Plans are under way for the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans to remove a priest’s name from a chapel he helped build outside the city as a criminal trial looms in Texas for the clergyman on criminal charges that he sexually abused three spiritually vulnerable female congregants there, the Guardian has learned.

Anthony Odiong had reportedly raised $600,000 to build and then open Our Lady of Guadalupe Healing Chapel in Luling, Louisiana, in 2020, while he was the pastor at an adjacent church, years before authorities criminally charged him in Texas, where he had also previously ministered. His name has since appeared on various inscriptions outside the chapel and on the structure itself even as the criminal case against him has progressed toward trial.

But multiple people informed of the matter recently said that those inscriptions are in line to come down. If carried out, that seemingly would comply with a broader agreement that the US’s second-oldest Catholic archdiocese struck to settle a bankruptcy protection case it filed amid the financial fallout of the global church’s long-developing clerical abuse scandal.

A non-monetary provision of that settlement called for the removal of “all plaques, pictures, statues or other public recognition” of clergy abusers from New Orleans archdiocese properties.

Odiong, 57, landed on an archdiocesan-curated list of priests and deacons faced with credible claims of clergy abuse after his 16 July 2024 arrest by Waco, Texas, police on allegations of possessing illicit digital images of disrobed children.

Although prosecutors never filed formal charges against him with respect to those images, authorities in Waco subsequently charged Odiong with exploiting three women’s “emotional dependency upon him as a spiritual adviser and engaging in sexual conduct with them” while officiating there. Texas law classifies that conduct as a felony.

A trial for Odiong simultaneously centering on all three of those congregants was tentatively scheduled to start on 26 May. An attorney for Odiong – who has denied wrongdoing and remained in custody in lieu of $5.5m bail since his initial arrest – had unsuccessfully requested that he be tried on each of those cases against him piecemeal and separately.

The archdiocese declined to comment on Odiong specifically other than to confirm that the removal of any public mention of credibly accused clergymen was in adherence to the bankruptcy settlement.

Odiong stands out from many of those who are listed as credibly accused in that he had been credited with being the driving force behind the construction of the building from which his name is being removed.

It’s unclear when mentions of him might be removed from Our Lady of Guadalupe chapel, whose name commemorates reported 16th-century apparitions of the Virgin Mary in what is now Mexico. His name remained in place as of Thursday, including an engraved quote attributed to him on a marble slab honoring donors that read: “The Mission of building Mother Mary’s house in Luling, Louisiana, is a labor of love.”

Odiong first fell under Waco authorities’ scrutiny after the Guardian in February 2024 published interviews with women who accused him of sexual coercion, unwanted touching and abusive financial control while ministering to them.

A woman whom the publication did not interview brought a copy of the Guardian’s article on Odiong to Waco police and said he had sexually assaulted her in 2012. An investigation led by Waco detective Bradley DeLange then identified as many as 10 women whom Odiong is suspected of preying on after meeting them through his ministry in Texas as well as within the New Orleans archdiocese.

Many of those women’s cases – including the ones from Louisiana – did not result in criminal charges. Yet the sheer number of accusers meant Texas authorities could legally charge Odiong with at least some of his alleged crimes no matter how long ago they purportedly occurred.

And Waco prosecutors obtained five charges of sexual assault in the first degree and two such charges in the second degree stemming from encounters with three of the women.

Then, at a preliminary hearing in November 2024, prosecutors revealed that they had evidence indicating Odiong violated Catholic priests’ promise to practice sexual celibacy by fathering at least one child with a woman whom he had met through his clerical work.

That woman is not among the three from whom the charges against Odiong originate. Yet authorities argue that particular child is living proof that Odiong had a pattern of pursuing women he met through his ministry.

Odiong could receive a maximum of life imprisonment if convicted of any of the first-degree charges.

His formal charges materialized months before Pope Leo XIV became the first US-born Catholic pontiff in history. Those charges also came in the thick of a debate within the Catholic church over whether to expand the definition of a vulnerable adult in the context of clergy abuse to include those under the spiritual authority of priests who then target them for sexual contact.

At present, the Catholic church considers a vulnerable adult to be anyone who is older than 18 and has “severe intellectual, developmental or psychological disabilities”.

Modern Vatican policies define sexual misconduct with vulnerable adults or children as clergy abuse.

Odiong was ordained into the Catholic priesthood in Nigeria in 1993, eventually becoming popular for prayer services after which some congregants reported recovering from significant maladies. The naturalized US citizen transferred to a region that includes Waco in 2006, under the auspices of the bishop of Austin, Texas, at the time, Gregory Aymond.

He then began working within the archdiocese of New Orleans in 2015 while Aymond was archbishop there.

When the New Orleans archdiocese prohibited Odiong from continuing to minister there in December 2023, officials cited clerical misconduct with multiple women, though they provided few details. That was about seven months before Texas authorities had Odiong arrested while he was at a home in Ave Maria, Florida.

Aymond retired from the New Orleans archdiocese in February. He was succeeded by James Checchio, the former bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey.