NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – A set of lawsuits has been filed against catholic churches in southern New Mexico. An attorney representing a group of victims says they were sexually abused by clergy members over a span of decades.
Eight separate lawsuits were filed in July at the same time, and each lawsuit accuses eight different priests of sexually abusing children from three to 15 years old. Their lawyer said the lawsuits were filed as the victims pursue accountability and look to the dioceses they say allowed the abuse to happen.
“This problem has obviously been going on for a long time, and these cases reflect that,” said Levi Monagle, Partner at the law offices of Huffman, Wallace, and Monagle.
8 new lawsuits filed against southern New Mexico clergy
Eight people, who chose to remain anonymous, went to attorney Levi Monagle and his team in 2024, seeking compensation for the sexual abuse they say they endured at the hands of catholic priests at several parishes in southern New Mexico.
“The abusers in these cases were middle-aged or elderly at the time the abuse occurred, and that was decades ago. And so they have passed away,” said Monagle.
The survivors seek to hold the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces and the Diocese of El Paso accountable.
“There’s no justice to be had for these survivors through the criminal process, unfortunately, and this is the only legal process that’s left to them,” said Monagle.
One of the lawsuits claims that Father Emilio Roure abused a child as young as seven years old in 1956 and continued to abuse her for eight more years inside of the ‘Shrine and Parish of our Lady Guadalupe’ in Dona Ana County. It claims he used his power as a priest to groom her.
“A couple of the perpetrators in these cases, the ones that we filed most recently, are notorious serial offenders,” said Monagle.
Among those offenders, Monagle said, is Bernard Bissonnette, who is accused of sexually abusing over 30 boys in New Mexico.
The lawsuit said the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces and Bishop Ricardo Ramirez knew about his “proclivity to sexually abuse children” and that the abuse happened at St. Eleanor Parish in Ruidoso. “So those kinds of cases with those kinds of priests represent the most disturbing manifestation of the clergy abuse phenomenon,” said Monagle.
Monagle said offenders like Bissonnette were sent into the churches to receive treatment and were placed back into circulation, resulting in the abuse of even more children.
Monagle said, to the catholic church’s credit, it has improved its child protection protocols and is taking the problem more seriously in recent decades, “We applaud the church for those efforts, but these crimes against children still need to be accounted for, and that’s what these lawsuits are designed to do.”
Some of the other parishes named in the lawsuits include St. Jude mission church in Alamogordo and Our Lady of Purification Parish in Dona Ana County.
KRQE News 13 reached out to both dioceses for comment, but has not heard back yet.
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