The page for Father Andrew A. Dwyer (Andy Dwyer) is posted. As always , if you can do so, please fill in any of the gaps in the timelines.
I have no idea what this is all about. Time will tell.
Please keep the complainant in your prayers.
Enough for now,
Sylvia
Father Maurice Charbonneau (from Roots, Ridgetown College newsletter, Fall 2004)
Maurice Charbonneau (from Roots, Ridgetown College newsletter, Fall 2004)
Maurice O. Charbonneau
Father Maurice O. Charbonneau
Father Maurice Charbonneau
Moe Charbonneau
Father Moe Charbonneau
Roman Catholic priest, Diocese of London, Ontario Ordained 1994. Removed from parish sometime after allegations made against him Thanksgiving 2017. In Spring 2018 announcements in various parish bulletins regarding reports of several incidences of “inappropriate adult relationship” over several years.
Seems to have spent about two years serving in the Diocese of Grand Falls Newfoundland around 2005-2006?
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Bishops of London Diocese from time of Father Charbonneau’s ordination: John Michael Sherlock (07 July 1978 – 27 April 2002 ); Ronald Peter Fabbro, C.S.B. (27 April 2002 – – )
Auxiliary Bishops: Frederick Bernard Henry (18 April 1986 – 24 March 1995); Richard John Grecco (05 December 1997 – 27 April 2002); Robert Anthony Daniels ( 21 September 2004 to 01 March 2011); Józef Andrzej Dąbrowski, C.S.M.A. ( 31 January 2015 – )
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2004: “West Ag Alumni Called to Serve” (some background info on Father Maurice Charbonneau and word that January 2005 he is heading for a two year assignment in Gander, Newfoundland. From pages Roots Ridgetown College . Fall 2004 )
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Unless otherwise indicated the following information is drawn from media (M), “West Ag Alumni Called to Serve” (Ridegetown), and copies of the Canadian Catholic Church Directories (CCCD) which I have on hand.
18 March 2018: notice in St. Michael & Sacred Heart Parish Bulletin that Father More Charbonneau has been removed because of allegations of an “inappropriate adult relationship” St. Michael & Sacred Heart Catholic Parishes bulletin 18 March 2018 (CSt. Michael & Sacred Heart Catholic Parishes bulletin re Father Moe Charbonneau allegations and suspension)
I have received this note from Fr. John Comiskey, Moderator of the Curia of the Diocese and the Bishop’s Delegate regarding Fr. Moe Charbonneau. Because Fr. Moe was stationed at Sacred Heart Parish as an associate we are asked to put the following announcement in the bulletin. Please direct any concerns to the contact people noted below, and please keep all involved in your prayers.
From the Office of the Bishop’s Delegate – 12 March 2018
It was announced on Thanksgiving weekend that allegations had been made against Fr. Moe Charbonneau.. He was subsequently removed from the parishes in which he was serving.
No criminal charges have been laid against him, and the allegation involved an inappropriate adult relationship. It has been discovered through an investigation that the incident first reported to the diocese was not an isolated incident of misconduct; rather, there have been several incidents over the years.
Anyone with information regarding these incidents is asked to contact Ms. Sharon Wright Evans, Director of Safe Environment Services and the Bishop’s Deputy Delegate, at 519-433-0658, x271, or Father John Comiskey, Bishop’s Delegate, at 519-433-0658, x275.
Our hope in placing this notice in the bulletins where Fr. Moe served is two-fold: we need to reach out to see if there are any other persons involved, and we need to let others know that we take these situations seriously.
2017, 2016, 2015: St. Mary Roman Catholic Church in Maidstone & St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church South Woodslee, Ontario (CCCD)
Thanksgiving weekend 2017: announcement that allegations made against Father Charbonneau
08 October 2017: Pastor, St. Mary’s and St. John the Evangelist (Fathers Larry Mosseau and Gerry Campeau, both shown in bulletin as being retired priests and both shown as being with St. John’s, with the latter, Father Campeau shown as being “in residence.”. ( Father Moe Charbonneau Pastor St Mary’s & St John the Evangelist bulletin )
Spring 2016: Celebrant for 95th anniversary of St. John the Evangelist CWL (League Lingo London Diocesan Newsletter, Fall 2016 League Lingo Fall 2016 p. 23
“Fr. Moe Charbonneau…spoke of how the League has touched his own life, that of his parishioners and the communities he has served. There was not a dry eye in the church”
03 July 2014: “Presided” over Knights of Columbus prayer service honouring recently deceased Father Chris Quinlan. (St. John de Brebeuf Council 8233 July 2014, page 3))
Presiding over the service were long 0me friends and colleagues; Father Moe Charbonneau, Father Larry Brunet, and Father Mike Parent. With guitar in hand, Father Moe sang some beautiful songs, and then shared stories of Father Chris’s life.
