Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen, New Jersey, on Sept. 24, 2025, was named coadjutor bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. / Credit: Leo Song, Seminarian, Pontifical North American College
Rome Newsroom, Sep 24, 2025 / 06:25 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday named Bishop James Checchio coadjutor archbishop of New Orleans, positioning him to head an archdiocese facing bankruptcy and a costly clergy abuse settlement.
The 59-year-old Checchio — bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, since 2016 — will assist Archbishop Gregory Aymond in the leadership of over half a million Catholics in southeastern Louisiana. Prior to becoming a bishop, Checchio was rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 2006 to 2016. He has a doctorate in canon law.
As coadjutor, Checchio will automatically succeed Aymond, who turned 75, the age when bishops are required to submit their resignation to the pope, last year. Aymond, a New Orleans native, has led the archdiocese since 2009.
Checchio joins the leadership of New Orleans as the archdiocese moves to resolve yearslong bankruptcy negotiations with a settlement for over 600 clergy sexual abuse claimants. Earlier this month, the archdiocese announced a $230 million settlement offer to clergy sexual abuse claimants, up from a previous offer of $180 million.
The settlement offer follows five years of negotiations in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, where the nation’s second-oldest Catholic archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in May 2020.
Aymond, who has served as chairman of the child protection commission for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in May that the settlement gave him “great hope.”
The agreement “protects our parishes and begins to bring the proceedings to a close,” he said, adding: “I am grateful to God for all who have worked to reach this agreement and that we may look to the future towards a path to healing for survivors and for our local Church.”
The settlement represents one of the largest sums in the U.S. paid out to victims of clergy sexual abuse.
Aymond was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1975. His priestly ministry focused on education — including serving as the president-rector of Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans from 1986 to 2000 — and missionary work in Mexico and Nicaragua.
In 1996, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese and given oversight over its Catholic schools.
Aymond came under fire in the late 1990s for allowing the coach at Sacred Heart of Jesus School in Norco, Brian Matherne, to remain in his role for several months after Aymond received information about alleged abuse of a minor boy by Matherne.
Matherne was later arrested and is now serving a 30-year sentence after pleading guilty to the molestation of 17 children over a 15-year period ending in 1999.
Aymond later admitted his mistake in keeping Matherne in his post and called the case a “painful experience — I will never forget it. It helped me to understand the complexity of pedophilia better.”
He was appointed coadjutor bishop of Austin, Texas, in June 2000 and succeeded Bishop John E. McCarthy as bishop of Austin in January 2021.
In that position, Aymond strengthened the diocese’s sex abuse policies, though clerical abuse activists from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) have criticized the archbishop’s record, claiming he only “postures as someone who takes clergy sex crimes seriously.”
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