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Former New Orleans Diocese priest pleads guilty to molesting teens

Wattigny
St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office

A former Catholic priest will spend five years in prison and five years on probation after pleading guilty to molesting a 15-year-old boy in 2013.

Patrick Wattigny pleaded guilty to two counts of child molestation on Wednesday. A judge sentenced him immediately after he entered that plea.


Wattigny was arrested in 2020 by St. Tammany Parish authorities on charges that he molested the teen, who attended the high school where Wattigny was chaplain. While he was awaiting trial on that charge, authorities arrested Wattigny again on allegation that he molested a teen in 1996. According to WWL-TV, Wattigny admitted to the abuse to the New Orleans Archdiocese in 2020 after allegations of inappropriate texts with a student force him to resign.

Wattigny was ordained in 1994. He served as a chaplain at Archbishop Rummel High School from 2000 to 2013 and at Pope John Paul II High School, where he was also school president during the 2017-18 academic year.