(Check information re Father Chris Quinlan and on this April 2013 blog scroll down to “Quam Bonum” -)
17 June 2014: member of the Niagara Catholic District School Board (Niagara Catholic District School Board meeting 2014-06-17)
voted against proposal by Father Paul MacNeil to add to the Board Meeting agenda a letter Father MacNeil had written to OECTA (Ontario English Catholic Teacher’s Association ) opposing OECTA involvement in Pride Parade (that was the World Pride Parade). (Am I correct in deducing that this means that Father Charbonneau supported OECTA’s decision to march in the pride day event?)
08 June 2014: Concelebrated Mass at St. Patrick’s Church Dublin with Father John Pirt at 100th anniversary of Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board building in Dublin, Ontario. Father Charbonneau is a former parish priest at St. Patrick’s. (Click photo to enlarge)
06 March 2014: Father Moe Charbonneau is welcomed to St. Mary’s Parish( 06 March 2014 Essex Free Press )
03 March 2014: Appointed Pastor St. Mary, Maidstone and St. John the Evangelist, Woodslee
– March 2014: Pastor, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Windsor
2014, 2013: Pastor, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church, Windsor, Ontario (CCCD)
13 December 2013: Sacrament of Reconciliation at Catholic Central High School . Identified as “our priest chaplain” (Click image to enlarge)
07 May 2013: outdoor Mass on church grounds for Catholic Education Week (Click image to enlarge)
Catholic Education Week Windsor event: To celebrate Education Week May 6-10, Fr. Moe Charbonneau, Pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church (804 Grand Marais Rd., E., Windsor) has invited the two schools serviced by the parish (Our Lady of Perpetual Help School and St. Christopher School) to an Outdoor Mass to be celebrated on the church grounds on Tuesday, May 7, at 10:30 a.m. Between the two schools there will be over 1,000 people present. The two schools, separated by the E.C. Row Expressway will be united in faith as one student body for the first time as Fr. Moe brings together church and school in this first time ever event. The Education Week Theme of “Growing Together in Faith” is exactly what is happening here !!
September 2012: replacing Father Nelson Cabral Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church, Windsor (Father Cabral has been granted a six month sabbatical) (Charbonneau to OLPH 01 Sept 2012 and St Martin de Tours in London)
? 2012 to 01 September 2012: administrator at St. Martin de Tyrs, London ( “Current Pastor Father Francis Thekkumkatil cst is on health leave ” (Charbonneau to OLPH 01 Sept 2012 and St Martin de Tours in London)
2012, 2011, 2010: Pastor, Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, Langton, Ontario (CCCD)
18 October 2011: Celebrant at Mass of St. Theresa during the Canadian Tour of the St. Thérèse Reliquary, Saint Andrew’s the Apostle Church in London, Ontario (External link)
25-27 April 2008: COR weekend in Tillsonburg, Ontario (COR is listed here as “Christ on Retreat”; I believe that is probably the same as the COR weekends which are “Christ in Others Retreat”?) (St Marys Catholic High School Parent Newsletter April 2008 p 4 External link) ( St Marys Catholic High School Parent Newsletter April 2008 p 4)
2005,2006: Diocese of Grand Falls, Newfoundland? (Ridgetown)
January 2005: to Gander Newfoundland for two year assignment with Diocese of Grand Falls (Ridgetown)
(Martin William Currie was Bishop of Grand Falls Diocese 12 December 2000 – o1 March 2011. He is now Archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. John’s Newfoundland)
2004: Pastor, St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church, Dublin, Ontario (Ridgetown)
2002, 2000: Pastor, St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church, Dublin, Ontario (CCCD)
1999: assisting, St. Ursula, Roman Catholic Church, Chatham, (Pastor Father J. J. Devine) (CCCD) Ontario
15-17 January 1999: Keynote speaker at CCSA Central Region Conference, Academie Ste. Cecile in Windsor, Ontario. “Father Moe” lLed many of the group in song in the chapel until 2 am or later. Saturday Mass at Assumption University with Bishop Sherlock and Fathers Moe and Dennis Noelke concelebrating. ( “Snow Doesn’t Bury the ‘Caravan of Love” ( “Snow doesn’t bury the Caravan of Love” pages 8 and 9 from Canadian Catholic Campus Ministry and Canadian Catholic Students Association, Winter 1999)
