A new documentary has laid bare how the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans shielded a serial child molester for decades, culminating in a guilty plea from 93-year-old retired priest Lawrence Hecker last week. Hecker's automatic life sentence has exposed a systemic cover-up by church officials and sympathetic judges, who prioritised the predator's comfort over justice for his victims.
Court records and church files reveal that Hecker began molesting children almost immediately after his ordination in 1958. One victim, a preteen altar boy, described nude swimming parties that ended in sexual assault. Hecker allegedly used a feather to mark the boy as vulnerable, then instructed him to take it to another priest, who also attacked him.
Despite mounting accusations, church leaders repeatedly protected Hecker. In the 1980s, Archbishop Philip Hannan sent Hecker on a sabbatical to New York after a complaint, allowing him to return to work. In the 1990s, Archbishop Francis Schulte sent Hecker to a psychiatric facility that diagnosed him as an incurable pedophile, yet then assigned him to a church with a grammar school.
Hecker retired under duress in 2002, but Archbishop Alfred Hughes hid his history from congregants and ignored advice to defrock him, allowing Hecker to collect retirement benefits. Hughes, a former Boston administrator, was accused of perpetuating secrecy around clerical abuse, mirroring the scandal immortalised in the film Spotlight.
The documentary concludes that the New Orleans archdiocese repeated the same sins as Boston, with officials prioritising the institution's reputation over child safety. Hecker's guilty plea came only after overwhelming evidence made a cover-up impossible.
