New Orleans NFL team denies it had input into archdiocesan clergy abuse list

CNA Staff, Feb 4, 2025 / 15:25 pm (CNA).

The New Orleans Saints NFL team is denying that any members of its organization had input into, or oversight of, a list of credibly accused clergy in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, with the denial coming amid a media controversy over the football team’s role in helping the archdiocese manage the fallout from the abuse scandal.

A media firestorm erupted this week after leaked emails showed the extent of the Saints’ involvement in offering the archdiocese public relations help amid its reckoning with the clergy abuse crisis.

Saints owner Gayle Benson, herself a Catholic, had previously acknowledged in 2020 that team spokesman Greg Bensel had helped the archdiocese prepare for the 2018 release of its credibly accused clergy list. 

Benson said at the time that Bensel had urged the archdiocese to “be honest, complete, and transparent” and “own the past wrongs and find a solution to correct them,” among other suggestions. 

The Saints were “proud of the role we played and yes, in hindsight, we would help again to assist the archdiocese” in responding to the abuse crisis, Benson wrote in 2020. 

Team stands by assistance amid email leak

Multiple news outlets this week reported that they had obtained emails showing the extent of the Saints’ work with the archdiocese.

The New York Times reported on Monday that it had acquired “more than 300 emails” showing “the Saints and the archdiocese working together to temper the fallout from a flood of sexual abuse accusations made against priests and Church employees.”

In a lengthy statement released on Saturday ahead of the news reports, James Gulotta — a senior lawyer with the Louisiana law firm Stone Pigman — said “nothing in the leaked emails” contradicts earlier statements from the football team or Benson. 

“First and foremost, no member of the Saints organization condones or wants to cover up the abuse that occurred in the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” the statement said, calling the abuse “a terrible fact.”

Benson’s support for the Church is “unwavering,” the statement said, though she “has no intention of donating funds to the archdiocese to pay for settlements with abuse victims and she has not done so.”

The emails reportedly show Bensel working to ensure “positive media coverage” for the archdiocese amid the release of the list, including writing talking points for Archbishop Gregory Aymond. 

Media reports also said the leaked emails showed Bensel had at one point communicated with New Orleans District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro. Bensel allegedly indicated that the exchange with Cannizzaro “allowed us to take certain people off the list.”

In the Saturday statement, Gulotta said that “no Saints employee had any responsibility for adding or removing any names from [the credibly accused clergy] list or any supplemental list.” 

“Nor did any Saints employee offer any input, suggestions, or opinions as to who should be included or omitted from any such lists,” the statement said. “Any suggestion that any Saints employee had any role in removing anyone from the archdiocese’s published lists of credibly-accused clergy is categorically false.”

Bensel “did not participate in the conversation with Mr. Cannizzaro,” the statement continued, and the spokesman “has no firsthand knowledge of what was said by anyone during the conversation or in any communication between the archdiocese and the district attorney’s office.”

The Saturday release echoes Benson’s statement from 2020 in which she asserted that “no one associated with our organizations made recommendations or had input on the individual names of those disclosed on the list.”

The New Orleans Archdiocese has been dealing with fallout from the abuse crisis for years. The archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, with Aymond pointing to financial pressure from clergy sex abuse claims as the driving force behind the reorganization.

In 2023 the archdiocese said it would ask “parishes, schools, and ministries” for monetary contributions in order to protect diocesan assets during the bankruptcy proceedings.

In November 2024, the archdiocese said it would release personnel files of priests accused of sexual abuse amid ongoing negotiations of a major abuse settlement there. 

Last September, the archdiocese had proposed a bankruptcy settlement as part of its plan for addressing sexual abuse by clergy, offering a $62.5 million payout to victims. The abuse survivors have requested approximately $1 billion.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/262007/new-orleans-nfl-team-denies-it-had-input-into-archdiocesan-clergy-abuse-list