Latest news with #Aymond
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Archbishop Aymond announces memorandum of understanding
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Archbishop Gregory Aymond announced a memorandum of understanding that he says could bring the Archdiocese's bankruptcy to a close. Aymond says the MOI is with the 'Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors,' a group that represents survivors of sex abuse in their claims against the Catholic Church. Attorney General Murrill and District Attorney Jason Williams tour Orleans Parish Jail Aymond did not release any details of the agreement and adds the plan must still be confirmed in federal bankruptcy court. He says he hopes it will lead to healing for local survivors, churches and the searching for Jeep thieves caught on camera These are the key last-minute changes to Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' Saints rookies experience crawfish during Touchdown Club's 51st annual 'Super Boil' How much is in the state's checkbook? Some good news and uncertainty Shreveport police crackdown on squatters with operation blue Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Guardian
01-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Lawyers for New Orleans clergy abuse survivors ramp up pressure to depose archbishop
A group of attorneys representing clergy abuse survivors is ramping up pressure to get the archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, under oath before a judge decides whether to kick the church out of bankruptcy. Lawyers for hundreds of survivors filed a motion Wednesday to end the church's Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a day before the fifth anniversary of a case that's paid none of about 500 survivors but has cost the archdiocese around $45m in legal and professional fees. The survivors' request to dismiss the bankruptcy also comes a day after the federal bankruptcy judge overseeing the case, Meredith Grabill, ordered the archdiocese to appear in court on 26 June to show why she shouldn't simply end the bankruptcy. But by filing their own motion to dismiss the case, the group of survivors trigger a 30-day deadline for an open hearing on the matter. And a smaller group of the same attorneys, representing dozens of survivors, argue in a separate filing Wednesday that a deposition of Aymond is 'both relevant and necessary' and should happen sometime in mid-to-late-May. Aymond was scheduled to be questioned under oath about his role in the clergy abuse crisis, but his testimony was halted, along with about three dozen civil lawsuits pending against the church, when the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection on 1 May 2020. The new request to put Aymond on the stand – filed by attorneys Soren Gisleson, Richard Trahant, John Denenea, Desirée Charbonnet, Craig Robinson and Frank D'Amico – alleges the archbishop mismanaged the bankruptcy and acted in bad faith to stall the case while other Catholic institutions tried, unsuccessfully, to get courts to overturn a state law that allows victims of decades-old abuse to file new lawsuits. 'Aymond's gross mismanagement of the estate and bad faith prosecution of the bankruptcy requires dismissal of the bankruptcy,' the filing alleges. The archdiocese responded to the new court filings with a statement arguing that they didn't raise any new issues. 'We were surprised by this inflammatory pleading in light of the court's action to address this issue earlier this week,' the statement said, referring to Grabill's order Tuesday. The church also argued that dismissing the bankruptcy would 'only serve to benefit a select few individuals represented by the lawyers seeking dismissal of this case, with any potential recovery for those individuals years away'. If the bankruptcy is dismissed, dozens of cases filed before May 2020 would be unfrozen and more than 500 claimants from the bankruptcy case would have the option to file individual lawsuits against the church to seek larger damages than they might have gotten through a negotiated global settlement. Any settlement would have created a scale for payments based on how much proof each claimant has of contact with a priest when they were children and the severity of the abuse they allegedly suffered. On the other hand, a settlement might have included some payments to survivors who wouldn't otherwise be able to present enough proof in an individual civil lawsuit to be awarded a judgment against the church.
