Archbishop of New Orleans
Keeping child sexual abuse a secret is something that most survivors can empathize with, but this story is a bit different. Three men shared their secret with a friend and mentor while in high school at St. John Prep over forty years ago. Who was that mentor? Then, Fr. Gregory Aymond, today the Archbishop of New OrleansNOLA SNAP leader Kevin Bourgeois, who also graduated from SJP, can relate. “Fr. Greg encouraged us to call him by his first name. We admired and trusted him. We took great pride in his rise up the hierarchy to become the fourteenth Archbishop of New Orleans, the first native New Orleanian to hold that position. He was one of our own. He started his career as a teacher at St. John Prep.”
Three men told two local journalists that they confided in the current archbishop about Fr. Robert Cooper in the mid 1970’s. They trusted their friend Greg to protect them and other minors from these predators. They were, after all, on a first name basis with the man!