NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WWL-TV [New Orleans LA]
February 6, 2026
By David Hammer / WWL Louisiana Investigator, Danny Monteverde
Group meetings are part of a $305 million settlement resolving hundreds of clergy abuse claims and come as Archbishop Gregory Aymond prepares to retire.
NEW ORLEANS — A small number of victims of clergy abuse filed into the Holy Name of Jesus Parish Center on Friday for the first of 10 group meetings with Archbishop Gregory Aymond.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans agreed to the meetings as part of its bankruptcy settlement late last year. Group and one-on-one meetings are some of the nonmonetary terms of a settlement that’s expected to pay about 600 abuse survivors $305 million.
The church set the schedule for group meetings, with two each day for the next five days. Some survivors complained about the tight schedule during Carnival and Super Bowl weekend, but Aymond said he was “befuddled” by the criticism, pointing out that the church advertised the meetings in January and explaining a sense of urgency with his pending retirement.
Aymond already spent two days in December hearing more than two dozen abuse victims testify in federal bankruptcy court, wrapping up a six-year case that was often contentious and cost the church more than $55 million in legal fees.
Before he entered the parish center on Friday, Aymond told WWL Louisiana the point of the group meetings was to listen to survivors, many of whom faced years of challenges after they were abused, in a setting different than a courtroom.https://11fe5fb01859dc46c2702221c6120665.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-45/html/container.html
“I know that for many of them it’s been a long road of pain and challenge. And the quality of life, in many cases, has been disrupted,” Aymond said. “We have that thing in English where, ‘I know how you feel.’ I don’t think we know how anyone feels. Everybody’s feelings are very unique and very different. And I want to be able to hear that and to be able to personally bring that to prayer.”
Among those attending Friday’s meeting was Andre Fourroux.
Forroux is the third person WWL found who made allegations against retired New Orleans priest Joseph deWater. In 2021, WWL tracked down deWater in the Netherlands and he granted the station an exclusive interview, in which he admitted buying a New Orleans-area boy bikini swimsuits decades ago. He showed WWL a letter he had just received from Aymond informing him he was under investigation. But deWater denied wrongdoing and was never added to the church’s official list of credibly accused clergy.
Fourroux said deWater belongs on the list and he was considering asking Aymond about it, but he hoped Aymond would only listen.
“Because nobody listened to the children. Nobody listened to their children when they had something to say,” Fourroux said. “This is old, old stuff. And they gotta get it right. And just plain listening to what survivors have to say is what he needs to do, what the whole clerical system needs to do. That’s going to be the beginning of a change, but they got to listen to survivors.”
The first group meeting Friday encountered a few hiccups. The archdiocese posted the wrong address on its website – listing the church, rather than the parish offices – and had to send the archbishop’s car to pick up a group of survivors. The church also agreed to not use a hired facilitator to help run the meeting, responding to concerns from survivors, who were prohibited from bringing advocates into the meetings with them.
Hundreds of victims of child sexual abuse by clergy and other church creditors agreed to a $230 million settlement last October. A federal bankruptcy judge approved the deal in December, and the church’s largest insurer, Travelers, subsequently signed an agreement to contribute another $75 million to bring the total to $305 million. The case began in May 2020 when the archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
As part of the settlement, the church agreed to meet with anyone who filed a claim in the bankruptcy or anyone else who alleges he or she experienced sexual abuse through the church.
The goal, according to the agreement, is to let victims ask questions to Aymond or share their stories.
The settlement also allows survivors to request individual meetings with Aymond for up to a year and mandates that the church send each individual claimant an apology letter. Aymond has already issued a public apology letter required by the settlement. The church must also remove anything that honors any clergy who is or was the subject of credible allegations of child sexual abuse and must publish survivor stories on the archdiocese’s website.
Additionally, the archdiocese will add a “place of remembrance” to its main office Uptown for all survivors of sexual abuse.
While the settlement gave the church 18 months to hold the 10 group meetings, Aymond said they chose to hold them over five days in February because the Vatican could accept his retirement soon.
“I had promised that I would finish this before I retired, that this was my commitment to the people of God, to the church, and that time is coming,” he said. “We don’t know exactly when, but it’s coming quickly, and I really felt that I wanted to be there with the survivors.”
Author: David Hammer / WWL Louisiana Investigator, Danny Monteverde