Police called Lisa Friloux’s complaint against Gilbert Enderle ‘unfounded’. Friloux Guardian investigation, they’re now examining whether the clergyman committed battery

A woman says she was left feeling brushed aside by Roman Catholic church officials and police in New Orleans after she alleged to both that she fought off an attempted sexual assault by an elderly priest, who initially appeared to have been spared a criminal investigation and then was sent by his superiors to a midwest retirement home – all with the public kept in the dark.

But after Lisa Friloux told the Guardian about her struggles with pursuing a complaint against Gilbert Enderle, and the outlet asked New Orleans police for comment on her account, the agency said it had opened a separate follow-up investigation into the clergyman. That investigation, which was examining whether he committed battery rather than sexual assault, remained pending as of Thursday, police said.

Friloux, 63, said her experience with Enderle – who now claimsto be so stricken with dementia that he does not even remember her – reinforced conceptions that key figures in the church continue to fall short of living up to its promises of transparency in cases of alleged sexual misconduct.