Pope Leo accepts resignation of embattled New Orleans archbishop, Gregory Aymond

Pope Leo XIV accepted the resignation of the Roman Catholic archbishop of New Orleans, Gregory Aymond, on Wednesday – one day after the archbishop concluded a series of meetings with survivors of a clergy molestation scandal that has embroiled the city’s church leadership for years.Aymond had submitted his resignation to global Catholic church leaders at the Vatican as he was required when he turned 75 in November 2024. But the Vatican didn’t immediately accept it, plotting for Aymond to remain in position until the New Orleans archdiocese settled a federal bankruptcy protection case that it filed in the spring of 2020 amid the continuing fallout of the decades-old worldwide clerical abuse crisis.In December, the archdiocese and its insurers agreed to pay about $305m to roughly 600 abuse survivors ensnared in the bankruptcy. One non-montary term in that settlement required Aymond to gather with groups of clergy abuse survivors, and he held such meetings daily across the New Orleans area from 6 February through Tuesday.The US Catholic Conference of Bishops and the New Orleans archdiocese then announced Wednesday that the Vatican had accepted Aymond’s resignation. His successor is James Checchio, the former bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, who had been appointed to administer alongside Aymond in New Orleans before eventually taking over for him.Neither of the statements from the US bishops conference or the New Orleans archdiocese contained remarks attributed to Aymond. He told Guardian reporting partner Louisiana" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="28878" data-entity-type="organization">WWL Louisiana in the final days of his tenure that he wanted to hear out survivors and “personally bring that to prayer” prior to the acceptance of his resignation, which he indicated was imminent.A statement from Checchio mentioned how “very quickly” the months since his arrival had gone by as he sought to gain an understanding of the region and how best to serve its 500,000 or so Catholics.Aymond had arrived from being the bishop of Austin, Texas, when he became the archbishop of Louisiana’s most famous city – his home town – in 2009. When he made the decision for his archdiocese to file for bankruptcy, he sent the Vatican a letter expressing his belief that his administration could resolve the proceeding for about $7m, including compensation for abuse victims.Yet the archdiocese paid exponentially more after a successful reform campaign persuaded Louisiana’s state legislature in 2021 to remove a prohibition against survivors of long-ago molestation being able to pursue civil damages in court. The state’s supreme court upheld the law as constitutional in June 2024, rejecting a request from the Catholic diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, that it be struck down.Furthermore, during the course of the bankruptcy, the Guardian and Louisiana" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="28878" data-entity-type="organization">WWL Louisiana were able to expose how a succession of four New Orleans archbishops including Aymond provided safe harbor from law enforcement to serial child molester and retired priest, Lawrence Hecker, for decades. Hecker was charged after the outlets’ reporting, pleaded guilty in criminal court in December 2024 to child rape and soon died in prison at age 93.Authorities’ pursuit of Hecker morphed into a wider investigation focused on whether the archdiocese ran a child sex-trafficking ring responsible for “widespread … abuse of minors dating back decades” that was kept under cover “and not reported” to law enforcement, sworn police statements filed in New Orleans’ criminal courthouse said.However, at the time of Aymond’s resignation, none of Hecker’s superiors had been charged with a crime in the case connected to him.New Orleans’ archdiocese is the second-oldest organization of its kind in the US. It is among more than 40 Catholic groups in the US to have filed for federal bankruptcy protection in the wake of the worldwide church’s clergy abuse scandal – and one of 29 to pay to settle such a case, according to information from Pennsylvania State University’s law school.