The New Orleans Saints helped Catholic Church leaders spin a sex abuse crisis

Two corrupt organizations got together to protect the Church from further backlash

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Two corrupt organizations—an NFL team and the Catholic Church—joined forces to protect child predators, according to stunning reports from the Associated Press, Ramon Antonio Vargas of the Guardian, David Hammer of WWL Louisiana, and Jenny Vrentas of the New York Times.

We knew some of this already. Back in 2020, roughly two dozen men sued the Archdiocese of New Orleans for allowing George F. Brignac to work for them despite multiple allegations of sexual abuse. The claims stretched back to the mid-1970s, and one allegation involved a little boy who said he was fondled by Brignac at a Christmas party. Even though he was “removed from the ministry” in 1988, Brignac was allowed to work as a lay minister until 2018. That meant he had access to children for decades after he was deemed too dangerous to be around them. The Church knew all this, too, because they paid the survivors “roughly $3m” to settle their legal claims before the details were ever made public.

As the lawsuit worked through the legal system, the plaintiffs’ lawyers requested a series of documents from the Catholic Church through the process of discovery, and they found out that Church officials received all kinds of help from the top officials for… the New Orleans Saints, including the team’s Catholic owner Gayle Benson. 276 documents linked the two organizations. There was also reason to believe the team’s Senior Vice President of Communications, Greg Bensel, was helping the Archdiocese craft its message.

New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson and Archbishop Gregory Aymond (screenshot via YouTube)

At the time, both groups fought to keep those documents from the public eye.

Saints attorneys, in court papers, disputed any suggestion that the team helped the church cover up crimes, calling such claims “outrageous.” They further said that the emails, exchanged in 2018 and 2019, were intended to be private and should not be “fodder for the public.” The archdiocese is also fighting the release of the emails.

…

Attorneys for the men suing the church say “multiple” Saints personnel, including Senior Vice President of Communications Greg Bensel, used their team email to advise church officials on “messaging” and how to soften the impact of the archdiocese’s release of a list of clergy members “credibly accused” of sexual abuse.

It was bad enough that the Catholic Church was focused on making itself look good in the face of widespread sexual abuse. It was even worse that people were willing to give them advice. Anyone who thinks the Church’s biggest problem is its image—and not the policies that fuel rampant child abuse—should at the very least be publicly shamed.

And now, at long last, we know what was in those exchanges. They include “300 emails, amounting to more than 700 pages,” according to the Guardian, and the “hundreds of internal emails” between the NFL team and the Church leaders (including Archbishop Gregory Aymond) show how vital the Saints’ advice was to the sinners.

The Bensons' foundation has given tens of millions of dollars to the archdiocese and other Catholic causes. Along the way, Aymond has flown on the owner's private jet and become almost a part of the team, frequently celebrating pregame Masses.

When the clergy abuse allegations came to a head, Bensel worked his contacts in the local media to help shape the story. He had friendly email exchanges with a Times-Picayune columnist who praised the archbishop for releasing the clergy list. He also asked the newspaper's leadership to keep their communications "confidential, not for publication nor to share with others."

His emails revealed that The Advocate -- after Aymond privately complained to the publisher — removed a notice from one online article that had called for clergy abuse victims to reach out.

It wasn’t just advice either. The Saints’ executives got an advance copy of a list of clergy members who were accused of sexual abuse before it was made public in 2018… and helped “take certain people off the list.”

Team president Dennis Lauscha created a list of questions for Aymond to answer before he appeared in public, helping him prepare for the backlash that would inevitably ensue once the list of Catholic predators was made public.

At least one lawmaker had the right reaction to all this:

"This is disgusting," said state Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans. "As a New Orleans resident, taxpayer and Catholic, it doesn't make any sense to me why the Saints would go to these lengths to protect grown men who raped children. All of them should have been just as horrified at the allegations."

Meanwhile, the Saints executives, far from apologizing, are blaming reporters for investigating any of this:

In a lengthy statement, the team criticized the media for using "leaked emails for the purpose of misconstruing a well-intended effort."

"No member of the Saints organization condones or wants to cover up the abuse that occurred in the Archdiocese of New Orleans," the team said. "That abuse occurred is a terrible fact."

If the team doesn’t support the sexual abuse of children, then working with the Church to improve its public image specifically in the face of a child-sexual-abuse scandal is wildly hypocritical.

It’s no wonder they’re mad, though.

Five years ago, when the link even came to light, the team said their work with the Church was “minimal.” Owner Benson flat-out denied that her team had any input regarding the list of predators. (They maintained that lie this week.)

What’s even more disturbing is that the Church didn’t just get help from the NFL team. They also had input from other government officials, including a federal judge appointed by George W. Bush.

… U.S. District Court Judge Jay Zainey, who was copied by the Saints on the public relations efforts, cheered Bensel on from his personal email account, thanking the team's spokesman "for the wonderful advice." A newspaper editor similarly thanked Bensel for getting involved.

"You have hit all the points," Zainey, a fellow Catholic, wrote in another email to Bensel, praising a lengthy note the Saints spokesman sent to local newspaper editors. "By his example and leadership, Archbishop Aymond, our shepherd, will continue to lead our Church in the right direction -- helping us to learn and to rebuild from the mistakes of the past."

Zainey later struck down a Louisiana law, vigorously opposed by the church, that would have allowed victims to bring civil claims irrespective of how long ago the alleged sex abuse took place. He declined to comment.

A group of powerful and wealthy people used their resources to protect the Church from the fallout over child sex abuse. That’s what this is all about. (Aymond, by the way, referred to one of the reporters as “Satan.” We know that because of “a text message to a third party that was obtained by the writer.”)

If you’ve ever wondered how the Catholic Church could get away with so much abuse for so long, this is why. They have powerful friends eager to help them shield their crimes. These wealthy Catholics heard about child abuse committed by Church officials and immediately wondered how they could help… the abusers.

And now the team that propped up the Church will be the hosts for the Super Bowl this weekend.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

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