Roger Goodell deflects Saints Catholic church s**ual abuse PR defense scandal, calling owner Gayle Benson ‘transparent’
Roger Goodell believes New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson has been transparent in their involvement in the New Orleans Church scandal.
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Roger Goodell and New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson (Image via Imago/X)
The NFL has seen its fair share of controversies over the past few years. Starting with the Deshaun Watson massage scandal, to the hit and run for Rashee Rice and others along the way. All this time, Commissioner Roger Goodell and his team have been handling it well.
But now they are faced with another one, which might be a bit out of their pay grade. The New Orleans Saints have been accused of running a PR stunt to help alleviate the negative image the Catholic Church faced after the s**ual abuse scandal came to light in 2018.
The Associated Press published an article where it alleged how the New Orleans Saints front office, under the guidance of owner Gayle Benson, helped the Catholic Church at the time. They revealed that contrary to the franchise claiming to have minimal impact back in 2020, the reality is different as they revealed.
What followed was a monthslong, crisis-communications blitz orchestrated by the New Orleans Saints’ president and other top team officials, according to hundreds of internal emails obtained by The Associated Press.
Associated Press wrote
The publication has access to emails that were sent from the Saints official accounts to several officials in the city of New Orleans. Gayle Benson, a devoutly Catholic owner, has been a strong ally of New Orleans, Archbishop Gregory Aymond.
Along with team’s president Dennis Lauscha and SVP of communications, Greg Bensel, they managed to help the Church handle the crisis. They allegedly helped the Church bring out a shorter list of accused priests, seemingly help shield some of them from facing charges.
Roger Goodell avoids Gayle Benson and Saints scandal by directing it to federal investigations
This is not the first time that these allegations have come to the fore. The last time it did, the New Orleans Saints denied any wrongdoing, and suggested they only had a limited impact. But in light of these new emails, reporters at the Super Bowl LIX opening media day asked Roger Goodell about it.
Mrs. Benson and the Saints are very involved in this community, and they are great corporate citizens. This is a matter of the FBI, I think local law enforcement, nationally and otherwise, are involved with this. She’s made multiple comments about this, which you all have seen her transparency of the emails that are out there.
Roger Goodell said
All things considered, this deflection was to avoid dragging the NFL into this matter. The commissioner asserted that FBI and other law enforcement agencies are investigating into this matter. That indicates the league won’t carry out their own investigation.
Here is Roger Goodell’s response to new information about role New Orleans Saints played in local Catholic archdiocese sexual abuse scandal. He was asked whether NFL would investigate: pic.twitter.com/0YlK4BhkOw
— Jori Epstein (@JoriEpstein) February 3, 2025
The Saints organization is facing a lot of backlash in this regard. Public perception is that the team colluded with the church to save them instead of the victims. Therefore, how it impacts the league will be a matter of what those investigations reveal.
Related: Despite now bleeding green, Saquon Barkley reveals he rooted against Eagles in Super Bowl LVII
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Joseph Varghese
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