Baton Rouge 'vos estis' probe underway
“There have definitely got to be some changes moving forward.”
A man who alleges sexual misconduct by his parish priest told The Pillar that he hopes a Vatican-ordered investigation in the Diocese of Baton Rouge will lead to more accountability for bishops, and that the Church will do more to help adult victims of sexual misconduct to report abuses and find help.
“There’s definitely got to be some changes” in diocesan processes, the man told The Pillar, after meeting with investigators dispatched to Louisiana to conduct a Vos estis lux mundi inquiry into Baton Rouge’s Bishop Michael Duca.
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The Vos estis investigation was ordered last month, over allegations that Duca did not adequately address complaints, and discouraged a whistleblower from calling the police, after a local priest allegedly admitted to sexual contact with minors.
The priest denies the allegation against him, while the Baton Rouge diocese has not responded to questions about the case.
In May, The Pillar reported that an adult Catholic male in the Baton Rouge diocese filed a complaint with diocesan officials after allegedly coercive behavior in September 2025 from Fr. Charbel Jamhoury, a Lebanese Maronite priest who was then pastor of St. Isidore the Farmer parish in Baker, Louisiana.
The man alleged that after months of grooming behavior, Jamhoury met with him in the parish rectory, and attempted to coerce him sexually — reportedly holding the man’s hand, recounting a history of his own sexual activity, touching the man’s lips, kissing his fingers, urging the man to massage him, and proposing sexual contact.
Further, his report to the diocese alleged that Jamhoury disclosed to him prior possible acts of child sexual abuse — specifically, oral sex with minors, allegedly recounting his preference for such activity in graphic detail.
But according to both the alleged victim and to whistleblower Luke Zumo, Duca’s handling of that report raised concerns.
While an investigation was initiated, the priest was not removed from ministry, nor was the investigation formally announced in the parish, despite Jamhoury’s alleged admission of sexual activity with minors.
Nor were the police contacted. In fact, Zumo — who is a friend of Jamhoury’s alleged victim — charges that Bishop Duca urged him directly not to contact the police about the case, reportedly telling him that “there is no victim here.”
Neither did diocesan officials contact law enforcement officials about that alleged admission, Zumo told The Pillar.
And while Jamhoury was eventually sent for a psychological evaluation and this spring removed as pastor, the diocese did not disclose the nature of the allegations against him, despite concerns raised by his parishioner and by Zumo, and despite the alleged admission of sexual misconduct involving minors.
Further, while reports to the diocese included Jamhoury’s alleged admission of sexual activity with minors, a Feb. 10 statement from the diocese said “no allegations of physical sexual abuse or criminal activity have been reported to diocesan officials in this situation or at any time during Father Charbel’s service in the diocese.”
An October report from the diocesan investigator in the case calls into question that claim. In the report, portions of which were obtained by The Pillar, the diocesan investigator reported to Duca and to diocesan vicar general Fr. Jamin David that Jamhoury’s parishioner “was firm the Fr. Jamhoury … described in detail and demonstrated performing oral sex on young boys, saying that he missed [redacted explicit content].”
That report was filed both before the diocese said it had received no allegations of “criminal activity,” and before Duca allegedly told Zumo not to contact law enforcement, as there were “no victims” in the case.
Duca reportedly did not consider Jamhoury’s parishioner a potential victim of the priest either: While the investigator’s report said the adult victim was “so distraught” after Jamhoury’s coercive conduct that he contemplated self-harm, diocesan officials did not connect him with the diocesan victims’ assistance coordinator, or provide other means of psychological assistance to him, even after receiving the report.
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Jamhoury’s parishioner — the man he allegedly attempted to sexually coerce — told The Pillar that he is hopeful the Vatican’s investigation will address his diocese’s handling of the allegations he reported last year.
The investigation was ordered by the Vatican last month, entrusted to New Orleans’ Archbishop James Checchio. To conduct interviews, Checchio appointed investigators from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, with experience in several Vos estis cases, The Pillar has confirmed.
After meeting with investigators last week, Jamhoury’s alleged victim told The Pillar that he hopes the Vatican investigation will yield concrete results for the victims of clerical sexual misconduct — especially concerning the process by which reports are evaluated by local dioceses.
“The way my report was handled was disturbing,” the man told The Pillar.
He cited his sense of unwillingness to investigate the allegation on the part of the Baton Rouge diocese, the little information provided to him after he reported Jamhoury’s alleged misconduct, and his recollection of an initial meeting with diocesan officials, who allegedly asked him if his motive for reporting the misconduct was a financial settlement.
“There have definitely got to be some changes moving forward,” the man added, explaining that his diocese provided him with little information about how to actually report misconduct, or how any investigation would proceed.
“They couldn’t even give me any kind of a timeline for what would happen with what I told them,” he explained — raising a “lot of emotions as we tried to get a sense of what was going on.”
The man especially emphasized his sense that Baton Rouge diocese did not take seriously Jamhoury’s alleged admission of child sexual abuse.
“The letter that I wrote to the diocese, that I [initially] submitted, was very, very clear on [Jamhoury’s] intentions, what he said about young boys and sexual acts — but what they missed or decided not too look at, I don’t know,” said.
“It needs to be handled in a different way.”
The man said that while his experience had been “very emotional,” he was confident in the professionalism of the Vos estis investigators, and hopeful that “maybe this [investigation] is what the Lord wants to come out of everything that happened … so there can be some kind of change.”
As to Duca, the man said the bishop is “still in my prayers … but if something wasn’t handled the right way, it needs to be taken care of.”
Zumo, for his part, agreed that the Baton Rouge Vos estis investigation is being handled professionally, and that he hopes the probe will lead to a just Vatican assessment of the Baton Rouge case — and healing in his local community.
After talking with investigators, “my sense is that from the standpoint of the institution, now they are taking this seriously. There is a love for the Church here. And [locally], people have reached out to investigators and set up meetings … courageously sharing their experiences out of love for the Church.”
But Zumo said he remains “sad and incredulous” regarding local handling of the reports against Jamhoury — charging that the diocese has “downplayed” the priest’s alleged admission of abusing minors.
In light of the internal diocesan investigation explicitly emphasizing that allegation “in black and white and very explicit terms,” Zumo has told The Pillar that Duca should have informed local Catholics, and supported a law enforcement investigation.
Zumo, who got involved in the case when he was asked to help, has long been involved in the diocese, helping to run vocations events, and serving as the sole layperson on a “vocations board,” which interviews potential seminarians. He and his wife also gave frequent talks in the diocese on the vocation to faithful Catholic marriage.
But Zumo said he’s uncertain what local consequences he’ll face for the choice to become publicly known as a whistleblower, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. But he’s certain it will have a cost — and he’s already stepped down from the vocations board, on which the diocesan vicar general sits.
At least one priest in town has accused him of a “crusade against the bishop,” Zumo told The Pillar.
And “there is certainly a cost,” he said, “but it’s worth it, knowing that you are following the example of Christ and leaving the 9 to go after the one,” said, in reference to Jamhoury’s alleged victim.
“We will stand before the Lord one day and eternity is much, much longer than this life and the discomfort that we face in this life for being a follower of Jesus. … So that doesn’t make it easy, but it makes it worthwhile. And I know I’ll stand before the Lord one day — so I guess I feel like I’m performing in this life for an audience of one, for Him.”
The Diocese of Baton Rouge has not responded to questions from The Pillar regarding the Vos estis lux mundi investigation. While diocesan officials previously said they were unaware of the investigation, they have not issued a new statement since investigators began conducting interviews in the diocese.