Bombshell Leaked Emails Reveals Role Saints Allegedly Played In New Orleans Church Abuse Scandal

A bombshell report has revealed the alleged extent to which the New Orleans Saints ownership and front office was involved in doing “damage control” for the city’s Catholic Church as it faced abuse allegations. While the story was initially reported on in 2020, newly released emails have further clarified the Saints’ involvement in the scandal.

According to hundreds of emails that were obtained by the Associated Press, the New Orleans Saints’ front office — including President Dennis Lauscha and other top team execs — engaged in a “months-long, crisis-communications blitz” to help the local Catholic church deal with the fallout of a clergy sexual abuse scandal.

One detail, in particular, seems to be particularly damning if true, and that’s the claim that Saints execs were briefed on a list of alleged abusers and had some names removed.

“The records, which the Saints and church had long sought to keep out of public view, reveal team executives played a more extensive role than previously known in a public relations campaign to mitigate fallout from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The emails shed new light on the Saints’ foray [into the scandal], driven by the team’s devoutly Catholic owner who has long enjoyed a close relationship with the city’s embattled archbishop.”

“That litigation, filed in 2020, involves more than 600 people who say they were abused by clergy. The case has produced a trove of still-secret church records said to document years of abuse claims and a pattern of church leaders transferring clergy without reporting their crimes to law enforcement.” [via AP News]

In a statement released in response to the AP’s report, the Saints’ painted the leaked emails as “misconstruing a well-intended effort.”

“No member of the Saints organization condones or wants to cover up the abuse that occurred in the Archdiocese of New Orleans. That abuse occurred is a terrible fact,” the team’s statement read.

The uncovered emails reveal a litany of bombshell details about the Saints’ involvement in the scandal, including but not limited to:

• In 2018, a Saints exec had a call with the New Orleans’ top prosecutor hours before the church released a list of clergymen accused of abuse and “took certain people off” the list — the Saints denied these allegations in a statement, saying “no Saints employees had any responsibility for adding or removing any names from that list.”
• Team officials were among the first people outside the church to view “a carefully curated, yet undercounted” list of suspected pedophiles.
• Team president, Dennis Lauscha, drafted more than a dozen questions that Archbishop Gregory Aymond should be prepared to answer as he faced reporters.
• Lauscha was also provided updates about the Church’s interviews in the local media.

The New Orleans Saints are owned by 78-year-old Gayle Benson, who also owns the New Orleans Pelicans and became the principal owner of the franchises after her husband Tom Benson passed away in 2018.

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