NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Crux
December 12, 2018
By Christopher White
Thirty years ago, investigative reporter Jason Berry pioneered new territory by covering clerical sexual abuse in Louisiana. Since then, his name has become synonymous with the crisis that continues to loom over the Catholic Church today.
In his new book, City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at 300, Berry returns to his roots. In an interview with Crux, he details some of the city’s rich Catholic history, its efforts to confront race relations, and why researching some of the city’s saints proved far more fulfilling than his work in Rome.
Crux: You’ve spent decades uncovering and chronicling the Church’s shameful history of clerical sex abuse and cover-up, yet this new book switches gears to tell the story of a city – your city – New Orleans. What prompted you to write this book?
Berry: In 1985, when I began investigating clergy abuse cases in Lafayette, Louisiana my second book was heading toward publication, Up from the Cradle of Jazz: New Orleans Music Since World War II. After six years on that topic I had become intrigued with jazz funerals, how they arose, what they said about the city. As I gathered documents on clergy predators, the narrative taking shape for Lead Us Not into Temptation (1992) became hugely consuming. I came back from reporting trips, numbed by clerical secrets and crimes, and invariably attended the funeral of a musician. As the mourners danced in the streets, I felt strangely happy. My own church made me sad. The city of my birth was sending rhythms of spiritual hope.
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