Urbano Vazquez – currently serving a 15-year prison term for abusing two minors from 2015 to 2017 when he served as a priest at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Washington, D.C. – was sentenced Nov. 29, 2021 to an additional 180 days in jail for misdemeanor sexual abuse against a female adult.
Vazquez was found guilty following a one-day trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The additional time will be served after his original sentence is completed.
He was convicted of groping the woman in 2017 in the Shrine of the Sacred Heart’s rectory during Confession. The woman reported the incident immediately to her mother, and later went to the police after the accusations were made public of Vazquez’s abuse of the two minors – then a 9-year-old girl and a 13-year-old girl.
Vazquez was indicted on the charge involving the woman at the same time he was indicted for molesting the minors, but the cases were tried separately.
In the case involving the minors, Vazquez was found guilty in August 2019 of four counts of child sexual abuse: one count of second-degree child sexual abuse, two counts of second-degree child sexual abuse, and one count of misdemeanor sexual abuse. The following November, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
As a priest of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, Vazquez served from 2014 to 2019 as parochial vicar at Sacred Heart, a parish in the Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington that serves a predominately Spanish-speaking Catholic community.
When the allegations against Father Vazquez were made, it was reported to the D.C. Metropolitan Police and Vazquez was immediately removed from ministry and his priestly faculties were suspended.
Following the mandates of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington’s Child Protection Policy, Father Vazquez underwent the required criminal background check, application and education to work with young people, and that the priest had cleared the background check and other requirements.
This archdiocese has had a Child Protection Policy that has been in effect for 35 years. When The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington instituted the policy in 1986, it was one of the first dioceses in the United States to do so.
The policy, which is periodically reviewed and updated, mandates immediate reporting of abuse allegations to civil authorities.
It also requires a thorough background check for all employees, clergy and volunteers who have substantial contact with children. The policy requires two forms of background checks – electronic background checks and fingerprinting.
The policy also requires assisting those who have been harmed, and extensive education and training on how to prevent and identify mistreatment of children and youth. Everyone working with young people in the archdiocese is required to attend a “Protecting God’s Children for Adults” workshop, which are offered in English and Spanish throughout the year in various locations throughout the archdiocese.
In addition to that policy, the archdiocese has an independent Child Protection Advisory Board comprised of lay experts and a clergy member that advises on and monitors compliance with child protection efforts. The Child Protection Advisory Board ensures policies are properly looked at, reviewed and implemented and prepares an audit report that is published annually in the Catholic Standard.
The archdiocese has repeatedly stressed that it is committed to meeting the needs of survivors of abuse and reporting such allegations to authorities, and encourages anyone who may have been abused by a priest, employee or volunteer of the Archdiocese of Washington, or who is aware of any suspected abuse, to contact the archdiocese’s Office of Child and Youth Protection and Safe Environment at 301-853-5328.
