Former priest who served under two Louisiana governors arrested for allegedly raping disabled child
A man who once served in the administrations of two Louisiana governors has been arrested on allegations that he molested a child whom he met while ministering to disabled children in New Orleans as a Roman Catholic priest during a previous career, according to authorities and an attorney representing the accuser.
Schubert’s client alleges that Ford began abusing him when was about 10, in 2004. She said her client, now 31, has a degenerative spinal cord condition which occasionally requires him to get around in a wheelchair. He is also on the autism spectrum, has been legally determined to be a minor despite reaching the age of majority and is under his mother’s continuing, permanent tutorship, Schubert said.
The accuser alleges that his abuse at the hands of Ford continued until about 2022 or 2023, which was after Ford had evidently left the priesthood, Schubert said.
Ford spent 16 years in the Catholic priesthood and co-founded “a ministry for children with disabilities and their families” while in New Orleans – work which generated coverage in the city’s media.
Ford’s biography did not say why he left the priesthood. It said he became the Louisiana state government’s assistant director of disability affairs in 2006, the year after federal levee failures during Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
Ford would receive mandatory life imprisonment if ultimately convicted of first-degree rape. The rest of the charges against him could carry lengthy sentences, too.
He is among at least five men who have worked as Catholic clergymen in New Orleans to have been arrested in connection with allegations of child sexual abuse after the city’s archdiocese filed for federal bankruptcy protection in 2020. The church’s bankruptcy filing was meant to limit its financial liability with respect to hundreds of claims of clergy abuse, mostly victimizing children, over the course of decades.
Three of those men have pleaded guilty, with two since dying and one serving prison time as of Friday. A fourth was awaiting trial.
The New Orleans archdiocese has agreed to pay $230m to collectively settle with abuse survivors involved in the bankruptcy.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...allegation
A man who once served in the administrations of two Louisiana governors has been arrested on allegations that he molested a child whom he met while ministering to disabled children in New Orleans as a Roman Catholic priest during a previous career, according to authorities and an attorney representing the accuser.
Schubert’s client alleges that Ford began abusing him when was about 10, in 2004. She said her client, now 31, has a degenerative spinal cord condition which occasionally requires him to get around in a wheelchair. He is also on the autism spectrum, has been legally determined to be a minor despite reaching the age of majority and is under his mother’s continuing, permanent tutorship, Schubert said.
The accuser alleges that his abuse at the hands of Ford continued until about 2022 or 2023, which was after Ford had evidently left the priesthood, Schubert said.
Ford spent 16 years in the Catholic priesthood and co-founded “a ministry for children with disabilities and their families” while in New Orleans – work which generated coverage in the city’s media.
Ford’s biography did not say why he left the priesthood. It said he became the Louisiana state government’s assistant director of disability affairs in 2006, the year after federal levee failures during Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.
Ford would receive mandatory life imprisonment if ultimately convicted of first-degree rape. The rest of the charges against him could carry lengthy sentences, too.
He is among at least five men who have worked as Catholic clergymen in New Orleans to have been arrested in connection with allegations of child sexual abuse after the city’s archdiocese filed for federal bankruptcy protection in 2020. The church’s bankruptcy filing was meant to limit its financial liability with respect to hundreds of claims of clergy abuse, mostly victimizing children, over the course of decades.
Three of those men have pleaded guilty, with two since dying and one serving prison time as of Friday. A fourth was awaiting trial.
The New Orleans archdiocese has agreed to pay $230m to collectively settle with abuse survivors involved in the bankruptcy.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...allegation
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
