SNAP news conf in Lafayette 10/9

New perpetrator priest lawsuit is filed

Victims also blast local bishop over ‘continued secrecy’

SNAP: He’s hiding at least 3 ‘credibly accused’ abusive priests

They’re still alive, so they may still be a threat to kids, group says

Other church officials say charges against them are substantiated

But their names are NOT on the official Lafayette diocese abusers list

Victims also urge greater awareness of new state child molestation law

WHAT

Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, abuse victims will announce and discuss a new child sexual abuse and cover up lawsuit against ‘the most notorious child molesting’ cleric in Louisiana history.

Using chalk, they will also write on a sidewalk the names of several publicly accused pedophile priests who have spent time in the Lafayette area but are NOT on the Lafayette bishop’s ‘credibly accused’ list.

And they will also “urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered ANY other known or possible abuse to a) call police, not church staff, and b) contact their support group.

WHEN

Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 11:00 a.m.

WHERE

On the sidewalk outside the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 914 St. John Street, Lafayette, LA, (337-232-1322) 

WHO

Two child sexual abuse victims who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a Missouri man who for 30 years was the organization’s national director

WHY

1) The first perpetrator priest in the US to attract national headlines, in the mid-1980s, was Fr. Gilbert Gauthe.

Now, the former priest faces a new civil child sexual abuse lawsuit, filed by a ‘John Doe’ who was molested in Louisiana and now lives in Texas. (Copies of the suit will be available at the news conference.)

According to the filing, the boy was abused by Fr. Gauthe roughly ten times when he was about 10-12 years old and in the seventh grade (around 1976).

Though the crimes happened decades ago, the victim can file suit now because of a dramatic change in Louisiana law that essentially lets anyone who was molested as a child to sue any offender and their employer, NO MATTER HOW LONG AGO THE OFFENSES TOOK PLACE.

Over the past 20 years, roughly 25 states have enacted similar measures. When this happens, hundreds of victims of abusive priests, coaches, teachers, counselors and other respected figures file suits and expose wrongdoers, protecting children in the process, SNAP says.

In 1985, Fr. Gauthe was convicted of abusing as many as 39 young children and spent ten years in prison. In 2008, he was locked up again for not registering as sex offender. As of 2014, he was living in a town called San Leon in southeastern Texas.

The victim is represented by Baton Rouge Louisiana attorney J.R. Whaley (225-302-8810, jrwhaley@whaleylaw.com) and St. Paul Minnesota attorney Molly Burke (651-227-9990, molly@andersonadvocates.com).

2) In 2019, Lafayette Bishop Douglas Deshotel posted on his website a list of ‘credibly accused’ abusive clerics. But he omitted from his list at least three publicly accused child molesting clerics who are still alive, are or were in his diocese and have been declared ‘credibly accused’ abusers by Catholic officials elsewhere.

They are:

Fr. Lawrence A. Cavell, who taught at Our Lady of Fatima and Saint Thomas More schools in Lafayette.

Fr. Cavell also worked in two locations in the Houma-Thibodaux diocese (Saint Francis de Sales in Houma, Saint Genevieve in Thibodaux).  In 2019, he was put on that diocese’s ‘credibly accused’ abusers list.

Fr. Cavell also worked at Holy Cross in Morgan City, Sacred Heart in Montegut, Saint Mary in Raceland and taught at Archbishop Chapelle High School in Metairie in the New Orleans archdiocese.

Fr. John Raymond Bostwick III, who for four years (1992-1996) was the pastor of Saint Peter Parish, Church of the Assumption in Franklin in the Lafayette Diocese.

He is on the ‘credibly accused’ list in two dioceses (Harrisburg PA and Richmond VA) and one archdiocese (Baltimore) and was named in two attorney general reports on clergy sex crimes and cover ups (in Maryland in 2023 and Pennsylvania in 2019).

He also spent time in Massachusetts.

Fr. Jody P. Blanchard, who worked at St. Charles Borromeo in Grand Coteau in the Lafayette diocese and was reportedly working in 2019 in Lafayette as a counselor to the elderly.

He is on two church ‘credibly accused’ abuser lists (the Jesuits in 2018 and the Baton Rouge diocese in 2019).

Fr. Blanchard was also assigned at some point to Immaculate Conception parish in the Baton Rouge diocese and worked at a Catholic high school in Houston TX, the Jesuit Community in Berkeley CA and Loyola University's Catholic Center in New Orleans.

 “Locking up abusive priests keeps kids safest,” said David Clohessy of SNAP. “But when that can’t happen, the second safest step is for church officials to promptly, publicly and fully disclose the identities of known and likely predators.”

“The obvious and troubling question is: If Lafayette church officials are hiding the names of these four alleged predators, how many others might they still be hiding?” he said.

As best SNAP can tell, all three clerics are still alive.

BACKGROUND

Over the past six years, SNAP has discovered proven, admitted and ‘credibly accused’ child molesting clerics in scores of dioceses across the US. The group has publicly prodded – sometimes successfully - more than 20 bishops to expand and improve their/such lists, most notably in Illinois and Missouri.

Photos of some of the accused clerics are at BishopAccountability.org, which also has a list of all publicly accused Louisiana priests, nuns, brothers, monks, seminarians and bishops.

CONTACT:  David Clohessy, SNAP Missouri (davidgclohessy@gmail.com,  314-566-9790), Melanie Sakoda, SNAP Survivor Support Director (msakoda@snapnetwork.org, 925-708-6175), Shaun Dougherty, SNAP Interim Executive Director (sdougherty@snapnetwork.org, 814-341-8386)

(SNAP, the Survivors Network, has been providing support for victims of sexual abuse in institutional settings for more than 35 years. We have more than 25,000 survivors and supporters in our network. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)