The Guardian
07-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Tumultuous, to say the least' week for New Orleans archbishop amid multiple scandals
By New Orleans Catholic archbishop Gregory Aymond's own admission, the past week has been 'tumultuous, to say the least' – for him and the city's bankrupt church, which became engulfed in twin controversies involving emails with leaders of two pro sports franchises as well as a feud with ousted directors of an affiliated food bank. Aymond on 30 January set off a firestorm by firing the longtime chief executive officer and top governing board members at the Second Harvest of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana food bank. The ousted food bank leaders said they were removed because they refused to bow to 'pressure placed on Second Harvest to contribute as much as $16m toward helping to resolve victims' claims' of child molestation by clergy which are at the center of a pending federal bankruptcy protection case that the church filed in 2020. Then, on Monday, the Guardian, its reporting partner WWL Louisiana, the Associated Press and the New York Times reported on copies of hundreds of emails the four news outlets exclusively obtained. The emails by top brass of the NFL's New Orleans Saints and NBA's Pelicans showed the teams' owner, devout Catholic Gayle Benson, and team executives were far more involved in helping Aymond spin media coverage of the clergy abuse scandal that precipitated the bankruptcy than the teams and church had previously acknowledged. And, though NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suggested he was unconcerned about the communications, many fans of the teams as well as advocates of clergy-abuse survivors have expressed disgust about the ball clubs' involvement. Aymond declined requests for interviews about the pair of controversies. And a church spokesperson told the WWL Louisiana reporter covering both stories that the archbishop would never again sit down with the journalist for an interview. Instead, Aymond's archdiocese has made statements saying the media have misconstrued the nature of the emails involving the church, Saints and Pelicans. And he also released a video-recorded statement primarily seeking to address aspects of the spat with Second Harvest – although its main assertion has drawn a strong challenge by the former food bank board members. Aymond's central contention in the video was that the leadership of Second Harvest had refused to sign what is known as a 'tolling agreement' to protect them and other church-controlled entities from being sued while the archdiocese tries to settle hundreds of child molestation claims under its bankruptcy. 'The deadline to execute this agreement was January 31, 2025,' Aymond said in the video. 'This is why the very difficult decision to transition leadership was made.' But court records filed in the bankruptcy case show the current tolling agreement, protecting Second Harvest and the church affiliates during settlement negotiations, runs through 1 May 2025, which is the five-year anniversary of the bankruptcy. Nick Karl, a former chair of the Second Harvest board who has supported and served at the non-profit since 2008, called the archbishop's statements in the video 'unfortunate'. Karl said the fired executive board members – whom Aymond subsequently replaced – supported extending the tolling agreement. He said the fired CEO, Natalie Jayroe, was planning on signing the extension well before the 1 May deadline. The archdiocese has approached more than 100 affiliates – or 'apostolates' – about signing a so-called channeling injunction, which protects those entities from being sued separately from the archdiocese and creates a combined fund for paying claims. Karl said he and the other ousted food bank leaders would have considered signing it, as long as Aymond agreed to remove himself as the sole corporate member of Second Harvest. Under the ousted leaders, Second Harvest had separate legal representation from the other apostolates in the church's bankruptcy case. Karl said having the archbishop of New Orleans as the sole corporate member of a non-profit that covers 23 south Louisiana parishes – which is the state's word for counties – from the Texas border to the Mississippi state line makes little sense when the archdiocese only covers eight parishes in the south-east corner of the state. In his recorded statement, Aymond said he came to accept the idea of divesting his control of Second Harvest. But 'a legal separation would include Second Harvest purchasing the assets that are controlled by the sole member', he said. That's where the $16m figure was proposed, Karl said. And he said that contracts Second Harvest has with its donors – including a $25m grant from billionaire and novelist MacKenzie Scott's foundation – prevent the money from going to any purpose outside the food bank's mission of feeding the hungry. Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion However, Second Harvest's public financial report filed on 30 December shows it had $85m in net assets as of 30 June 2024, $55.9m of which had no donor restrictions. Aymond said in the recorded statement that he regretted that negotiations with Second Harvest had devolved. 'The characterizations of the archdiocese as stealing money from the hungry are completely false,' he said. 'The most difficult part of this is that it may have been preventable if the parties, including myself, would have put aside our pride and negotiated in good faith without threats of litigation.' But at the end of the week came a new revelation suggesting any 'negotiating' would have been merely for show. As the sole corporate member of Second Harvest, the archbishop of New Orleans already had the power to hire and fire the food bank CEO and members of the non-profit's board of directors. A day before Aymond fired the leaders, he used his unilateral powers to amend Second Harvest's governing documents to give himself even more power. On 29 January, he signed amendments giving himself the right to fire the CEO 'with or without cause' and appoint new leaders to board committees. He also gave himself new power to hire and fire any professionals working for the food bank, unilaterally execute all legal agreements for the corporation and even dissolve the corporation, leaving some board members feeling as if they were losing any power to negotiate the amount of money the non-profit would have to pay to be free of Aymond's control. Even the modicum of decision-making authority the board appeared to have over its own leadership now appears to be moot. Until recently, Second Harvest's corporate bylaws said: 'The Chair is elected by the Board of Directors. All Officers of the corporation other than the President/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) shall be elected by the Board of Directors.' But at an emergency board meeting on Wednesday, the directors learned Aymond had named a new chair, vice-chair and executive committee member without the board voting. That reportedly prompted one director to ask: 'Why are we here?'
