A small number of victims of New Orleans’ Catholic clergy abuse scandal filed into a local church office recently for the first of 10 group meetings with Archbishop Gregory Aymond.
The New Orleans archdiocese agreed to the meetings as part of settling its six-year-old federal bankruptcy protection case in December. Such group and one-on-one meetings are some of the non-monetary terms of a settlement that is expected to otherwise pay about 600 abuse survivors $305m.
The archdiocese is one of more than 40 Catholic organizations in the US to have filed for bankruptcy protection amid the worldwide church’s clergy abuse scandal – and one of 29 to settle such litigation.
The organization set the schedule for group meetings: two daily for five days beginning on 6 February.
Some survivors complained about the tight schedule on a weekend marked by Carnival season parades in New Orleans and Super Bowl LX viewing parties. But Aymond said he was “befuddled” by the criticism, pointing out that the church advertised the meetings in January – and explaining a sense of urgency with his pending retirement.
Aymond already spent two days in December hearing more than two dozen abuse victims testify in federal bankruptcy court, wrapping up a case that was often contentious and cost the church more than $55m in legal fees.
Before he entered the church office for the first session, Aymond told Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana the point of the group meetings was to listen to survivors, many of whom faced years of challenges after they were abused, in a setting different than a courtroom.
“We have that thing in English where [one says]‘I know how you feel,’” Aymond remarked. “I don’t think we know how anyone feels … And I want to be able to hear that and to be able to personally bring that to prayer.”
Among those attending the first session was Andre Fourroux.
Fourroux is the third person WWL found who made allegations against retired New Orleans priest Joseph deWater. In 2021, WWL tracked down deWater in the Netherlands, and he granted the station an exclusive interview, in which he admitted buying a New Orleans-area boy bikini swimsuits decades ago. He showed WWL a letter he had just received from Aymond informing him he was under investigation. But deWater denied wrongdoing and was never added to the archdiocese’s list of clergy it considers to be credibly accused.
Fourroux said deWater belongs on the list and he was considering asking Aymond about it – but he hoped the archbishop would only listen.
“Because nobody listened to the children,” Fourroux said. “Nobody listened to their children when they had something to say.
“This is old, old stuff. And they gotta get it right. And just plain listening to what survivors have to say is what he needs to do, what the whole clerical system needs to do.”
The first group meeting on Friday encountered a few hiccups. The archdiocese posted the wrong address on its website – listing the church, rather than the church offices – and had to send the archbishop’s car to pick up a group of survivors. The church also agreed to not use a hired facilitator to help run the meeting, responding to concerns from survivors, who were prohibited from bringing advocates into the meetings with them.
Hundreds of victims of child sexual abuse by clergy and other church creditors agreed to a $230m settlement in October. A federal bankruptcy judge approved the deal in December, and the church’s largest insurer, Travelers, subsequently signed an agreement to contribute another $75m.
The church furthermore agreed to meet with anyone who filed a claim in the bankruptcy – or anyone else who alleges he or she experienced sexual abuse through the church – so that they could ask Aymond questions or share their stories.
The settlement also allows survivors to request individual meetings with Aymond for up to a year and requires the church to send each individual claimant an apology letter. Aymond has already issued a public apology letter mandated by the settlement. The church must also remove anything that honors any clergy who is or was the subject of credible allegations of child sexual abuse and must publish survivor stories on the archdiocese’s website.
Additionally, the archdiocese will add a “place of remembrance” to its main office for all survivors of sexual abuse.
While the settlement gave the church 18 months to hold the 10 group meetings, Aymond said they chose to hold them over five days in February because the Vatican could soon accept his retirement. He submitted his retirement as the church required when he turned 75 in November 2024.
“I had promised that I would finish this before I retired,” he said. “We don’t know exactly when [that will happen]but it’s coming quickly, and I really felt that I wanted to be there with the survivors.”
