Survivors of Catholic clergy abuse and their supporters expressed disgust, pain and disbelief after the Guardian and WWL Louisiana’s investigation on Monday into hundreds of emails showing officials with the NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans aided New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese efforts to soften critical media coverage about the church’s management of a clerical molestation scandal.
“The New Orleans Saints and … Pelicans chose to stand shoulder to shoulder with Gregory Aymond to ease the harm to the church, not the harm to children,” said Kathryn Robb, the national director of the Children’s Justice Campaign at the Enough Abuse Organization.
Monday’s revelations came amid an ongoing Louisiana state police investigation into the New Orleans archdiocese, in which troopers have alleged in sworn court documents that they had probable cause to believe the church ran a child-sex trafficking ring that allowed clergymen to inflict sexual abuse on minors for decades and then covered up those crimes.
Richard Windmann said it was “disturbing” to see the emails mention his decision to go public about his abuse as a child at the hands of a priest and janitor at Jesuit high school in New Orleans in the 1970s.
‘Shame on them’: anger and dismay from survivors over Saints clergy-abuse emails Clergy abuse survivors and their supporters express pain over sports officials’ efforts to soften coverage of scandal.
