NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Times-Picayune [New Orleans LA]
February 3, 2025
By Stephanie Riegel
Hundreds of newly disclosed emails between the New Orleans Saints and the Archdiocese of New Orleans detail the extent to which two of the team’s top executives helped to shape the church’s public relations strategy around the clergy sex abuse crisis as the scandal was coming to light six years ago.
The emails, which were obtained by WWL Louisiana, The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Guardian, center on crisis communications advice officials with the Saints organization gave Archbishop Gregory Aymond in 2018, as he was preparing to release a list of priests and deacons accused of sexually abusing children.
Aymond’s release of that list, which originally contained 67 names and has grown to more than 80, and the ensuing flood of claims, eventually led the archdiocese to file for federal bankruptcy protection in May 2020.
Since then, more than 550 abuse survivors have filed claims against some 330 former priests, deacons and nuns.
The Saints’ role in helping the church manage fallout from the scandal has been previously reported by The Times-Picayune and other outlets, but the reports on the emails suggested that the assistance went further than the team previously acknowledged.
Among the new details in stories published on Monday from the media outlets was the disclosure of an email from Saints senior vice president of communications Greg Bensel to Saints General Manager Dennis Lauscha. According to the reports, Bensel wrote to Lauscha that he “Had a cc w Leon Cannizzaro last night that allowed us to take certain people off the list,” referring to then-Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzarro and what the media reports inferred was an abbreviation for a conference call.
In response to the reports, the Saints organization said, “No Saints employee had any responsibility for adding or removing any names from that list or any supplemental list.”
Cannizzarro also denied any role in “removing any names from the list,” according to The Associated Press. He did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The reports said that emails also showed Lauscha drafted talking points for Aymond prior to his interviews with local journalists in relation to the release of the list. In addition, around the same time period, the reports said that Bensel tried to use his connections with local media to influence their coverage of the brewing scandal.
According to The Associated Press, Bensel urged the city’s two newspapers at the time, The Times-Picayune and The New Orleans Advocate, to “work with” the church, telling them, “We need to tell the story of how this archbishop is leading us out of this mess.”
In a statement provided to the media outlets Kevin Hall, publisher of Georges Media, which owns the newspapers, said the paper welcomes engagement from community leaders but that outreach “does not dilute our journalistic standards or keep us from pursuing the truth.”
“No one gets preferential treatment in our coverage of the news,” the statement said. “Over the past six years, we have consistently published in-depth stories highlighting the ongoing serious issues surrounding the archdiocese sex abuse crisis, as well as investigate reports on this matter by WWL-TV and by The Associated Press.”
The Advocate, which purchased The Times-Picayune in 2019, reported extensively on the clergy abuse crisis in the years before the release of Aymond’s list. Specifically, The Advocate reported on how Deacon George Brignac was allowed to participate in Masses and other ministries despite having been removed from ministry decades earlier over abuse allegations. The Advocate also reported on allegations of clergy abuse involving Jesuit High School, among dozens of other stories on the local abuse crisis.
Saints owner Gayle Benson has previously acknowledged that the Saints provided free public relations advice to help manage the church crisis in its early days but downplayed the extent of the team’s involvement.
Saints respond
The news outlets published reports based on the emails all before 7 a.m. Monday, as the Saints and Benson welcomed the NFL and fans from around the country to New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX.
Benson is a close personal friend of Aymond and a devout Roman Catholic, who has donated millions of dollars to the local church and its charitable organizations.
In its statement over the weekend provided to the media outlets, the Saints suggested that the coordinated release of the news reports was intentionally designed to embarrass the team at a time when eyes of the world are on New Orleans.
“It is unfortunate that the media has used the occasion of Super Bowl week to exploit the disclosure, in violation of court order, of leaked emails for the purpose of misconstruing a well-intended effort,” the statement said.
Naseem Amini, a spokesperson for The Times, said the newspaper “reported the news as soon as feasible, after thorough editing, review and fact-checking.”
A statement from The Guardian spokesperson Minhee Cho said the news organization won’t “discuss pre-publication conversation with subjects or sources” and that they stand behind their reporting.
The Associated Press and WWL Louisiana did not respond to emails from The Times-Picayune requesting comment on why their reports were timed simultaneously for the start of Super Bowl week in the city.
At a media briefing Monday afternoon at the Caesars Superdome, where Benson sat on the front row, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell called Benson and the Saints “great corporate citizens,” who have been transparent about their role in trying to help the Catholic church.
“I’m confident that they are playing nothing more than a supportive role to help the church be more transparent,” Goodell said in response to a question about the media reports of the emails.
The release of the emails comes as the local Roman Catholic Church is in the midst of its five-year-long Chapter 11 bankruptcy and settlement talks between the church and abuse survivors are at a sensitive point.
The two sides remain far apart in how much it will take to settle the case, with the church offering $62 million and the survivors seeking nearly $1 billion.
The bankruptcy case is one of the longest, most contentious and costliest of the nearly 40 church bankruptcies that have been filed over the years as church leaders have tried to settle, once and for all, the claims related to abuse.
Email Stephanie Riegel at stephanie.riegel@theadvocate.com.