Catholic Priests at Hope Haven Orphanage in Marrero Accused of Molestation in New Lawsuit

By Drew Broach
NOLA.com
November 13, 2018

https://www.nola.com/news/2018/11/priests-at-hope-haven-orphanage-in-marrero-accused-of-molestation-in-new-lawsuit.html

Hope Haven and Madonna Manor were photographed Sept. 5, 2012. (Photo By Susan Poag, The Times-Picayune)

Pedophile priests accused of molesting children at the former Hope Haven and Madonna Manor orphanages are targets of a new lawsuit filed Tuesday (Nov. 13) against the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Salesian order to which the priests belonged. Two lawyers filed the suit in Orleans Parish Civil District Court on behalf of four unnamed adults who as children lived at the Marrero orphanages in the 1970s and 1980s.

The suit comes 11 days after the archdiocese disclosed the names of 55 priests and two deacons whom it said had been “credibly accused” of sexually abusing children in its jurisdiction since 1917. Eight of those priests, six of them now dead, worked at Hope Haven.

The archdiocese said Nov. 2 it was opening up about its history of clerical sex crimes in an act of repentance, amid swelling demands for transparency in an international scandal that has rocked the world’s largest Christian church. But the new suit illustrates the risk of coming clean: More plaintiffs come forward to sue the church for money.

Nine years ago, the archdiocese and its affiliated Catholic Charities paid almost $5.2 million to more than a dozen men who asserted they were beaten, berated and molested years earlier as children living at Hope Haven. Yet the new suit says the archdiocese has never disclosed the “full list of brothers, staff or employees … accused of abusing children” there.

The archdiocese would not comment on the latest suit. “Our prayers and concern go out to all victims of abuse,” a spokeswoman said. “We cannot offer any comment on pending litigation.”

The Nov. 2 announcement from the archdiocese identified eight Salesian of Don Bosco priests who were credibly accused of molesting children from the 1950s into the 1970s, during part of which time they were assigned to Hope Haven. The allegations did not surface until 2006 at the earliest, the archdiocese said.

After the archdiocese’s announcement, the Salesian order expressed “remorse for the pain and sorrow a few of its members have caused through sexual misconduct or abuse of any kind” and asked for forgiveness.

As to the new suit’s allegations, the order’s vice provincial, the Rev. Steve Ryan, said Tuesday that the order was no longer running the Hope Haven and Madonna Manor by the late 1970s, having left to focus its West Bank work on Archbishop Shaw High School. Indeed, an April 23, 1966, Times-Picayune story reported that the Salesian were relinquishing supervision of Hope Haven to Associated Catholic Charities lay staffers effective July 5 of that year. Still, the story said, Salesians would continue serving as chaplains at the orphanages and living for a time on the Hope Haven-Madonna Manor campus.

Hope Haven opened in 1925 and beginning in 1933 was run by the Salesians order. Across Barataria Boulevard, Madonna Manor was founded in 1933 and for a time was staffed by nuns from the School Sisters of Notre Dame.

Madonna Manor took in young children from desperate families unable to care for them and children placed there by courts as wards of the state. Hope Haven was home to older children.

The new suit makes as defendants the archdiocese, Catholic Charities and the Salesians. It does not fully identify the adults it accuses of abusing children; it calls one of them “Tony,” another “Brother Harold” and third “Mr. Sal.”

Using pseudonyms, it describes the plaintiffs as:

John Roe I of Louisiana, who was 9 years old when he was placed at Madonna Manor. The suit says he was repeatedly forced into sex in the chapel sacristy, on a field trip to St. Joseph Abbey near Covington and in a private cottage between 1981 and 1983, when he was admitted to a mental institution for a “severe emotional collapse.”

John Roe II of Texas, who was 12 when placed at Madonna Manor in 1982. It says he was frequently fondled, forced into oral sex by Tony on fishing trips and raped by staffers until he ran away from the orphanage after two to three years.

John Roe III of Louisiana, who was 14 when placed at Hope Haven in 1975. The suit says Brother Harold repeatedly offered him money so the priest could fondle the teen’s genitals and perform oral sex on him, and that a counselor several times fondled him in the campus swimming pool and performed oral sex on him. The teen left Hope Haven after about three years.

John Roe IV of Louisiana, who was 13 when placed at Hope Haven. Beginning in 1978, the suit says, Brother Harold repeatedly forced him into being masturbated by the priest and Mr. Sal beat him. The teen left Hope Haven in 1980.

The suit has been assigned to Division E, where the judge will be Omar Mason or Marie Williams, depending on which is elected in a Dec. 8 runoff election.