A lawsuit seeking over a million dollars in damages originally filed in December against the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville claims an Edinburg priest’s longtime affair with one of his parishioners caused her divorce and led her to neglect her children so much that one of them began calling the priest “El Diablo.”
In the suit, Jose “Joe” Gonzalez claims his wife Sylvia Vega reignited a sexual affair with Father Alejandro Flores by at least 2024, when the diocese transferred him to be the pastor of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Edinburg.
That relationship, Gonzalez alleges, resulted in Vega spending so much of her time with Flores that it severely harmed the five children he and Vega raised together over the past decade and a half.
Gonzalez sued the diocese on behalf of himself and as next friend of four of Vega’s children, identified only by initials in court documents.
Three of those individuals appear to be adults and another a minor.
“Priests are supposed to pursue integrity, be trustworthy and seek purity,” the suit says. “They are supposed to be God’s shepherds here on Earth. Flores’ immoral sexual relationship with Vega is completely contrary to these tenets. How can he exercise any type of integrity when he, a priest, is in a sexual relationship with Vega? How can he not know that Vega is not spending any time with her children, that she is not being a “mother” to her children, that she has completely abandoned her children? How does that demonstrate integrity?”
The diocese and Vega did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
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