1998, 1997: assisting, St. Gregory the Great Roman Catholic Church, St. Clair Beach, Ontario (Pastor Father P.W. Fuerth( (CCCD)
1996, 1995: assisting at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, St. Clair Beach, Ontario Pastor Father T. J. Lever) (CCCD)
30 April 1994: ORDAINED (Ridgetown)
“interned” in London and Kingsville, Ontario (Ridgetowon)
1991: M. Div. King’s College, London, Ontario (Ridgetowon)
1988: BA King’s College, London, Ontario (Ridgetowon)
Fall 1985: Decision to become a priest (Ridgetowon)
1984 – 1985: worked at Ridgetowon College as a research assistant (Ridgetowon)
1984: graduated Ridgetowon College, University of Guelph Ontario – had studied horticulture with focus on farming and research (Ridgetowon)
1970s ?: living in Chatham Ontario
“When Maurice Charbonneau was 15 years old, his parish priest in Chatham told him he would be a priest some day.” (Ridgetown)
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Windsor Star
08 May 2013
Don Lajoie
“Keep singing,” Rev. Maurice Charbonneau declared as the children’s choir belted out the final refrain of the recessional at the end of mass. “This is like Woodstock.”
About 1,000 pupils from Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Christopher elementary schools, their teachers and staff, parents and curious people from the neighbourhood attended an outdoor mass Tuesday on the lawn of the South Windsor Catholic Church to mark Catholic Education Week.
“There’s a real scene here,” said Charbonneau, the pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help who is known to his parishioners as Father Moe. “People are slowing down in their cars as they go by to see what’s happening.”
The priest surveyed the crowd of children cross-legged on the lawn before him, the adults seated on chairs behind them and the neighbours, some on bikes or pushing baby carriages, standing along the curb.
It was a celebration of Catholic Education Week, involving a number of activities at Catholic schools throughout Windsor and Essex County, including Tuesday’s mass, an environmental cleanup and volunteer luncheon at St. Angela, a visit by the St. John the Baptist choir with grades 3 and 4 children performing at area nursing homes Thursday and a multicultural luncheon featuring ethnic foods, costumes and displays at Assumption high school Friday.
Board superintendent Mike Seguin said the week is an annual celebration that predates his 30-year association with the school system and it commemorates the work and commitment to Catholic education from bishops, priests, lay people, parents, teachers and staff who have made the faith-based system work.
“Its about the achievements and successes we’ve had as a system and letting people know about that,” he said. The theme for this year’s celebration is based on the Vatican’s declaration of 2013 as the Year of Faith.
Charbonneau said the idea for the mass was to bring children from the two elementary schools together in a show of unity, acceptance and sharing.
He said the two schools are served by the same church but are separated by the E.C. Row Expressway and the children rarely have an opportunity to interact.
Credit: Don Lajoie; The Windsor Star
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The Windsor Star
24 Apr 2013
What the E.C. Row Expressway has divided, the parish priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Help plans to unite.
Rev. Maurice Charbonneau, better known as Father Moe, will hold an outdoor mass May 7 for the students, staff and parents at St. Christopher and Our Lady of Perpetual Help schools. The celebration, to mark education week, will draw more than 1,000 people.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help students usually walk next door to the church once a month for mass. St. Christopher students, separated from the church by E.C. Row Expressway, don’t have that same opportunity, so Father Moe usually packs his guitar and goes to them.
Simply Delicious bistro’s patio has become an urban oasis where diners and nature mingle
The Peterborough Examiner
30 August 2018
by Jessica Nyznik Examiner Staff Writer
A downtown eatery with an urban oasis is quietly growing in popularity – and not just among those on two legs.
“It’s a natural refuge for both animals and people to co-habitat and enjoy each other,” said Mark Buckley.
The new owner of Simply Delicious transformed the restaurant’s underutilized patio into a “chipmunk 401” with tables for dining to boot.
Buckley, 56, took over the Charlotte St. business in May.
