The Guardian/WWL Louisiana report exposes behind-the-scenes messaging to manage a bombshell clergy-abuse scandal
- ‘Crisis communications’: emails show how NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans helped New Orleans church spin abuse scandal
- Here are prominent people named in the Saints clergy-abuse emails
- What Saints and church officials said, and what their emails say
The Guardian and WWL Louisiana have obtained emails showing how top officials at the NFL’s Saints and NBA’s Pelicans spent a year collaborating with New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese as the organizations sought to soften media coverage about the church’s management of a decades-old clergy-abuse scandal in their city.
An investigation of the emails shows how the communications call into question statements made over the last five years by Louisiana billionaire Gayle Benson’s two professional sports franchises that sought to minimize their role in trying to help the church deal with the scandal’s fallout once they got involved in the summer of 2018. Nonetheless, in a lengthy statement from a team attorney on Saturday, the Saints insisted they had accurately portrayed their involvement.