NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Advocate
June 27, 2019
By Ramon Antonio Vargas
The list of Catholic clergymen who served in the Archdiocese of New Orleans and are faced with credible claims of sexually abusing minors grew by four names this week.
Robert Poandl, Christopher Springer, Lawrence Dark and Archibald McDowell were all added Monday to a list that had initially been released Nov. 2 and consisted of 55 priests as well as two deacons.
Poandl and the three others had been religious-order priests who were assigned to work in the archdiocese decades ago. While the archdiocese said it was later notified of sexual misconduct claims against them, their orders were in charge of investigating the cases and determining whether they were credible.
Archdiocesan spokeswoman Sarah McDonald said her organization was “recently” notified that the accusations against all of them had indeed been deemed credible, leading to the decision to add all four to a list which now includes 61 clergymen who are suspected of child sexual abuse.
The archdiocese didn’t further address the timing of the updates to its list. It came shortly after the nation’s Catholic bishops met in Baltimore to pursue stronger accountability and transparency on complaints pertaining to the decades-long clergy sexual abuse crisis.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.