Tag: Tom Benson

Gayle Benson presents Pope Francis with personalized Saints jersey

New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson presented Pope Francis with a personalized Saints jersey while visiting Rome:

There aren’t many New Orleans Saints jerseys to be found in Vatican City, and one of the few you’ll see there is personalized for the Pope himself. Saints owner Gayle Benson received a personal audience with Pope Francis this week, in which she gifted him a custom No. 1 jersey emblazoned with “Papa Francesco,” as seen a photo shared by WDSU’s Fletcher Mackel.

Mackel reports that this was just one stop on Benson’s 10-day trip in Europe. She also petitioned the Papal Foundation and other business and tourism groups for investments in New Orleans and renovations to the iconic St. Louis Cathedral. She’ll visit Italy and Germany as part of this tour before returning to Louisiana.

Benson has deep ties to the Catholic Church and the Archdiocese in New Orleans; it’s where she met her late husband Tom Benson, and she maintains a close friendship with Archbishop Gregory Aymond. But that relationship has drawn scrutiny between Benson donating tens of millions of dollars to the archdiocese and the involvement of Saints executives in assisting the church with damage control during its clergy abuse crisis.

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A judge has denied a request by news …

A judge has denied a request by news organizations including The Associated Press to unseal court records involving the mental competency of billionaire Tom Benson when he rewrote his will to give his third wife ownership of the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans sports franchises. The news outlets argued public interest in the 2015 case had been heightened by revelations this year that Saints executives engaged in a behind-the-scenes public relations campaign to help the Archdiocese of New Orleans contain the fallout from a clergy abuse crisis.

“This case does not involve intensely …

“This case does not involve intensely private individuals who are dragged into the spotlight,” the AP argued, “but well-known mega-institutions that collect millions of dollars from local residents to support their activities.” Ties between local church leaders and the Saints include a close friendship between New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond and Gayle Benson, who inherited the Saints and the New Orleans Pelicans basketball team when her husband, Tom Benson, died in 2018. The archbishop was at Gayle Benson’s side as she walked in the funeral procession. Gayle Benson has given millions of dollars to Catholic institutions in the New Orleans area, and the archbishop is a regular guest of hers at games and charitable events for the church.