NEW ORLEANS - A 93-year-old Catholic priest will be spending the rest of his life in prison after being found guilty by a New Orleans court of raping a teenage boy in 1975.

Described by the US media as a serial child molester, retired Roman Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker pleaded guilty to child rape earlier this month and received a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment for the crime.

Judge Nandi Campbell was seen weeping in sympathy for Hecker’s victims while the victim wished his attackers superiors were “sitting there with him”.

“I don’t forgive him,” said the victim who was sexually assaulted by the cleric at a church near the high school where the 16-year-old boy was enrolled at the time.

He suspected the diocese where Hecker belonged protected him from being investigated and prosecuted.

Hecker was given a chance to apologize before the sentencing but just held his silence.

Several other victims who suffered sexual abuse from Hecker were also ready to testify last December 3 but this was preempted when the nonagenarian cleric decided to plead guilty to the charge he faced.

Hecker had already retired as a Catholic priest when he was charged on a crime he committed decades ago.

Judge Campbell addressed the victims, saying that he hoped “this sentence gives you some closure.”

Interviewed by journalists who covered the event, Hecker’s lawyer Robert Hjortsberg stressed that the guilty plea declared by his client was a sincere gesture of remorse.

The former student who pursued the criminal complaint against Hecker was enrolled at New Orlean’s St. John Vianney High School when he was sexually molested by the priest.

Ironically, the school was named after the patron saint of Catholic parochial priests.

Reacting to many cases of sexual abuse against Catholic priests, Pope Francis responded with concrete actions to address the issue, saying that the church had “zero tolerance” for the offense.

“It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those most vulnerable,” he stated in a letter addressed to the public in 2018.