‘Maybe I lived a naive life’: New Orleans archbishop denies knowledge of widespread child sex abuse in 1970s

Gregory Aymond blames three predecessors as memo says he socialized or lived with 48 allegedly abusive clergymen

Ramon Antonio Vargas
Mon 22 Jul 2024 06.00 EDT

The Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans has said the allegations at the heart of a child-sex trafficking investigation being conducted by state police against his archdiocese are a “sin”, “evil” and a crime – but he has insisted he was oblivious to them when they unfolded during a bygone era earlier in his career.

Gregory Aymond’s comments, in an interview published on Sunday by New Orleans’ Times-Picayune newspaper, were his first about an investigation which erupted into public view in April as Louisiana state troopers served the archdiocese’s headquarters with a search warrant that accused the institution of potentially having run a child-sex trafficking ring responsible for “widespread sexual abuse of minors dating back decades”.

A sworn statement attached to the warrant added that the institution – which filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020 when faced with dozens of lawsuits stemming from the decades-old clerical molestation crisis engulfing the global church – also purportedly covered up the abuse and failed to report it to law enforcement.

[...]