LOUISIANA
NOLA.com
February 27, 2020
By Ramon Antonio Vargas
A religious brother who worked several years at Jesuit High School in New Orleans — and had an endowed scholarship set up in his honor — was among four names added Thursday to a list of members of the Jesuit order suspected of sexual abuse while they worked in a region including Louisiana.
The update to the list marks the first time Jesuit officials have acknowledged they believe Everard J. Booth, who died in 1986, was an abuser.
Booth was the subject of “more than one” credible allegation, the order said. It didn’t specify where the alleged abuse occurred but said the “estimated timeframe” was in the 1960s. In a separate statement, Jesuit High officials said Thursday that the allegations do not involve students or Booth’s work at the school.
Besides Jesuit High and regional administrative offices in New Orleans, Booth was stationed at St. Charles College in Grand Coteau in St. Landry Parish, as well as two colleges in the country now known as Sri Lanka.
Other names newly added to the Jesuit order’s list are priests Jose Angel Borges, James Loeffler and Benjamin Smylie, who are all dead. Of those three, Loeffler was the only one ever stationed in Louisiana, serving a stint at Grand Coteau’s Christ the King Parish.
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