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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Ramon Antonio Vargas and David Hammer of WWL Louisiana in New Orleans

New Orleans clergy abuse survivor and his family devise anti-grooming bill

The grand cathedral
The St Louis Cathedral, the seat of the archdiocese of New Orleans. Photograph: Chad Robertson/Alamy

The wife of a Catholic clergy molestation survivor who helped authorities catch the priest who abused him in his childhood has teamed up with her state senator father to devise a law in Louisiana criminalizing grooming – conduct that increased her husband’s vulnerability before his abuse.

Tim Gioe; his wife, Sarah Connick Gioe; and her father, the Louisiana state senator Pat Connick, are at the heart of the legislative saga – as the tight-knit family collectively fights back after being victimized by the clerical molestation scandal that for decades has plagued the Catholic church both in their home state and globally.

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