ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday named an eventual successor to embattled New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond, two weeks after the archdiocese agreed to a $230 million proposed settlement for survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

Leo, history’s first U.S. pope, named Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen, New Jersey, as the coadjutor bishop of New Orleans. The position puts Checchio in line to succeed Aymond when he retires.

Checchio, 59, handled the fallout in Metuchen of the explosive 2018 sexual misconduct revelations of one of his predecessors there, then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Prior to arriving in Metuchen in 2016, Checchio had served as the rector of the U.S. seminary in Rome for a decade.

Aymond reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 last November, suggesting that the

See Full Page