Bond has been set at $75,000 for Patrick Wattigny, a former Catholic priest who was booked into the St. Tammany Parish Jail Tuesday on a count of molestation of a juvenile, according to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office. Wattigny, 55, was still in jail mid-afternoon Wednesday. This is the second child sex abuse arrest … Read more
Police in Georgia have arrested Roman Catholic priest Patrick Wattigny on a St. Tammany Parish warrant accusing him of sexually abusing a minor while he was leading a Slidell church, authorities said Friday. Wattigny’s arrest comes a little more than three weeks after he allegedly admitted to the Archdiocese of New Orleans that he had … Read more
The lights inside Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church in Pearl River were on later than usual on Sept. 30, so a passerby stopped to take a closer look. Peering inside, the onlooker saw the small parish’s pastor half-naked having sex with two women on the altar, according to court documents. The women were … Read more
New Orleans Becomes 23rd US Diocese To Declare Bankruptcy. The Archdiocese of New Orleans is preparing to file for bankruptcy, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday evening, as the mounting cost of unresolved clergy-abuse lawsuits and the shutdown of church services due to the coronavirus deliver crushing blows to church finances. The 227-year-old … Read more
A former Roman Catholic deacon who was removed from the ministry in 1988 over multiple accusations of child molestation was jailed early Saturday on allegations that he raped a preteen boy and wrote him love letters roughly four decades ago. It was the first arrest of a clergyman in New Orleans on a sex-abuse charge … Read more
As the rain ceased and the skies cleared on the afternoon of Sept. 12, 1987, the world leader of Roman Catholicism stepped to the altar of a canopied pavilion at the University of New Orleans and, before 130,000 sweltering faithful, raised the eucharistic host to heaven. Standing just behind and to the right of Pope … Read more