Ordained:

In 1997, Dennis Raymond Jost was removed from a volunteer position training altar servers at St. Bernard of Clairvaux in Dallas, TX, when a parishioner suspicious of his behavior performed a background check and discovered a federal conviction for transporting a minor across state lines for immoral purposes. In the wake of this firing, it was reported that priests in the Diocese of San Bernardino, CA, may have already been aware of allegations of child sexual abuse made against him. In December of 1977, Jost allegedly brought a boy to his home after mass at St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church in Alta Loma, CA, and sexually abused him. The boy’s parents informed the priest at St. Peter and St. Paul’s of the incident before reporting it to the police. Jost was arrested and pleaded no contest to charges of assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. In 1982, he applied to become the foster parent of a young relative who had been living with him, and submitted letters in support of this application from the pastor and youth minister at Queen of Angels Church in Riverside, CA, where he had been training acolytes. His application was eventually rejected, but Jost continued to work with altar servers at Queen of Angels. He attempted to become ordained as a deacon by participating in a Deacon Formation Program from 1983-1986, but his ordination was denied when he refused to continue psychological treatement for the “incident” at St. Peter and St. Paul. In 1991, a boy alleged that Jost molested him when he was an altar server at Queen of Angels, beginning around 1988. In 1993, Jost was convicted on a federal charge for transporting a child across state lines for immoral purposes. In 1995, Jost began working at St. Bernard of Clairvaux in Dallas, TX. He was removed in 1997.