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1 Chapter 1 From the Bayou to Boston A Developing Pattern Bayou Beginnings Most writers agree that the Catholic Church’s contemporary sexual abuse crisis began in Henry, Louisiana, in 1983 when molestation allegations were made against Fr. Gilbert Gauthe.1 The Gauthe case, set in the deeply Catholic bayou country of Louisiana, was the first nationally publicized narrative of sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic priest. In addition to being first, it contained within it all the factors that became routinely associated with the Church scandal as it unfolded over the next twenty years. Gilbert Gauthe was the charming pastor of Henry’s St. John parish.2 Gauthe’s parishioners appreciated his availability, his empathy with the economic and social concerns of his rural flock, and his involvement with the parish youth. Fr. Gauthe spent much of his free time with the kids in his care, especially the boys, and even took them on regular Friday night sleepovers at a parishioner’s island camp house. One night, however, nineyear -old Craig Sagrera told his parents that Gilbert Gauthe had been molesting him.3 Stunned, the boy’s father approached his fifteen- and twentynine -year-old sons with Craig’s story only to learn that the priest also had sexually abused them. Further, they gave Wayne Sagrera the names of other boys sexually victimized by the pastor. Mr. Sagrera contacted Paul Hebert, a local attorney, to figure out what to do next. Hebert in turn placed a call to the diocesan chancery in Lafayette, Louisiana, and spoke with Monsignor Henri Alexandre Larroque . Hebert and Sagrera were astonished when Larroque told them that Henry was Gauthe’s sixth assignment after the bishop learned in 1973 that Gauthe had molested children. After Gauthe sexually victimized children in his first parish assignment in Broussard, Louisiana, he was told by his bishop to sin no more and was moved to a new parish. New complaints were made against him there so he was moved to two different assign- 2 Perversion of Power ments in Abbeville, Louisiana, where he was reported to be sexually active with minor boys. The diocese responded by appointing him chaplain to the Boy Scouts. Finally, he was made pastor of the Henry parish. No one there had been apprised of their priest’s previous crimes. Under pressure from Sagrera and Hebert, Bishop Frey eventually instructed Monsignor Larroque to remove Gauthe from the parish in Henry. Various representatives of the Church then began to exhort Paul Hebert and the Sagrera family not to make a fuss about Gauthe’s sexual exploitation of boys. One priest in a neighboring parish, Monsignor Richard Mouton, told Wayne Sagrera that if anyone were injured from the Gauthe case, it would be Sagrera’s fault for making the facts public. When Paul Hebert suggested to the monsignor that civil lawsuits might be filed against Gauthe and the Church, Mouton reminded him that he was a good Catholic high school boy and a good Catholic boy would never sue his Church. Paul Hebert did file nine lawsuits on behalf of victims in six families, but he also attempted to work with the chancery to avoid publicity. In June 1984, the insurance carriers for the Lafayette diocese paid $4.2 million to settle the nine civil suits. Settlement documents were filed in court under seal by agreement of both parties, but a court clerk alerted a local reporter and the press began investigating the case. In the meantime, other Gauthe victims launched civil suits. Four families settled out of court with the diocese and their insurance carriers but one family, the Gastal’s, did not want to be bound to secrecy and instead sued the Church in court. A jury eventually awarded the Gastal’s $1.2 million, a sum reduced by settlement to $1 million. In addition to civil litigation brought against Gilbert Gauthe and the Lafayette diocese, the local district attorney brought criminal charges, including rape and possession of child pornography. In October 1985, Gauthe was sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was released from prison after ten years but reoffended by molesting a three-year-old boy in Texas and was returned to prison. Released again, his whereabouts as of 2002 were unknown.4 As civil and criminal proceedings developed in the Gauthe case, press coverage picked up and eventually included both the secular and Catholic print and TV media. Press interest also spread from the bayou, where sexually abusive priests other than Gauthe...

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