The Independent
06-02-2025
- The Independent
New Orleans Catholic Church denies ousting food bank leaders for failing to finance abuse payouts
The archbishop of New Orleans ' Catholic Church denies he ousted top leadership at a church-affiliated food bank in Louisiana for refusing to redirect millions of dollars to support clergy sexual abuse settlements, according to a video statement he published this week. Two fired board members have issued statements saying they were removed last week by Archbishop Gregory Aymond of the Archdiocese of New Orleans after resisting pressure to channel as much as $16 million to support the church's long-running bankruptcy negotiations with hundreds of sexual abuse survivors. The Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana says that it provides upwards of 39 million pounds of food and groceries to hundreds of thousands of families across South Louisiana annually. CEO Natalie Jayroe, who led the organization for 19 years before being fired, 'resolutely refused to reallocate donor funds that are solely intended to help alleviate hunger and food insecurity in south Louisiana,' according to a Jan. 30 statement by dismissed board chair Bert Wilson issued via a public relations firm. Jayroe did not respond to a request for comment sent via LinkedIn Wednesday. Wilson expressed 'tremendous sympathy' for survivors of clergy abuse but said that taking money from the food bank would be 'as morally inappropriate as it is legally unsubstantiated,' based on agreements with donors. Aymond said he rejected 'the characterizations of the archdiocese as stealing money from the hungry" in a video posted on his Facebook page Monday. Aymond said members of the Second Harvest board had repeatedly asked him to withdraw from his position overseeing the nonprofit. The archbishop has the sole power to remove Second Harvest executives and board members, according to the nonprofit's articles of incorporation, viewed by The Associated Press. The $16 million was 'discussed in theory and conversation' as a means for Second Harvest to purchase assets owned by the church and 'completely separate itself,' Aymond said. He said the decision to remove the CEO and board members was made because they refused to sign a 'tolling agreement' that shielded third-party entities affiliated with the Catholic Church from liability during the bankruptcy negotiations, adding that the deadline to sign was Jan. 31. In response to Aymond's video, fired board member Nick Karl contended the deadline to sign, set by a court, was actually May 1 and that the Second Harvest executive team had been in the process of reviewing it. 'That the Archdiocese jumped the gun by terminating three longtime board members and the non-profit's CEO speaks volumes regarding their motivations,' Karl said. He said the archbishop made no commitment against drawing on Second Harvest funds to help settle the church's bankruptcy claims in the future. Aymond appointed Dirk Wild, the archdiocese's chief financial officer, as interim CEO and named three new board members. Second Harvest's priority is to 'ensure day-to-day operations will remain on schedule and services will continue uninterrupted,' Aymond and Wild said in a joint statement released last week. Wild did not respond to text messages or phone calls requesting comment Wednesday. Archdiocese of New Orleans Communications Director Sarah McDonald declined to comment. 'No dollars have and no dollars will go towards than food security,' Second Harvest Chief Strategy Officer John Sillars said. He said the nonprofit is seeking to reassure donors that their projects will continue as planned. Second Harvest donor Feeding America said in a statement that it was important to honor commitments to ensure 'resources are used for their intended purposes.' James Adams, a survivor of clergy abuse who has sued the archdiocese, said Aymond could 'easily remove' the food bank from his control and allow the nonprofit to carry on its work unimpeded. 'The survivors just want this matter settled,' Adams said of the abuse lawsuits. 'The archdiocese is leaving their creditors with no choice if they wish to try and come to a settlement but to go to all the assets that are under the control of the archbishop." Aymond has rebuffed calls by survivors of abuse to resign as the New Orleans church has faced federal investigations and scrutiny over its failure to take action on credible allegations against priests going back decades. An investigation by The Associated Press also exposed the role of executives with the NFL's New Orleans Saints in helping the church engage in damage control. The church has sold more than $13 million worth of properties as it raises funds to pay survivors, reported in December. ___
