died in 2002 at age 63.<\/p>\n

Informing the church<\/p>\n

Melendrez said he first told a church official about the abuse in the summer of 1982, about a year after it started.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was spending a couple of weeks with his aunt, who lived near the offices of the new Las Cruces diocese, which was created earlier that year by Pope John Paul II. Las Cruces and other parts of southern New Mexico had been in the El Paso diocese before that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI garnered the strength one day, and said I was going to walk in there and I was going to tell somebody what had happened to me,\u201d Melendrez said. He had not yet turned 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember that a lady came out and grabbed a yellow note pad and jotted down some of what I said. And I asked her what she can do, should we take it to higher ups and then kind of see where it went. I assumed that maybe something would be done, that I might be contacted, something of it, and nothing ever came of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Isaac Melendrez Jr., center, is joined by his family outside Our Lady Purification Catholic Church in Do\u00f1a Ana, N.M., on March 15, 2026. From left are daughter Andy Melendrez, wife Olivia Melendrez, daughter Erika Melendrez and son Isaac Anthony Melendrez. (Corrie Boudreaux\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

Melendrez said he felt betrayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like everything that had ever been given to me had been turned on me, and I was by myself having to defend myself against this predator,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Melendrez now owns a construction company in Las Cruces. He and his wife, Olivia, were married in 1986, and have two daughters and a son. He has battled mental health issues that he attributes to Nesom\u2019s sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a very, very stressful life. It\u2019s been very filled with a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. I\u2019ve been suicidal at times. I was an alcoholic at one time,\u201d he said. \u201cThere was no recourse for what I was going through \u2013 the era, the ethnicity of what I am. A Hispanic man is supposed to be machismo and stuff just kind of stays in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a very, very stressful life. It\u2019s been very filled with a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. I\u2019ve been suicidal at times. I was an alcoholic at one time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaac Melendrez Jr.<\/p>\n

\u2018Consistent with the actions of a pedophile\u2019<\/p>\n

In 1994, the El Paso Catholic Diocese reached out to Melendrez.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was contacted by the diocese because another victim had come forward and shared their story and mentioned that they believed that I was also a victim,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After the diocese contacted him, Melendrez told his wife for the first time that he was a survivor of sexual abuse. He was interviewed by two diocese social workers on Oct. 13, 1994, according to records obtained by his attorneys and provided to El Paso Matters.<\/p>\n

El Paso Matters isn\u2019t identifying the social workers, who continue to practice in El Paso, because they can\u2019t respond to questions about confidential interviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were very businesslike. They had a lady and gentleman in there. They listened to my story, but they kept wanting me to sign some papers, and they kept wanting me to accept their offer of counseling and they promised that they could make this go away if I would just sign these papers and then follow their path of guidance and counseling,\u201d Melendrez recalled in his interview with El Paso Matters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were both very adamant about it, and I refused. And I said, \u2018No, I\u2019m not signing anything. You\u2019re not going to magically make this just go away.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The historic Our Lady of Purification Catholic Church in Do\u00f1a Ana, N.M., was built in 1844. As a child in the 1980s, Isaac Melendrez Jr. attended the church, where he was sexually abused by it\u2019s then-pastor, Father Richard Nesom. (Corrie Boudreaux\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

The 1994 investigation focused on another man who said he was raped by Nesom when he was a boy and Nesom was the priest at Our Lady of Purification Church. As with Melendrez, Nesom\u2019s first attack on the boy occurred in the parish rectory, according to the Letter of Determination from the diocese investigation that outlined its findings.<\/p>\n

The man told the social workers that Nesom sexually abused him at least one other time at a hotel in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

The social workers interviewed Melendrez and another man who said he\u2019d been sexually abused as a child by Nesom at Our Lady of Purification.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They also interviewed Nesom, then a priest in Mississippi, at the diocese Pastoral Center.<\/p>\n

Nesom denied everything. The social workers said in their report that the priest told them that then-Bishop Raymundo Pe\u00f1a had told him \u201cthat anonymous calls had been received accusing (Nesom) of other incidents of sexual misconduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report doesn\u2019t include any mention of Pe\u00f1a being questioned as part of the investigation. He was El Paso\u2019s bishop from 1980 to 1995, when he became bishop of Brownsville. He retired in 2009 and died in 2021.<\/p>\n

The social workers believed the victims. Nesom\u2019s actions \u2013 including providing gifts to teenage boys and taking them on out-of-town trips \u2013 \u201craise questions as to Fr. Nesom\u2019s motives,\u201d their report said.<\/p>\n

The rape victim\u2019s \u201cdescription of Fr. Nesom\u2019s actions was very credible and consistent with the actions of a pedophile, as currently described in the literature,\u201d the social workers wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recommend that in the event that Fr. Nesom remains a priest, he never be allowed access to children, adolescents or young adult males.\u201d<\/p>\n