After retiring from a 30-year career in education, Buckley returned to his hometown to pursue a post-retirement endeavour.
He purchased Simply Delicious from Barb Collins and partner, who’d originally started the business in the hospital’s Heart Health clinic.
About three years ago, the duo moved the establishment downtown into Rivulet Court (the former post office building), taking over the former space of Stickling’s Bakery.
They brought their concept of heart-healthy eating with them, serving fresh, healthy food.
Buckley has been building on that idea, adding a deli for personalized sandwiches and salads, for example. He shops for fresh produce every day, sourcing as much as he can locally.
Simply Delicious also has all-day breakfast, freshly baked goods and coffee.
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant on Charlotte St. is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds. – Clifford Skarstedt , Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds on Thursday August 30, 2018 on Charlotte St. in Peterborough, Ont. – Clifford Skarstedt,Examiner
The garden patio of Simply Delicious restaurant on Charlotte Street is an urban oasis for patrons including friendly chipmunks and birds. – Clifford Skarstedt , Examiner
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The page for Father Maurice O. Charbonneau (Father Moe) has been added. Father Moe Charbonneau, a priest with the Diocese of London Ontario ordained in 1994, was suspended after reports of several incidences of “inappropriate adult relationship” over several years.
The age and gender of the these “adults” is, at this time, unknown.
Note that according to the the following article Father Charbonneau was scheduled to serve in the Diocese of Grand Falls Newfoundland for two years commencing January 2005:
“West Ag Alumni Called to Serve”
Does anyone know if in fact Father Moe Charbonnau did spend time in Newfoundland in the mid 2000s?
Please all those keep those who have been betrayed by Father Father Charbonneau in your prayers.
*****
The following information has been posted regarding Father Mark Buckley.
October 2018: Principal loses teaching certificate after keeping school like a ‘petting zoo,’ having sexual encounter in a classroom
30 August 2018: Restaurant patio a Chipmunk 401
Read it all and weep.
If you don’t know the background, read : Friends in High Places.
I wonder what would have happened had Bishop Fred Henry not given Buckley safe have in the Diocese of Calgary back in 1998?
And yes, I am trying yet again to find out if this man is still a Roman Catholic priest.
Please all those keep those who have been betrayed by Father Mark Buckley in your prayers.
*****
Speaking of Bishop Fred Henry and the Diocese of Calgary…
There is yet another name to add to the growing list.
Father Malcolm D’Souza.
Father D’Souza was ordained by Bishop Fred Henry for the Diocese of Calgary Alberta in 2002.
Yes. 2002. Sixteen short years ago.
Anyway, I have been looking around to get together what information I can on a page. I will continue and will get together a page o Father Malcolm D’Souza. I will let you know as soon as the page is posted. Until then, here is some information regarding d’Souza.
Global News
28 October 2018
File: St. Mark’s Parish in Calgary.
Global News
A priest who has worked at Catholic parishes around southern Alberta has been put on administrative leave after allegations of sexual misconduct were brought forward to the Diocese of Calgary.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary made the announcement in an official statement released on Saturday.
The diocese said it received allegations of sexual misconduct involving two minors and several adults by Fr. Malcolm D’Souza. The incidents are alleged to have taken place at St. Mark’s Parish in Calgary between 2010 and 2016, according to the diocese’s statement.
The statement said diocese officials have contacted law enforcement authorities and “there will be no further comments until the investigation has been completed.”
The statement said Bishop McGrattan removed D’Souza from the St. Bernard’s and Assumption parishes, where he was most recently working, and placed him on administrative leave.
A Calgary Police Service spokesperson said on Sunday that there is “no active investigation by the Sex Crimes Unit into this incident as of yet,” adding that the CPS has been in contact with the diocese.
The statement is being announced this weekend at all masses in every parish where the priest has served in the Diocese of Calgary.
Global News has not been able to reach D’Souza for comment.
Anyone with information is encouraged to come forward to police, Patricia Jones, the chair of the Sexual Abuse Misconduct Committee at 1-833-547-8360, or Fr. Tim Boyle, the bishop’s delegate, at 1-403-330-5923.
Please keep the complainants in your prayers.
Enough for now,
Sylvia
Arthur Lavoie
Oblate priest. Ordained 1932.Served in Northern Ontario throughout his priesthood, in an area within what was known from 1938-1967 as the Diocese Haileybury, and then from 1967 to 2007 that same area was within what was known as the Diocese of Moosonee, and since 2007 that same area is within the Diocese of Amos.
