NEW ORLEANS (LA)
New Orleans Advocate
By John Simerman, Ramon Antonio Vargas and Matt Sledge
November 2, 2018
New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond on Friday released the names of 57 former clergy members credibly accused of sexually abusing minors — the first such disclosure in the history of the Catholic Church in Louisiana.
The list, released amid pressure from local Catholics and widespread demands for church transparency across the U.S., includes 34 clergy whose alleged abuses do not appear to have been previously exposed. According to Aymond, all 57 clergy were either removed from ministry as a result of the allegations or were already dead when the allegations arose.
In all, the disgraced clergy served across a wide swath of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Alleged abusers worked at some time or another in about 125 schools, parishes and other church-operated facilities. That figure represents about 25 percent of all such facilities under the archdiocese in the 1970s, when the largest share of known clergy sex abuse took place.
Many of the listed clergy served as modest parish priests or worked in local high schools while they allegedly preyed on children and young adults.
But a select few were once pillars of the city. J. Donald Pearce served as president of Jesuit High School from 1965 to 1968 and was earlier a legendary disciplinarian at the school. It turns out he sexually abused minors in the 1960s, according to allegations the archdiocese deemed credible.
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