Language from report prepared by two diocese social workers after interviewing Isaac Melendrez in 1994<\/p>\n

The report recommended that the diocese pay $19,000 for mental health care for the rape victim, who had filed a claim with the diocese. The payment could increase to $35,000 if the man needed in-patient treatment.<\/p>\n

The report makes no mention of helping Melendrez and the other sexual abuse victim interviewed as part of the investigation.<\/p>\n

Melendrez said the diocese never informed him about the findings of the 1994 investigation. He learned about it only after he filed his lawsuit in 2024, and his attorneys obtained records as part of the discovery process.<\/p>\n

He said the October 1994 interview lasted between 90 minutes and two hours. Melendrez said he never felt the social workers were concerned about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think their interest was more in trying to stop anything, stop anything further\u201d damaging to the church, he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018Never be allowed access to children\u2019<\/p>\n

The report was clear on recommendations for Nesom\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recommend that in the event that Fr. Nesom remains a priest, he never be allowed access to children, adolescents or young adult males.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nesom was stripped of his faculties in the El Paso diocese, or ability to exercise his duties of ministries, after the investigation, Nesom said in a 1996 letter to the Rev. John Peters, then the pastor of St. Luke Catholic Church in West El Paso. The letter was obtained by Melendrez\u2019s attorneys, who provided it to El Paso Matters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear what impact the El Paso determination had in Mississippi\u2019s Biloxi diocese, where Nesom went after leaving El Paso. But there are no mentions of him performing church functions in southern Mississippi newspaper archives after April 1994, at a time when priests were routinely listed in newspaper announcements as participants at weddings and funerals.<\/p>\n

In a January 1999 letter to the Rev. Rick Matty, then the chancellor for the El Paso diocese, Nesom sought help in getting permission from then-El Paso Bishop Armando Ochoa to perform a baptism for his nephew\u2019s child in Mississippi. He said Ochoa hadn\u2019t responded to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the permission of the Bishop in this Diocese (in Mississippi), would this one event be permitted?\u201d he asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Melendrez\u2019s attorneys did not receive a record of Matty responding in discovery material provided by the El Paso diocese.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other documents show that Nesom was barred from performing Masses or sacraments in public, but asked several times for permission to do so.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In one 1999 letter, responding to a note in which Nesom said he was performing a monthly Spanish Mass in Mississippi, Matty reminded him that he could only celebrate Mass privately, and not with other people.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both the 1994 diocese investigation report and Nesom\u2019s letter to Matty say that Bishop Pe\u00f1a sent Nesom in 1985 to the House of Affirmation, a Catholic facility in California that treated priests for mental health issues, including sexual disorders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nesom told Matty he was sent for \u201ctesting and evaluation as to pedophia,\u201d misspelling pedophilia. He told diocese social workers and Matty that nothing negative was found, but no records of his evaluation have been provided by the El Paso diocese.<\/p>\n

Other documents obtained by Melendrez\u2019s attorneys and shared with El Paso Matters show that Pe\u00f1a sent Nesom to the California facility after another boy said the priest had sexually abused him in 1984 in Marfa.<\/p>\n

\"\"Former El Paso Bishop Raymundo Pe\u00f1a<\/p>\n

Pe\u00f1a determined that the Marfa boy\u2019s complaints weren\u2019t credible, in part because the diocese wasn\u2019t aware of any similar complaints against Nesom. However, Melendrez said he told the Las Cruces diocese in 1982 that he had been sexually abused by Nesom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The House of Affirmation<\/a>, a network of Catholic treatment facilities, was founded by the Rev. Thomas A. Kane, a priest in Worcester, Massachusetts. The facilities closed in 1990 after Kane was accused of financial improprieties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Worcester diocese later settled a lawsuit <\/a>that accused Kane of sexually abusing a boy from 1968 to 1979, starting when the boy was 9. The lawsuit said Kane offered the boy for sex to other priests.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the letter to Matty, Nesom \u2013 then 59 \u2013 said his health was poor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have some difficulties; more attributable to diabetes than to HIV. I am still AIDS free. I don\u2019t get around well and do not leave my little apartment,\u201d Nesom wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have some difficulties; more attributable to diabetes than to HIV. I am still AIDS free. I don\u2019t get around well and do not leave my little apartment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rev. Richard Nesom in a letter to the Rev. Rick Matty in January 1999<\/p>\n

In a 1997 memo to the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, Father Michael Flannery said Nesom \u201cis in denial that he has AIDS.\u201d He also said Nesom had been involved in an incident in Florida where he walked out of a restaurant without paying his bill, then drove over the manager who followed him into the parking lot.<\/p>\n

Documents provided to Melendrez\u2019s attorneys show that the El Paso diocese continued $850 monthly payments to Nesom for the remainder of his life.<\/p>\n

Nesom died Nov. 25, 2002. His tombstone in Sharon, Mississippi, reads: \u201cRev. Richard Nesom Jr. Catholic Priest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018There\u2019s no more calling it alleged\u2019<\/p>\n

