NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Authorities have expanded an investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans to include senior church officials suspected of shielding predatory priests for decades and failing to report their crimes to law enforcement.
Louisiana State Police carried out a sweeping search warrant last week at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, seeking a long-secreted cache of church records and communications between local church leaders and the Vatican about the church’s handling of clergy sexual abuse.
The search signaled a new phase of the investigation that will seek to determine what particular church leaders, including Archbishop Gregory Aymond and his predecessors, knew about claims that