The trustee overseeing the bankruptcy settlement between the Archdiocese of New Orleans and hundreds of clergy sex abuse survivors is questioning the local Roman Catholic Church’s commitment to provisions of the settlement aimed at ending decades of secrecy around child sexual abuse by clergy.
In a 45-page court filing on Monday, Don Massey, the independent trustee, told the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Orleans that the archdiocese has “flatly refused” his request that they investigate 11 clergy members accused of child sexual abuse that surfaced during the bankruptcy claims review process.
Massey said the allegations against the clergy members were previously found by the archdiocese’s own Internal Review Board to be credible but that they were never added to the official credibly accused clergy list and that they have since been named in multiple proof of claim filings, “and/or have active abuse survivors who can present the facts of their abuse…yet their names have not been added to the list.”
As part of the church’s $300 million bankruptcy settlement with hundreds of abuse survivors, Archbishop Gregory Aymond, who stepped down in February, agreed to more than a dozen new child protection measures that included hiring new experts, implementing tougher reporting procedures and creating a public database of past abuse cases, including the list of clergy that had been credibly accused of abuse.
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