In 2018, the Archdiocese of New Orleans released the names of more than 50 clergy members credibly accuse of sexually abusing children. But before doing that, they emailed the owners and management of the New Orleans Saints football team for advice on how to manage the crisis. As one does.
Now, attorneys representing the two dozen men suing the archdiocese want to release those 276 emails, which they say prove that the Saints helped the archdiocese with their messaging, and aided in a “pattern and practice of concealing its crimes,” and the Saints are taking them to court to prevent this.
The team’s executives have a long-standing relationship with the archdiocese. Gayle Benson, who recently inherited the team after the passing of her husband, is a devout Catholic and friend of Archbishop Gregory Aymond. The emails include correspondence with a number of Saints personnel, including Senior Vice President of Communications Greg Bensel, who advised them on messaging during the crisis.
The emails are at issue because of a litany of lawsuits against the church regarding former deacon George F. Brignac, who was just indicted last month on charges of raping a little boy back in the 1970s (there is no statute of limitations for child sex abuse in Louisiana). Although Brignac was defrocked in 1988 after being accused of molesting a 7-year-old boy, the Church kept him around for years and years afterwards, allowing him to continue as a lay minister and in a leadership position in the Knights of Columbus. Although, to be fair, the church did have him sign a paper swearing to not molest any more little boys “for the good of the Church,” and surely that kept him on the straight and narrow.
That would be super believable if they were not suing to keep those emails private. I don’t know about you, but if I had sent the Catholic Church a bajillion emails telling them to handle things in the way they described, I would want the whole world to see them. Who doesn’t want free PR like that? And what could possibly be in them that is worse than not releasing them and having everyone speculate about why?
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