A New Orleans Catholic priest whose prolific sexual abuse of children in the local deaf community was known for at least four decades by the city’s archdiocese without meaningful consequence has died after evidently falling in his Texas apartment.
Gerard Joseph “Jerry” Howell, ۸۷, was found dead at about ۵pm on ۸ September by Austin police department officers who were responding to a welfare check on the block listed for the senior living community where he had been residing, the agency said in a statement. The statement – which didn’t name Howell but was provided when police were asked about his death specifically – said first responders had gone to the block to investigate a report that an ۸۷-year-old individual had fallen.
Local emergency medical services personnel soon arrived to provide medical aid to that individual, but he stopped breathing and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
The Austin medical examiner’s office was still working to determine the cause of death in the case on Tuesday, but it was “not being investigated as a homicide”, police said.
New Orleans’ Roman Catholic archdiocese provided support to Howell for ۴۰ years after becoming aware of his serial child molestation. They kept him on as an active priest even after reporting him to law enforcement in ۱۹۸۰ and his being publicly exposed by WWL Louisiana in ۱۹۹۲, and then paying him his retirement benefits until at least ۲۰۲۰.
A church spokesperson said the archdiocese learned of Howell’s death later that same week. And an archdiocese-managed webpage of dozens of priests and deacons who were removed from ministry for abuse of a minor was then quietly updated to list him as deceased.
One of Howell’s most outspoken survivors, Kathleen Austin, said on Tuesday that it was a relief for her to learn of his death.
“He will no longer be able to harm another innocent child,” Austin said. “I can now relax, not worrying about where he is [or] what he’s doing.”
Efforts to contact Howell’s family for comment were not immediately successful.
Howell’s death is significant because his case was in the public eye for decades while he continued to avoid punishment for abuse he inflicted while ministering to people with impaired hearing.
WWL, a Guardian reporting partner, was rolling cameras when Austin confronted him at his home in Texas all the way back in ۱۹۹۲. The news station reported that the archdiocese of New Orleans was aware of many of Howell’s alleged child-abuse victims by then and refused to remove him from active ministry.
Records later obtained by the Guardian showed the then New Orleans archbishop, Philip Hannan, reported Howell to the devoutly Catholic district attorney, Harry Connick Sr, in ۱۹۸۰. Connick, though, never charged Howell.
Other records showed the next archbishop, Francis Schulte, told Howell to “quit and get a job” after the WWL report in ۱۹۹۲. But Howell appealed to global Catholic leaders at the Vatican, who ordered Schulte to let him “continue as a priest with full financial benefits”.
And the records show the New Orleans archdiocese sent Howell for mental health treatment in ۲۰۱۰, with a psychologist diagnosing him as “high risk” and reporting the church was aware of at least ۲۴ child victims.
Still, the archdiocese continued to quietly support Howell in his retirement, paying his full living expenses, insurance and a $۶۵۰ monthly stipend. Those benefits stayed in place until a federal judge halted them in ۲۰۲۰, after the archdiocese filed for federal bankruptcy protection amid the financial fallout of the worldwide, decades-old Catholic clergy sexual molestation scandal.
Yet not even that totally cut Howell off from support by the New Orleans archdiocese. WWL and the Guardian found a ۲۰۲۰ letter that the then New Orleans archbishop, Gregory Aymond, wrote to a Vatican official, calling the bankruptcy court’s cancellation of Howell’s benefits along with those of other archdiocesan clergy abusers “unjust and painful”. The outlets also reported that Aymond had directed Howell to seek aid from a non-profit dedicated to helping priests prohibited from ministering.
The leader of that particular group, the Men of Melchizedek, had headed a separate organization which was previously shut down for misusing donations and misleading donors about its purpose.
Aymond retired in February and was succeeded as New Orleans archbishop by James Checchio.
The archdiocese’s website discloses that Howell, ordained in ۱۹۶۴, was named as the offender in nine claims of sexually abusive or grooming behavior filed as part of its bankruptcy. Immediately before Howell’s death, that was the second most among eight living clergymen on the archdiocese’s list of those removed from ministry for abuse of a minor.
About ۷۴۰ clergy molestation claimants are divvying up a $۳۰۵m settlement that the archdiocese agreed to pay to resolve its bankruptcy protection case, with individuals’ compensation amounts based on a complicated rubric meant to assess various factors such as the nature and duration of the abuse involved.
Many of those claimants name abusers whom the archdiocese has not included in its list of clergy removed from ministry for abuse of a minor.
As of the day after Howell’s death, ۱۴ claimants had requested reconsideration of their allocated amounts, and about ۲۲۰ had indicated they would not contest them, according to a bankruptcy court filing on Monday providing an update on the disbursement of the settlement.
The New Orleans archdiocese is among ۴۴ US Catholic religious institutions to have filed for bankruptcy protection in the course of the worldwide church’s clergy abuse scandal – and among ۲۹ to settle such a legal proceeding, according to information compiled by Penn State University’s law school.
A spokesperson for the archdiocese said it never restarted Howell’s retirement benefits once they were discontinued, even after the bankruptcy settlement.
Howell’s abuse of Austin during her childhood was one of several clergy abuse cases studied by the award-winning ۲۰۲۵ documentary film God As My Witness, which scrutinizes the New Orleans archdiocese’s bankruptcy. For one of the film’s most striking moments, Austin recounts meeting with Hannan to discuss Howell’s abuse of her – only to be directed to “kick him in the balls” the next time she saw him.
Austin, who grew up with parents and a sister who were hearing impaired, told film-makers Lindsay Quinn Pitre and Michael Brandner Sr that she was shocked by that guidance.
“I remember looking at him thinking, ‘Really? This is how you handle this?’” Austin says in the film, which recently became available on streaming. “‘That’s not my job. This is your job.’”
On Tuesday, Austin described having empathy for relatives of Howell, whose late brother and fellow priest Rodney is also considered by church officials to be credibly accused of child molestation. They “had to live with two pedophile priests and the terror that … they inflicted”.
Yet Austin added that, to her, Howell’s apparently becoming one of the more than ۴۳,۰۰۰ people in the US who die from falls annually on average fittingly was “a miserable way to go”.
“His death … puts me at rest, and when he meets our maker, hopefully … his punishment far exceeds what he did to children while he was here on the planet,” Austin remarked.
