Renee Penton-Jones raised her son and daughter mostly as a single mother. Though she is Methodist, her ex-husband and kids were Catholic, and she relied “on the safety” of the Catholic Church for support. The Casper resident enrolled her children in Saint Anthony School and had them take part in church activities. The Christian education and physical activity her children received “meant the world” to Penton-Jones. 

Last month, Penton-Jones’ son, James Stress, told her “that there was going to be a discussion with the church” about things that had happened to him as a boy. He didn’t want to talk about it with her then. She “really had no clue” what her son’s words could mean. 

On March 31, Stress and two others filed a lawsuit alleging that a former Wyoming youth minister, Doug Hudson, who once worked at Our Lady of Fatima Church, had sexually assaulted them in the 1990s when they were boys. According to the complaint, Hudson had “plied” each of them “with copious amounts of alcohol.” 

The lawsuit also named the Diocese of Cheyenne, which oversees parishes throughout Wyoming, and Our Lady of Fatima Church as defendants, stating that they failed to “supervise and control” the youth minister, which allowed for the alleged sexual assaults to occur.

Penton-Jones learned about the allegations last week through a news article that a friend sent to her. She was busy at work preparing for an Easter buffet and initially read only the headline. Then she sat at her desk and read the whole story. “It was just very disturbing, very upsetting, very shocking,” she told WyoFile. She called her son after to see that he was OK. And she wrote a comment on Facebook reacting to the news: 

“As a single mother raising two children, I TRUSTED that they were safe within the arms of the Catholic Church. I TRUSTED that my son would be in a loving and caring, Christian environment when he was with the youth counselor hired by the church,” Penton-Jones wrote. 

“I couldn’t have been more wrong and I can never undo the pain and suffering inflicted on my child. My heart breaks for him and the others who were subjected to this cruel and inhumane treatment right under the eyes of the church. I pray to God that there will be acknowledgement, apologies and accountability.” 

Penton-Jones said she was unsure whether she could look to the church as the same place of safety that it had been to her for so long. “I would have to think about that,” she said. “There’s a lot of emotion. There’s anger. There’s frustration, like I told you, guilt, there are so many things that go through your head. How did I miss it? What didn’t I see?” 

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Cheyenne initially declined to comment on the lawsuit, but told WyoFile that the diocese planned to respond publicly to the allegations “in the near future.” 

The diocese shared its statement with WyoFile on Tuesday. The message refrains from commenting on the specific accusations in the lawsuit because the matter “is now the subject of active litigation.” At the same time, it expresses the diocese’s “awareness of the seriousness of such claims and its concern for all individuals who may be affected.” 

“The Diocese recognizes that allegations of abuse — particularly those involving minors — can cause deep pain and lasting harm,” the message states. “Any person who comes forward with such allegations deserves to be heard with respect and compassion.” 

The Diocese of Cheyenne, the statement continues, “remains committed” to protecting children and vulnerable people and upholding policies and procedures “to promote safety, accountability, and compliance with civil and Church law.” 

“Out of respect for the legal process and all parties involved, the Diocese will refrain from further public comment while the matter proceeds,” the statement reads. 

“All I can say is that I respect that there’s recognition,” Penton-Jones told WyoFile after a reporter read the statement to her. 

When the lawsuit was filed, WyoFile attempted to contact Hudson through multiple avenues. None of those attempts were successful. A new court summons for Hudson lists a Kentucky address. 

“I trusted him implicitly,” Penton-Jones said of Hudson. “I trusted the church with my children. So it was a huge shock.” If she had the opportunity to say something to Hudson, she would ask him “a lot of whys” and “How could you?” 

Local Catholic Church members and others have reached out to Penton-Jones to “express their love and disappointment and prayers for healing and accountability.” 

“It’s been a blessing to me,” she said. “To know that there’s so much positive in such a horrible situation, it’s comforting.” 

Her “overwhelming thought is that the church be held responsible.” 

“An apology would be ideal,” Penton-Jones said. “I can’t answer for my son. Good grief. I don’t know how you recover from that. How it affects your whole life.”

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Wyoming’s federal delegation kept silent Tuesday on President Donald Trump’s threat that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran fails to meet his latest deadline to strike a deal that includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said late Tuesday he’s pulling back on his threats to launch devastating strikes on Iran, swerving to de-escalate the war less than two hours before the deadline he set for Tehran.

