NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Slate
January 30, 2020
By Molly Olmstead
How the football team got mixed up in the Catholic Church’s abuse scandal.
Hundreds of emails exchanged between the New Orleans Saints and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans show that members of the football team’s leadership actively participated in creating the church’s list of abusive priests, lawyers representing a group of victims say.
The bizarre allegation stems from the friendship between the Saints’ devoutly Catholic owner, Gayle Benson, and the New Orleans archbishop. The Associated Press first reported the team’s involvement in the sex abuse scandal last week, alleging that the team had helped the archdiocese with damage control around the release of its list of alleged abusers. At the time, the victims’ lawyers accused the team of helping the church with its “pattern and practice of concealing its crimes.”
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