Priest Abuse Victims Question If Archdiocese Properly Investigated, Referred Cases to Vatican

By David Hammer and Ramon Antonio Vargas
WWL 4 CBS and Times-Picayune and Advocate
November 5, 2020

https://www.wwltv.com/article/news/investigations/david-hammer/priest-abuse-victims-question-if-archdiocese-properly-investigated-referred-cases-to-vatican/289-93b5fa1d-675d-446a-a6d4-22d7aa6ebda5

Mark Vath thought the sexual abuse complaint he filed against his father’s cousin, a Roman Catholic priest named Paul Calamari, was resolved when the Archdiocese of New Orleans put Calamari on a 2018 list of clerics strongly suspected of molesting children.

Church officials also agreed to pay Vath a $100,000 settlement for his ordeal. That was less than a month before the release of the roster of fallen priests and deacons. Church officials also later told him they believed his allegations.

But it turns out a formal investigation of Vath’s case by the church didn’t even start for another two years. Archbishop Gregory Aymond informed Vath in a letter in September that the church had only begun scrutinizing Calamari a month earlier, a process that might refer the matter to top Catholic bureaucrats in Rome to consider removing Calamari from the priesthood.