The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports:
More than three years after filing for bankruptcy protection amid mounting claims of child sex abuse by local clergy, the Archdiocese of New Orleans is preparing to sell off seven properties — including the shuttered Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, the St. Jude Community Center and the Catholic Bookstore Uptown — as a way to generate cash that could be used to help settle those claims.
In court documents filed this week, the archdiocese is seeking court approval to hire commercial real estate broker The McEnery Company to market the properties. If sold for their proposed asking prices, the properties would generate nearly $10.4 million for the local Roman Catholic Church. That’s likely a drop in the bucket relative to the cost of the bankruptcy process and the claims an estimated 500 or so abuse victims are seeking.
Read the full article. New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond appeared here last month when he was accused of concealing abuses by clergy from the public.
Aymond first appeared on JMG in 2013 when he ruled that Catholics can eat alligator meat during Lent because alligators quality as fish.
In 2020, his archdiocese declared bankruptcy in a move that some say was meant to shield church assets from abuse settlements.
Later in 2020, Aymond sprinkled “holy water” over New Orleans from a World War II biplane in order to protect the city from COVID.
Also in 2020, Aymond held a ceremonial burning of the altar upon which a local priest videotaped his threeway with two hired dominatrices.
Last year the FBI opened an investigation into the archdiocese, looking specifically into whether priests had trafficked children across state lines.
Archdiocese of New Orleans plans sales of vast real estate holdings to pay abuse claims https://t.co/OzSKupu5I8
— NOLA.com (@NOLAnews) September 1, 2023
