Lawrence Hecker pleaded the fifth 117 times as he detailed how the Catholic church protected him for more than two decades after he admitted to molesting children
Longtime New Orleans Catholic priest Lawrence Hecker received a special honor from the Vatican nearly 25 years ago despite having confessed to molesting children. Then, for another two decades, church leaders in the city strategically shielded him from law enforcement and media exposure – while also providing him with financial support ranging from paid limousine rides and therapeutic massages to full retirement benefits, according to his own, previously unreported testimony.
A sworn deposition Hecker gave in private in 2020 shows exactly how high-placed Catholic church officials in New Orleans let him keep his elevated position for years, even after they had been advised to oust him from the clergy and – much later – publicly acknowledged that he was a child predator.
“It wasn’t a big deal in those days,” Hecker said at the deposition about how his archdiocese coddled him despite his acknowledged abuse of children.
I am not apologizing for the horrific abuses the church caused and covered up.
I was raised Catholic but no longer attend. Largely in part to these horrible abuses that were covered up. I lost faith in the institution.
Perhaps our difference is in what we view as “the church”. I see it as more than the institution and the terrible leaders it has had and still does. The many people who attend and follow that faith also constitute what many would define as the church.
By your comment you are clearly an atheist which is fine. But you are wrong when you say the church, i.e. all the people that follow that faith, exist to harm children. That is offensive.