How US archdiocese helped priest accused of abusing deaf children | New Orleans

For decades, Gerard “Jerry” Howell had avoided punishment for what his own church considers credible sexual abuse allegations leveled against him by dozens of children at the school for deaf students that he founded.

Now, he’s found another way around what little administrative accountability he eventually faced, this time with the help of New Orleans’s archdiocese and its archbishop.

A court order put a halt to retirement benefits paid to Howell and other similarly accused priests, but only after the archdiocese declared bankruptcy in 2020 as it continued to struggle managing the…