New Catholic Priest Abuse Reports Test Legacies of Archbishops Joseph Rummel, Philip Hannan
By Drew Broach
As the rain ceased and the skies cleared on the afternoon of Sept. 12, 1987, the world leader of Roman Catholicism stepped to the altar of a canopied pavilion at the University of New Orleans and, before 130,000 sweltering faithful, raised the eucharistic host to heaven. Standing just behind and to the right of Pope John Paul II was the concelebrant of the outdoor Mass, Archbishop Philip Hannan, who would later recall the future saint’s three-day stopover in his city as the apogee of his 24-year episcopate. Hannan died in 2011, a tough, colorful prelate who not only scored the coup of a papal visit but more broadly was revered as the architect of a sprawling network of new social services for poor people, elderly people and immigrants in southeast Louisiana. Now, however, Hannan’s legacy – and that of one of his predecessors, Joseph Rummel, the longest-serving archbishop in New Orleans history -- is coming under new scrutiny, the result of changing societal values and of a belated effort by the Catholic Church, especially in the United States, to come clean about its history of pedophile priests and its institutional coverup of their misbehavior. The current archbishop, Gregory Aymond, on Friday (Nov. 2) released information showing that 55 priests and two deacons who served in the archdiocese – far more than previously acknowledged – had been “credibly accused” of sexual abuse since 1917, and that almost all of it occurred while Rummel or Hannan was in charge. Nineteen clergy members allegedly molested children during Rummel’s tenure, and at least five of those cases were brought to the church’s attention while he was still its leader, according to the archdiocese’s list. Twenty-seven allegedly molested children during Hannan’s tenure, with at least six of them accused while Hannan was archbishop. The exact number of Catholic priests in the New Orleans area since 1917 is not known. But since 1950, about halfway into Rummel’s tenure, the number serving is 2,432, the archdiocese says. Of the 55 identified Friday, 53 served after 1950 and thus represent about 2.2 percent of priests in the past 68 years. Does the public release of the information, most of it until now kept secret by the church, alter how New Orleanians view Rummel and Hannan? Aymond, while apologizing for the sins of the church, hopes not. “They responded in the way they thought was best,” he said of his predecessors, “and they responded in the way others throughout the country were responding to pedophilia.” Some historians, however, caution that only more time will tell. “If further revelations show that these figures were directly complicit in covering up the abuse, it seems that in our current climate their accomplishments will be reevaluated if for no other reason than that recent events have demonstrated the malleability of historical legacies,” said Justin Nystrom, associate history professor at Loyola University and director of its Center for New Orleans Studies. “At the same time, it will be difficult to take away what both men have accomplished as institutional leaders, especially as they are beloved by so many.” Changing values The earthly remains of Rummel and Hannan are entombed in the floor of St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. Their reputations are being exhumed in the light of both the new information released Friday and contemporary views of pedophilia. In modern times, using children for sex has always been wrong. But recognition that it can cause long-lasting trauma to young people is a relatively recent phenomenon, according to the historian Steven Mintz. In a 2012 paper for the Social Science Research Council, he noted it wasn’t until 1974 that Congress began requiring states to report sexual abuse of children. At one time, said the Rev. Edward Vacek, a religious studies professor at Loyola, the consensus among professional psychologists treating child victims was that “one of the most damaging things you could do was to make a big thing of it.” “These days it might be a me-too world. Back then [sex abuse] was scandalous; it was wrong," Vacek said. "But there wasn’t a big push to make it public. Likewise, the church for decades addressed pedophile priests by having them go to confession and receive forgiveness – and warning them not to do it again. Gradually that response evolved to add psychological treatment for the offender – and allow a return to ministry. Then the church began defrocking offending priests, Vacek said. Only later, after scandals in recent decades began revealing the extent of the abuse, did church authorities come under pressure to report offenders to law enforcement. Rummel’s mark Rummel led the Archdiocese of New Orleans for 29 years beginning in 1935. He grew the Catholic school system in the city’s suburbs as population exploded there after World War II. He died in 1964, two years after dedicating a Metairie high school named for him. He notably nudged the local church and the schools toward racial integration, ultimately ordering the schools integrated in 1962, five years after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling against segregation in public schools and two years after integration of New Orleans public schools. Most famously, Rummel ex-communicated Leander Perez, the political boss of Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes, and two other Catholics for challenging his authority to end school segregation and to preach the common dignity of black and white people. And yet on Rummel’s watch, as the archdiocese disclosed Friday: The Rev. John Basty was credibly accused of sexually molesting children in the 1940s, a decade during which he served three parishes in New Orleans and one in Destrehan. The church first learned of the allegations in 1946 and investigated but found insufficient grounds for a criminal trial, archdiocesan spokeswoman Sarah McDonald said Wednesday. The St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office and other officials investigated allegations against Basty in 1948, and the next year he was sent to St. Augustine Parish in New Orleans, McDonald said. He died in 1956. The Rev. Michael Hurley was credibly accused of molesting children in the 1940s, when he was assigned to five parishes. The church learned of the allegations in 1945, but McDonald said the archdiocese’s files do not show what happened until 1955, when another allegation was received and Hurley was granted a leave of absence. Hurley then moved to an out-of-state diocese, to which New Orleans provided notice of his history, McDonald said. The Rev. William Miller, a Redemptorist priest, was credibly accused of molesting children in the late 1940s while assigned to St. Alphonsus Parish in New Orleans. The church learned of the allegation in 1946. The same year, the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer recalled Miller from New Orleans and “his faculties were removed,” meaning