The Guardian
30-01-2025
- The Guardian
New Orleans archbishop fires food bank leaders for refusing to fund abuse settlement
The archbishop of New Orleans' bankrupt Roman Catholic archdiocese on Thursday abruptly fired and replaced top leaders at a church-affiliated food bank, with those dismissed saying it was because the non-profit refused to contribute to paying survivors of child sexual abuse by clergymen. The ousted members of Second Harvest's board of directors say the changes 'follow months of increasingly aggressive pressure placed on Second Harvest to contribute as much as $16m toward helping to resolve victims' claims related to the church's sexual abuse-related bankruptcy', which has been pending since May 2020. Second Harvest is what's called an apostolate of New Orleans' archdiocese, meaning it is owned by the church. But Second Harvest also has a non-profit governing board. And its former chairperson, Bert Wilson, says the grants they get from Feeding America and other non-profits specifically say the money cannot be used for religious purposes. Archbishop Gregory Aymond announced Thursday in a letter that Wilson and two other board members had been replaced. Meanwhile, Aymond also said Second Harvest's longtime president and chief executive officer Natalie Jayroe was out after 19 years at the anti-hunger organization. Aymond sent a letter today to the Second Harvest board members announcing the dismissals, but it doesn't mention why he fired those affected. He does promise that the changes will not cause any interruption in services for feeding the hungry in southeast Louisiana. Because Second Harvest is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, donations it receives must be used for the organization's stated purpose, which is feeding the hungry. Several people who have been affiliated with Second Harvest tell Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana they are worried the archbishop's actions Thursday could jeopardize millions of dollars in funding for Second Harvest, including a recent $25m donation from the foundation run by novelist and billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. What's more, James Adams, former chairperson of a committee advocating for the interests of abuse survivors in the church's bankruptcy case, said he and his fellow survivors argued that Second Harvest should not be among the church affiliates responsible for paying settlements to survivors because it didn't provide a point of access to children for clergy. Adams added that – to his knowledge – no claims of abuse were attributed to Second Harvest. The New Orleans archdiocese decided to file for bankruptcy in an attempt to dispense with more than 500 abuse claims against more than 300 of the church's priests and deacons, along with other personnel. Revelations in the bankruptcy that were exposed by the Guardian and WWL Louisiana prompted retired priest Lawrence Hecker, 93, to plead guilty in December to child rape charges dating back to 1975, before he died days into serving a mandatory life sentence. The revelations also spurred a Louisiana state police investigation in which authorities alleged under oath that they have probable cause to suspect that the archdiocese ran a child sex-trafficking ring responsible for the 'widespread … abuse of minors dating back decades'. That abuse was 'covered up and not reported to authorities', state police have said. The archdiocese and clergy abuse survivors remained hundreds of millions of dollars apart in settlement negotiations prior to Thursday's firings from Second Harvest. The judge overseeing the bankruptcy case, Meredith Grabill, recently appointed the third of three mediators whom she has tasked with trying to help resolve the matter. The latest mediator appointed by Grabill is retired federal bankruptcy judge Christopher Sontchi, who oversaw the sale of the movie studio run by Harvey Weinstein in 2018 as disgraced media mogul grappled with allegation of serial sexual assault. Ramon Antonio Vargas contributed reporting
