How N.F.L.’s Saints Helped Catholic Church Address a Sex-Abuse Scandal

 

How N.F.L.’s Saints Helped Catholic Church Address a Sex-Abuse Scandal

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
New York Times [New York NY]

February 3, 2025

By Jenny Vrentas

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A trove of emails shows the team’s leadership using their influence in New Orleans to aid the archdiocese, including writing talking points for media interviews.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans was facing a crisis. A sex-abuse scandal was bursting into public view, sending shock waves through the heavily Catholic city.

Leaders of one of New Orleans’ other major institutions, the N.F.L.’s New Orleans Saints, were concerned. Gayle Benson, the team’s owner, is a devout Catholic, major church benefactor and close friend of Archbishop Gregory Aymond.

So in July 2018, when Greg Bensel, the Saints’ head of communications, saw a local news story revealing that a former deacon who had been removed from the ministry after abuse accusations was serving in a public role at a local church, he sent an email to Ms. Benson.

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