Ex-NM priest charged with raping 6 year old child in '80s
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Authorities on Friday arrested a former Archdiocese of Santa Fe (NM) priest accused of raping a first grader decades ago at a Catholic school in northern New Mexico and telling the boy “this is how we show God’s love.” Agents with the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office and New Mexico State Police arrested 81-year-old Marvin Archuleta at the Sun Village apartments in Albuquerque around 4 p.m.
Archuleta is charged with criminal sexual penetration of a child under 13 and kidnapping in the rape of the 6-year-old boy in the 1980s at Holy Cross Catholic School in Santa Cruz, near Española. According to the complaint, the victim and two other boys were pulled out of class for altar boys at Holy Cross Catholic Church in 1986 or 1987. Agents say the three were led to a room where Archuleta and another priest, who is not identified in the complaint, offered them cookies and punch on a small table.
The victim told agents the boys ate the treats before the unnamed priest took the other two away and left him alone with Archuleta. The complaint alleges that Archuleta then made the boy kneel on a chair, removed the boy’s pants and wrapped a belt around his chest so he couldn’t move.
According to the complaint, Archuleta poured a dixie cup of water down the boy’s back, telling him it was “holy water and would help with the pain.” The victim told agents that Archuleta then raped him as he repeated, “this is God’s love, this is how we show God’s love.”
“He was in tremendous pain and was crying violently,” an agent wrote. “He is unsure how long the encounter lasted.” Agents say that after the ordeal, the unnamed priest brought the other two boys, who were “crying uncontrollably,” into the room and all three were sent back to class.
https://www.abqjournal.com/1278493/former-santa-fe-priest-arrested-on-rape-charges-in-albuquerque.html