he was forbidden to perform public ministry or present himself as a priest in any way, McDonald said. Law enforcement was notified, she said. The Redemptorist order later reinstalled Miller at St. Alphonsus, McDonald said. The. Rev. Alfred Pimple, a Franciscan friar, was credibly accused of molesting children in the late 1950s. His local parish assignments included St. Mary of the Angels in New Orleans and St. Patrick in Port Sulphur. The allegation surfaced in 1959, and that year the Order of Friars Minor removed him from New Orleans and law enforcement officials investigated, McDonald said. The Rev. John Franklin, a Savannah, Ga., diocesan priest working in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, was credibly accused of molesting children in the late 1950s when he was assigned to Ascension Parish in Donaldsonville and St. Gabriel in New Orleans. The church learned of the allegations in 1959 and removed him from ministry the same year. How does this affect Rummel’s standing in history? Jason Berry, the New Orleans author who has written extensively about pedophilic Catholic priests and the church’s questionable response, said Monday that times were different then, both in the church and society at large. “Rummel was bishop in an era when none of this was on anybody’s radar screen,” Berry said, adding, “That’s not to excuse the way he handled certain cases.” Hannan’s cases Hannan served from 1965 to 1989, during which his archdiocese, in concert with President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiative, built and ran housing, food, medical and literacy programs and neighborhood centers for poor people. Too, Hannan threw open the doors of the archdiocese to hundreds and then thousands of Vietnamese refugees after Saigon fell to the communists in 1975. A high school near Covington is named for him. In 2003, well into the pedophile priest scandal, Hannan called it “worse than any nightmare I ever had. Absolutely crushing. If there was anything I could have done to avoid it, including offering my life up, I sure would have done it.” He was forced in 1991 to address one case publicly when the news media reported that Dino Cinel , a Tulane University professor and priest in residence at St. Rita Parish in New Orleans, had been having sex with young men in the rectory and videotaping some of the encounters. The abuse was discovered by the church three years earlier, at which point Hannan quickly suspended Cinel.
But the archdiocese kept quiet about the case, and it waited three months to hand over the evidence to the district attorney’s office. Prosecutors did not charge the ex-priest with a crime, and Berry said Hannan did not fare well in some of the news reports defending his decisions. Yet by the time Hannan retired, Cinel was barely a footnote in the archbishop’s larger story. “The thing that struck me about Hannan was that he seemed to have had Teflon on this issue,” Berry said. Now the archdiocese has disclosed the names of six more pedophile priests about whom it knew during the Hannan era: The Rev. Gerald Howell, was credibly accused in 1978 of molesting children in the 1960s and 1970s, while variously assigned to nine church parishes in New Orleans, Westwego, Chalmette, Kenner and Baton Rouge. He was removed from ministry in 1980 and, according to the website BishopAccountability.org, spent 1981 and 1982 at House of Affirmation, a Whittinsville, Mass.,treatment center for priests with psychological and psychosexual problems. Howell was returned to ministry in 1982 but beginning in 1986 was “strictly limited,” meaning he was given no pastoral assignments. His faculties were removed in 1992. At some point, McDonald said, Hannan was trying to restrict or remove Howell from ministry but Howell was appealing to the Vatican. James Lockwood, a deacon, was credibly accused in 1978 of molesting children in the late 1970s. He had been assigned to the Center of Jesus the Lord in New Orleans and Our Lady of Prompt Succor Parish in Chalmette. The church removed him from ministry the same year it received the allegations. The Rev. John Seery was credibly accused in 1978 of molesting children in the late 1970s while at Our Lady of Prompt Succor Parish in Westwego. In 1978, law enforcement investigated, Hannan removed his faculties and Seery moved to Ireland, McDonald said. George Brignac, a deacon, was credibly accused of molesting children in the late 1970s and early 1980s while assigned to Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in New Orleans and teaching at four Catholic schools in New Orleans, Arabi and River Ridge. The first allegations came to the church in 1977 and resulted in criminal charges filed by the Jefferson Parish district attorney’s office, McDonald said. Brignac was found not guilty at trial. But in 1988, the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office brought criminal charges and the church removed Brignac from ministry, McDonald said. Orleans dropped its charges in 1989. The Rev. Vincent Feehan was credibly accused in 1987 of molesting children in the late 1970s and early 1980s while working at four parishes in Belle Chasse, Madisonville, Metairie and New Orleans. The same year that the allegations surfaced, he was allowed to take a leave of absence and Hannan instructed him not to perform priestly services, McDonald said. Later, the archdiocese confirmed that his faculties had been removed. The Rev James Kilgour was credibly accused in 1987 of molesting children in the 1980s while at St. Pius X Parish in New Orleans. The church removed him from ministry a year later. Will this change Hannan’s standing in history? Garnett Bedenbaugh, a Hammond resident who works in the national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, expressed pessimism. “He’s a hero,” Bedenbaugh said of Hannan’s place in the public mind. “If you accuse them, then all their fans will rise up and beat down the accuser.” Berry, too, is skeptical -- for now -- that Hannan legacy will suffer much. “People develop concrete ideas, and it’s hard to break that.” Much, of course, remains to be seen how this will play out in the public’s minds and hearts. “As we begin to look further into these cases, we will confront a painful past that demands a more nuanced and honest historical portrait of Catholic leadership, clerical culture and the larger institutional structures of the church,” said Justin Poche, who teaches history at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., and has studied Rummel and the early years of Hannan’s episcopate. “And if the evidence proves negligence on their part, it would certainly affect the legacies of Rummel and Hannan.” What is clear is that their successor, the 14th archbishop of New Orleans, is doing far more than his predecessors to come clean with the public – as are some of his colleagues across the United States. “It’s really been left to Aymond to kind of pick up the pieces,” Berry said. “It’s not an enviable position.”
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