Frank Lamothe is featured in this article by Jason Berry of the Guardian who reports on the sexual perpetrators at the Madonna Manor/Hope Haven orphanage run by the New Orleans Archdiocese of the Catholic Church: Infamous New Orleans orphanage’s abusive history ran deeper than ever known.
“’The institution was … out of control, had no safeguards to protect the children, and was a haven for pedophiles,’ wrote Lamothe, Stetter and Pfau in a 2009 report to the mediator helping them negotiate with the church attorneys.”
Berry writes, “(M)ore abusers – and more victims – than ever known at two orphanages that have come to embody the scourge of clergy molestation in southeast Louisiana.”
“’Many boys were sexually abused by more than one person, and were often abused in front of each other at off-site camps and in the on-campus homes of the orphanage workers, seminarians and … priests’ belonging to the Salesian order in charge at Hope Haven and Madonna Manor,’ Lamothe’s team wrote in documents filed during the (2009) mediation….”
The article continues, “…(D)espite its stated commitment to transparency with respect to the worldwide Catholic church’s decades-old and ongoing clergy abuse scandal, the archdiocese itself provides no accounting on the perpetrators at Madonna Manor and Hope Haven.”
“’Aymond was trying to wipe the slate clean,’ Lamothe said. ‘He was trying to show the church was being gracious and caring in settling the claims. But new people came forward. Today the church looks like it’s riddled with things that have not been uncovered. Aymond looks as bad as anybody.’”
Berry’s article continues, “Lamothe and his clients believe it is wrong for the archdiocese to omit orphanage sex abuse perpetrators from its list of credibly accused abusers…. They see that omission as another brick in the wall of secrecy and deception that today surrounds the New Orleans archbishop, Gregory Aymond, whose archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020.”
