Lawyers representing a group of men who say they were molested as children by clergy in the Archdiocese of New Orleans have accused executives with the New Orleans Saints of trying to help cover up the Catholic sex abuse scandal and manage its public relations crisis.

The Saints deny those accusations but have also fought in court to keep hundreds of emails between some of its executives and the Archdiocese hidden from the public.

Now that the Archdiocese has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy —putting a hold on all civil cases against it—those emails may never be released.

What Are the Details of the New Orleans Archdiocese Clergy Sex Abuse?

The Roman Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal in New Orleans began, in part, when officials at the Archdiocese in November 2018 released to the public a list of 57 clergy members who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children. The disclosure came nearly three months after a grand jury in Pennsylvania issued a devastating report saying hundreds of priests there had molested nearly 1,000 children dating to the 1940s – all previously undisclosed cases.

The Pennsylvania report rocked the Catholic church and launched a new, explosive chapter in the ongoing child sex abuse scandal that has been raging nationwide since about 2002. It also prompted dozens of bishops and archbishops across the country, including Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans, to review church records and release the names of priests and clergy who had been credibly accused of abusing children, according to NOLA.com, the website of The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate.

In the time since the original list was released, four additional priests have been added to it, bringing the total number of credibly accused clergy to 61.

In addition to compiling the list and dealing with the fallout from its release, the archdiocese has grappled with a crisis involving a former teacher and deacon George F. Brignac, who was acquitted in 1978 of indecent behavior with a juvenile, but has been accused by several others in the years before and since. Brignac was removed from active ministry in 1988, after a 7-year-old boy said the deacon fondled him at a Christmas party, according to the Associated Press. But church officials allowed Brignac to continue to act as a lay minister until 2018, when his ongoing role with the church was reported in the local news.

In December, a grand jury indicted Brignac on rape charges stemming from allegations made a year earlier by a former altar boy who accused Brignacof raping him numerous times, between the ages of 7 and 11, starting in the late 1970s, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, the archdiocese, which included Brignac on its list of credibly accused child abusers, settled a number of lawsuits against the former deacon and was still facing others.

Brignac died on June 29 from complications from a fall he took in jail in December, local CBS affiliate WWL-TV reported. He was 85.

Archbishop Aymond is now asking all diocesan priests who have been credibly accused of child sex abuse to leave the clergy and is considering even more aggressive action in the form of church trials in Rome to force out two priests —Patrick Wattigny and Travis Clark—who were implicated in October in separate sex scandals. Wattigny reportedly admitted to the Archdiocese on Oct. 1 that he sexually assaulted a minor in 2013. In an unrelated incident, Clark was booked on an obscenity charge the same day for videotaping himself having sex with two dominatrices (including one self-described Satanist) on the altar in Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, according to NOLA.com.

Aymond had the altar burned and gifted the church a new one.

“His behavior was obscene his desecration of the altar is demonic,” Aymond said. The strong reaction of church leaders to this sex scandal is infuriating, say members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), who believe the archbishop has given more attention to an altar than children who have been victimized by the church.

“The Archbishop says he’s infuriated with the behavior of Travis Clark, however, he hasn’t been infuriated when his brother priests rape children in the past and that’s what’s infuriating to us,” said Kevin Bourgeois, a Louisiana-based SNAP leader.

How Was the New Orleans Saints Football Team Involved?

During the litigation of an October 2018 civil lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of New Orleans over  Catholic sex abuse, lawyers discovered 276 emails between New Orleans Saints executives and church officials about the ongoing crisis.

The documents are sealed and only accessible to the lawyers in in the case, which is exactly the way the Saints want it to stay. The team has been fighting in court to keep the emails private, Sports Illustrated reported in June.

But attorneys for the nearly two dozen men who brought the lawsuit have spoken publicly about what they found in the emails. They say Saints executives, “including Senior Vice President of Communications Greg Bensel, used their team email accounts to advise church officials on ‘messaging’ and how to soften the impact of the archdiocese’s release of the list of credibly accused clergy,” the AP reported.

The documents show that the NFL team helped the Archdiocese of New Orleans in its “pattern and practice of concealing its crimes,” attorneys for the plaintiffs said in court filings.

Moreover, the lawyers say there is evidence in the emails that the Saints participated in drafting the list.

In court papers filed in late January, the AP reported that the plaintiffs’ lawyers said that “in order to fulfill this role … the Saints must have known the specific allegations of sexual abuse against a priest … and made a judgment call about whether those allegations by a particular victim against a named priest were, in its opinion, legitimate enough to warrant being included.”

The documents show a concerning level of involvement between the Saints and the Archdiocese, plaintiffs’ lawyers said.

“Obviously, the Saints should not be in the business of assisting the Archdiocese, and the Saints’ public relations team is not in the business of managing the public relations of criminals engaged in pedophilia,” the attorneys wrote. “The Saints realize that if the documents at issue are made public, this professional sports organization also will be smearing itself.”

Was There a Clergy Sex Abuse Cover Up?

The AP conducted an investigation of the Archdiocese’s list of credibly accused priests and said it found an additional 20 clergy members “who had been accused in lawsuits or charged by law enforcement with child sexual abuse” who were not on it. That included two who were already charged and convicted.

The men who are suing the Archdiocese of New Orleans claim that church officials attempted to cover up some allegations of priests sex abuse. The plaintiffs also claim the Saints’ executives were helping to do that, something the team and its lawyers strenuously deny.

Have the New Orleans Saints Responded to the Allegations?

The Saints organization issued a statement in January insisting the Archdiocese asked for advice in handling the media attention it expected would follow the release of the list of credibly accused clergy. “The advice was simple and never wavering. Be direct, open and fully transparent, while making sure that all law enforcement agencies were alerted,” the team statement said.

Although the team also insisted it was not interested in “concealing information from the press or public” it has petitioned the court handling the sex abuse lawsuit to keep its emails under seal because they were intended to be private communications.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans filed for bankruptcy in May, effectively putting the civil cases against it – and the question of the Saints’ emails – on ice indefinitely.

Who Owns the New Orleans Saints?

The New Orleans Saints are owned by Gayle Benson, widow of former owner Tom Benson, who died in 2018. Archbishop Aymond performed the Mass at his funeral. Aymond has been a guest of Gayle Benson’s at Saints football games and charity events, the AP has reported.

Benson is a devout Catholic who has donated millions of dollars to Catholic organizations in and around New Orleans.

“To suggest that I would offer money to the Catholic Church to pay for anything related to the clergy-molestation issue sickens me,” she said in a statement, though it was not evident who had made the claim.

Benson maintained that the Saints played no role in constructing the Archdiocese’s list of credibly accused clergy within the Archdiocese.

Attorneys representing one of the plaintiffs known as John Doe replied to Benson’s statement: “As we previously stated, it is obvious that Gayle Marie Benson has not read the e-mails at issue, or re-read her own e-mails. If she had, she never would have made some of the false claims asserted in her statement today.”

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.