New reporting from multiple major news outlets has uncovered hundreds of emails documenting the New Orleans Saints’ involvement in an ongoing clergy abuse crisis within the Catholic archdiocese — a scandal that has led archbishop Gregory Michael Aymond to fire the board and CEO of Second Harvest food bank after they balked at using the nonprofit’s resources to pay for tens of millions of dollars the archdiocese owes to hundreds of child sex abuse survivors. Donors have voiced their outrage at this move while Aymond has defended his actions as being misrepresented by the leadership he ousted.
But that’s all beside the point. The Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas, a former Saints beat writer, shared extensive reporting with his colleague at WWL TV, David Hammer, that brought to light just how the Saints became entangled in this mess. So did the Associated Press’ Jim Mustian and New Orleans-based Brett Martel, as well as Jenny Vrentas for the New York Times.
Their reporting found that Greg Bensel, the Saints and Pelicans’ chief PR man and vice president of communications since 2006, emailed team owner Gayle Benson in July 2018 asking permission to assist Aymond in “crisis communications.” She gave him her blessing in a response: “Thank you Greg … I am certain he will appreciate it.” Benson has maintained a close friendship with Aymond for years and considers him a confidant. She met her late husband Tom Benson at the St. Louis Cathedral where Aymond offers Mass. Bensel is also a member of the Catholic Church.
An attorney for the Saints told the Guardian that Bensel sought this permission on the urging of federal judge Jay Zainey, another devout Catholic based from New Orleans, as well as “other local civic leaders.” Bensel then spent months using his team email account to correspond with Aymond and team president Dennis Lauscha. On Nov. 1, 2018, a day before the list of credibly accused clergy was made public, Bensel emailed Lauscha that he had held a conference call with the New Orleans district attorney at the time: “Leon Cannizzaro last night that allowed us to take certain people off the list.”
That runs against a statement the Saints and Pelicans published in 2020 which Bensel likely wrote in his capacity as the team’s VP of communications, or at least rubber-stamped before going to the public: “No one associated our organizations made recommendations or had input on the individual names of those disclosed on the list.” The Saints have continued to deny suggestions that any team employees were involved with this. Cannizzaro retired in 2020 and has, through a spokesperson to the Associated Press, also denied the claim he was consulted about the list or that anyone from his office had input on it.
These connections run deep. Aymond served as a signing witness on the late Tom Benson’s testamentary will which put Gayle Benson in position to inherit the teams upon his passing. That will also included Lauscha, Bensel, and general manager Mickey Loomis as executors of the Benson estate, in that order.
Bensel continued to assist Aymond with managing communications for months after the Nov. 2018 list was released. These emails show he prepared Aymond for interviews with reporters, wrote letters to local papers like the Advocate and Times-Picayune (prior to their merger), and corresponded with the archdiocese’s general counsel, all the while using his official Saints team email account. Frustration mounted by July 2019 when he confided to his ex-wife that “I don’t get paid enough – Helping the Archbishop prep for his 9 am meeting.” A subpoena shortly thereafter requested all of these emails be brought before the courts, and at that point Bensel ceased email correspondence.
So what’s next? Will the NFL punish the Saints for their role in this scandal? Will Gayle Benson be forced to sell the team? At this point we just don’t know. But Bensel’s error in judgment to use his professional email account (and thus team resources) for a personal pursuit was clearly a massive error in judgement. So was Benson green-lighting it. If Bensel wanted to offer his assistance as an individual member of the congregation and community and corresponded from a private email address, the team could have protected itself. Instead the Saints have been tied to one of the most reprehensible scandals our region has seen in recent memory. That’s embarrassing at best. As one of my former colleagues once put it, “The Saints need a PR guy for their PR guy.”
The NFL doesn’t have much history of forcing owners to sell their teams. Former Philadelphia Eagles owner Leonard Tose bought the team in 1969 and was effectively forced to sell it in 1985 to pay off gambling debts, though not by demand of his fellow owners. Dan Snyder recently sold the Washington Commanders after an investigation detailed a toxic workplace environment, and allegations came to light accusing Snyder of underreporting ticket revenue to other teams. He was pressured to sell, but not forced. Facing his own accusations of sexual harassment and using a racial slur towards an employee, former Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson chose to sell the team in 2017 rather than be voted out following an NFL investigation into his behavior and organization.
So Benson could certainly be pressured into selling, too. That just feels unlikely given how much water she draws in Louisiana. Maybe the answer is to make Bensel a public scapegoat and let him go, despite his place in the Benson will and decades of service in her business interests (he has also overseen her horseracing venture and works with the car dealerships, corporate realty, and other pursuits). It’s obvious that organizational changes are needed. The question is whether they’ll come to fruition. With all eyes on New Orleans ahead of Super Bowl LIX and Benson quite literally stepping into the spotlight, she and the Saints can’t ignore this problem they’ve created for themselves much longer.
We’ve only summarized the findings of this reporting from the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Associated Press here. These reporters have done tremendous work in bringing this evidence to light and you owe it to them to get the full story. We’ve linked to them earlier, but here they are again for reference.
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