Melendrez would like to see the Catholic institutions that failed him held accountable. It\u2019s hard for him to define what that looks like.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s changed 100 times now, because our justice system is not a perfectly written essay. Our justice system is very flawed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It may be easier for him to define what accountability is not \u2013 what he sees as half-hearted admissions, or evasions of responsibility.<\/p>\n

Melendrez\u2019s path to the courthouse began in 2019, with a statement from the interim bishop of the Las Cruces diocese.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like other U.S. dioceses, Las Cruces had published a list of priests found to be \u201ccredibly accused\u201d of sexual abuse<\/a>. Las Cruces updated its list a few months later to add 13 priests<\/a> who served in southern New Mexico parishes and had been listed by other dioceses as credibly accused of abuse.<\/p>\n

One of the added names was Nesom, who was identified as credibly accused of sexual abuse by the El Paso diocese<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese priests did not abuse here while they were serving in the Diocese of Las Cruces,\u201d interim Bishop Gerald Kicanas said in announcing the 13 additions. \u201cHowever, they have been listed on the credible lists of other dioceses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Bishop Gerald Kicanas<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t look like accepting accountability to Melendrez.<\/p>\n

Technically, Nesom sexually abused Melendrez and other Our Lady of Purification boys when the parish was in its last months in the El Paso diocese. But Kicanas\u2019 diocese office was a 15-minute drive from Nesom\u2019s former parish. And Melendrez said he had alerted the Las Cruces diocese to the abuse in 1982, without result.<\/p>\n

Melendrez said he reached out after Kicanas\u2019 statement to Margarita Martinez, the victims\u2019 assistance coordinator at the Las Cruces diocese. He said he wanted a retraction of the statement, which sounded to him like the diocese was saying Nesom \u201cwasn\u2019t our problem, that was somebody else\u2019s problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

He met with Kicanas, the former bishop of the Tucson diocese, a few weeks later.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was never any interest in our conversation with him doing any of that. He wanted to just talk about healing, and that he was sorry to me, and wanted to pray with me. And I lost my cool, and I just said, \u2018You know, this is ridiculous. You people are not going to ever help us victims,\u2019\u201d Melendrez said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they want to argue that this was alleged, then they should have let us go to court and in the court of law, I could have told my story, my alleged story. Then a jury could determine whether my story was alleged or that my story was fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Isaac Melendrez Jr.<\/p>\n

The Las Cruces diocese didn\u2019t respond to questions from El Paso Matters regarding its interactions with Melendrez.<\/p>\n

The Las Cruces diocese is among the defendants in Melendrez\u2019s lawsuit. The New Mexico lawsuits have been put on hold as a result of the El Paso diocese bankruptcy reorganization.<\/p>\n

When the El Paso diocese announced its bankruptcy reorganization plans March 6, its news release referred to \u201callegations\u201d of sexual abuse in the lawsuits brought by Melendrez and 17 others. In a video message issued to explain the bankruptcy filing, El Paso Bishop Seitz referred to \u201c18 claimants alleging that they were sexually abused as minors\u201d and \u201callegations that some clergy\u201d harmed children in their care.<\/p>\n

To Melendrez, that sounded like the diocese was trying to cast doubt on his story, even though it had found that testimony from him and other victims of Nesom was credible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe word alleged needs to be taken away. There\u2019s no more calling it alleged,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they want to argue that this was alleged, then they should have let us go to court and in the court of law, I could have told my story, my alleged story. Then a jury could determine whether my story was alleged or that my story was fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz speaks at a news conference regarding the diocese\u2019s decision to seek reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. (Robert Moore\/El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

In a news conference about the bankruptcy filing March 6, Seitz said the lawsuits by 18 people describing sexual abuse by Catholic clergy \u201cappear to be credible. We\u2019re not questioning that reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the lawsuit process, Melendrez wrote a letter of demand to the defendants \u2013 the dioceses of El Paso and Las Cruces, and Our Lady of Purification. He asked his son, Isaac Anthony Melendrez, to review it before it was submitted.<\/p>\n

They cried together for several minutes. \u201cAnd he said to me, \u2018I had no idea how this affected you, because you never told us. And we grew up thinking that your problems with your emotions and being so broken, depression, anxiety and suicide, were because you weren\u2019t happy with us as children.\u2019 And that hurt me,\u201d the elder Melendrez recalled.<\/p>\n

Melendrez said he didn\u2019t want to burden his children with his pain as they were growing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they have suffered right by my side immensely in this. And they are a great support system in seeing me through this. And they worry about me, and they stand behind me. But they know the profound impact that this has had on me, and how much it\u2019s changed the course of my life, and how painful it\u2019s been, and it\u2019ll be for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse and references to suicide that may be disturbing to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139,7403],"class_list":["post-215435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}