A New Orleans priest was accused of molestation; he still collected $2,500 monthly in retirement

By Ramon Antonio Vargas
Times-Picayune / New Orleans Advocate
May 06, 2020

https://www.nola.com/news/courts/article_647e0d6e-8fe4-11ea-b252-3ba173b86473.html

This Dec. 1, 2012 file photo shows a silhouette of a crucifix and a stained glass window inside a Catholic Church in New Orleans. Photo by Gerald Herbert

Accused of sexually molesting a boy he taught before he become a priest, Paul Calamari walked into New Orleans Archbishop Alfred Hughes’ office on Feb. 5, 2004, to discuss what might be ahead.

The Catholic church had only recently been rocked by the sexual-abuse scandal in Boston. Bishops across the U.S. were dealing with allegations in their dioceses, and New Orleans was no different. Calamari ultimately chose to retire, and he began receiving a monthly pension of $1,566 from the archdiocese — which later rose to more than $2,500 a month, according to court records.

The archdiocese slashed the amount by several hundred dollars during the spring of 2019, citing “significant” budget issues.

But after the archdiocese petitioned for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, U.S. District Judge Meredith Grabill ordered the organization to stop paying priests who — like Calamari — are credibly accused child molesters.

The archdiocese, which said its need for bankruptcy protection was due to the numerous clergy abuse lawsuits it faced as well as the coronavirus pandemic, hasn’t said how many priests were in Calamari’s position or how much money they’ve paid out over the years.

But at least three priests have been described by the archdiocese as both retired and credibly suspected of sexually preying on children. And archdiocesan policies show all retired priests — regardless of their circumstances — are entitled to insurance and their choice of archdiocese-provided living quarters, in addition to the monthly income provided prior to the bankruptcy.

Calamari has received more than $319,000 in pension payments following his forced retirement 17 years ago. Insurance and housing would make the total much higher. 

Calamari denies wrongdoing in a filing from his attorney in January. The archdiocese didn't comment Wednesday. 

Advocates of clergy abuse victims have long assailed the nationwide church practice of continuing to pay the retirements of suspected predator priests, saying it is simply a way for Catholic bureaucrats to shield criminals among their ranks in a manner no lay institution would even consider.

However, diocesan leaders have insisted they have moral and legal obligations to provide priests — even those believed to be abusers — their retirement benefits rather than allowing them to become destitute.

The documents outlining Calamari’s post-retirement arrangement with the archdiocese surfaced in the record of a pending February 2019 lawsuit which alleged that during trips to a summer home in Mississippi decades ago, he would fondle the genitals of a Gentilly church altar boy — as well as other minors.

It was not the first time Calamari had been accused of child molestation. He was accused of molesting a minor in 1973, seven years before his ordination as a priest, when he taught at the now-defunct St. John Vianney Prep School in New Orleans.

Records show Calamari, 75, was transferred from New Orleans to a psychiatric treatment facility for priests in Pennsylvania in 1997, and he was stationed at a Delaware diocese when he was removed from the ministry in 2003, a year after the church's ongoing clerical abuse scandal boiled over in Boston.

Then-Archbishop Hughes summoned Calamari to his office in early February 2004 and laid out some potential paths forward for the sidelined cleric, including retirement. In a letter from that year, Hughes said he even sought guidance from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who headed the Catholic Church as Pope Benedict XVI from 2005 to 2013.

Calamari consulted with a lawyer specializing in church law and “reluctantly” chose retirement, he later wrote to Hughes.

“I am grateful to you for the pastoral and personal concern you have shown me through this trying time,” said Calamari, who was living in Pennsylvania at the time. 

Another letter informed Calamari he would begin receiving a monthly pension of $1,566 — in addition to health and automobile insurance — beginning April 1, 2004.

The amount of Calamari’s monthly pension payment had grown to $2,517 by March of last year, four months after the archdiocese had included him on a list of local clergymen who over the years had been credibly accused of child sex molestation. Two other priests on that roster — T. Gaspard Glasgow and Lawrence Hecker — accompanied Calamari on an archdiocesan list of retired priests for whom the church was soliciting donations in April 2018. 

Regardless, in a letter dated March 20, 2019, Executive Director of Clergy Patrick Williams told Calamari his monthly pension would be slashed to $1,882 beginning in July because the archdiocese’s budget had run “a significant deficit for the last several years.”

Court documents show Calamari scribbled on Williams’ letter, calculated he would lose $7,620 annually, and wrote to Hughes' successor, Archbishop Gregory Aymond. 

Calamari said the pension was helping keep him afloat in the wake of unflattering media stories and survivors advocates’ mailings calling him a “priest pedophile,” which was making it hard for him to find a job and had forced him to move into a motel.

“I am asking you,” Calamari wrote, “to please reconsider the forthcoming reduction.”