Republican Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis did not respond to WyoFile’s request for comment, which was made before Trump’s announcement that he was holding off on his threats to attack Iranian bridges, power plants and other civilian targets. Nor did Rep. Harriet Hageman. Additionally, social media accounts for the three lawmakers have not posted any remarks on Trump’s threat that an entire country could be wiped off the map.

A review of the Facebook pages of all three members of Wyoming’s delegation shows they haven’t posted on the war this month, as Trump’s threats escalated.

Wyoming’s congressional delegation has expressed past support for Trump’s decision to attack Iran. Both Barrasso and Lummis voted against an attempt to curb Trump’s war powers. Critics of the war have said the president needed to receive congressional approval before launching operations against Iran.

After the war began, Barrasso lauded the president for “one of the boldest military operations in history.”

“President Trump has the courage to do what is right and what needs to be done,” Barrasso said March 3 on the Senate floor. “Something previous administrations refused to do.”

Hageman also opposed an effort in the House to rein in Trump’s war powers.

“Tehran’s jihadist government is finally faced with the reckoning for hundreds of American casualties killed at the hands of Iran’s savage leadership,” Hageman said in a March 2 statement. “Iran’s history of killing American troops, supporting terrorist networks, and refusal to cooperate in good-faith diplomacy made their nuclear-arms campaign a crusade that must be stopped.”

Iran effectively blocked shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after Israel and the U.S. attacked in February. That, and Iran’s attacks on energy infrastructure of its Gulf Arab neighbors, have sent oil prices skyrocketing, raising the price of gasoline, food and other basics far beyond the Middle East. 

Since then, Trump has repeatedly imposed deadlines linked to threats, only to extend them.

Trump said he was holding off on his threatened attacks on Iranian bridges, power plants and other civilian targets, subject to Tehran agreeing to a two-week ceasefire and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the pivotal waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported during peacetime. He also said Iran has proposed a “workable” 10-point peace plan that could help end the war the U.S. and Israel launched on Feb. 28.

Trump has made reopening the strait part of avoiding wider attacks and suggested that the waterway is not as vital to U.S. oil interests as it is to other countries. He has also said he would be willing to deploy ground troops to seize Iranian oil, while maintaining that major combat operations in that country could soon conclude.

Ahead of Tuesday’s deadline, airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station, and the U.S. hit military infrastructure on Kharg Island. It was the second time American forces struck the island, a key hub for Iranian oil production. It was not clear if the latest airstrikes were linked to Trump’s threats to widen the civilian target list. At least two of the targets were connected to Iran’s rail network, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli warplanes struck bridges and railways in Iran.

Iran’s president said 14 million people, including himself, have volunteered to fight. That’s despite Trump threatening that U.S. forces could wipe out all bridges in Iran in a matter of hours and reduce all power plants to smoking rubble in roughly the same time frame. He also suggested the entire country could be wiped off the map.

Trump has shrugged off concerns about war crime accusations.

“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” if a deal isn’t reached, Trump said in an online post Tuesday morning. But he also seemed to keep open the possibility of an off-ramp, saying that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen.”

Earlier, Iranian official Alireza Rahimi issued a video message calling on “all young people, athletes, artists, students and university students and their professors” to form human chains around power plants.

Iranians have formed human chains in the past around nuclear sites at times of heightened tensions with the West. Some images of people surrounding power plants were posted Tuesday by local Iranian media, though how widespread the practice was is unknown.

In Tehran, the mood was bleak. A young teacher said that many opponents of Iran’s Islamic system had hoped Trump’s attacks would quickly topple it.

As the war drags on, she fears U.S. and Israeli strikes will spread chaos.

“If we don’t have the internet, and if we don’t have electricity, water, and gas, we’re really going back to the Stone Age, as Trump said,” she told The Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity for her safety.

More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the government has not updated the toll for days.

In Lebanon, where Israel is fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, more than 1,500 people have been killed. and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.

In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel, and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.

Reporting contributed by The Associated Press. Jon Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Mike Corder reported from The Hague, Netherlands, and Sam Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers David Rising in Bangkok; John Leicester in Paris; Rod McGuirk in Melbourne, Australia; Natalie Melzer in Jerusalem; and Seung Min Kim, Michelle Price and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.