NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Times Picayune
August 7, 2019
By Ramon Antonio Vargas
A man recently accepted a $150,000 settlement from the Archdiocese of New Orleans after claiming a veteran priest repeatedly molested him as a teenager in the mid-1980s at Notre Dame Seminary, when now-Archbishop Gregory Aymond held a high-ranking post there.
The man, Kevin Michael Bourgeois, said that he often encountered Aymond as priest Carl Davidson, then in his mid-40s, led the high schooler into booze-soaked sleepovers at the seminary. That’s where the abuse unfolded.
Bourgeois argues that Aymond should have known what was going on and put a stop to it.
In an interview Wednesday, Aymond said, “I can assure you, in all complete honesty, that is not true. I wish I had known, because if I had known, I would have done something to stop it — I would have reported it, but I didn’t know.”
Davidson, who died in 2007, was among the 61 priests whom the archdiocese last fall identified as credibly accused child abusers.
Bourgeois said he is speaking out because he is plagued with doubts over whether the archdiocese can give parishioners the full accounting the church has promised, and which many victims crave, after decades’ worth of revelations of clergy abuse.
“Every time I see him on the news (claiming) empathy, it makes me want to puke,” Bourgeois, now 52, said of Aymond. “I don’t believe him, don’t believe that he is penitent, because he knew my abuser was abusing boys.”
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