Referenced as a “serial sexual abuser of children” on p. 12 of the following legal document:
01September 2017: Lavoie Larry Philip Fontaine et al and The Attorney General of Canada et al – Factum of the Appellants re St Annes Indian Residential School
______________________
Unless otherwise indicated the following information is drawn from copies of the annual Canadian Catholic Church Directories (CCCD) which I have on hand, and media (M)
1991: Died. Buried in Fort Albany Ontario (Father Arthur Lavoie grave)
1985: RC Mission, Fort Albany, Ontario (CCCD)
1973-74: Holy Angels Roman Catholic Church, Fort Albany, Ontario. Pastor Father L. P. Papin omi
1971-72: Holy Angels Roman Catholic Church, Fort Albany, Ontario . Pastor Father Paiemont omi (CCCD)
1968-69, 1967: index shows address as St. Rosaire residence , Maniwake, Ontario (CCCD)
1959: Albany (CCCD)
1932: Ordained
1905: Born (grave)
St. Michael’s College School principal Gregory Reeves speaks with the media in Toronto on Nov. 19, 2018.
Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
The president and principal of St. Michael’s College School have resigned their posts, just one day after the school’s board of directors expressed full support for their leadership in the wake of allegations of sexual assault and assault at the school.
The resignations of president Jefferson Thompson and principal Greg Reeves come eight days after news broke of an alleged sexual assault perpetrated by a group of St. Michael’s students against one of their classmates. Since then, police have said they are investigating a total of six incidents connected to the prestigious all-boys private school. The other five include one other alleged sexual assault, three alleged assaults, including one with a belt, and one alleged threatening incident.
Six boys, aged 14 and 15, were arrested on Monday and charged with assault, gang sexual assault and sexual assault with a weapon. They cannot be identified under provisions of the Youth Criminal Justice Act and all have been released on bail. All the charges stem from one incident of alleged sexual assault.
In a statement released on Thursday evening, the school cited the two men’s “shared desire to move the school forward without distractions” as reasons for their resignations. Neither Father Thompson nor Mr. Reeves have spoken publicly about why they stepped down.
The school hailed the men’s departures as an example of putting students “first.”
“Having fulfilled their moral and ethical obligations to manage the immediate crisis and engage our school community, this courageous decision allows us to move forward with our goals: understanding how these events could have occurred, regaining the trust of our community and bringing cultural change to our school,” board chair Michael Forsayeth, an alumnus, said in the release.
The school and the board declined to comment further on the resignations late Thursday. The board has not answered interview requests and written questions from The Globe and Mail for the past three days.
Mr. Reeves had been criticized for not immediately alerting police after he was made aware, on Monday, Nov. 12, of a video in which a boy was allegedly sexually assaulted with an object. Two days later, police went to the school after reporters made inquiries about rumoured student expulsions which they’d heard were possibly connected to a sexual assault. At that time, Mr. Reeves told police about the alleged sexual assault caught on video. He has said that he had every intention of going to police, had they not come to him first. He explained the delay by saying he was busy with expulsion meetings and helping the alleged victim tell his parents.
Inspector Domenic Sinopoli, head of the Toronto police’s sex-crimes unit, told reporters this week that he believes the principal should have immediately gone to police about the allegations − and that the administration’s handling of the case will be part of their investigation down the road.
The Ontario College of Teachers requires its members to report suspected sexual abuse or neglect of students whenever they become aware of it. Mr. Reeves is listed as certified with the college, which private-school teachers and administrators can elect to be part of, although it is not required.
Father Thompson, a priest with the Basilian Fathers congregation, will be replaced with an interim president, Rev. Andrew Leung, a former St. Michael’s science teacher and pastor from Edmonton. Mr. Reeves’s role as principal will be taken over by two vice-principals, Emile John and David Lee. Together, the three will lead the school’s roughly 1,100 students from Grades 7 to 12 as they navigate the end of a semester where exams and extra-curricular activities have been cancelled.
A day before the resignations, Mr. Forsayeth said in a press release that Mr. Reeves and Father Thompson were men “of the highest integrity and continue to have our trust,” citing a “standing ovation” the school’s leadership was given at an alumni meeting on Tuesday. “I believe that Father Thompson and Mr. Reeves have their overwhelming support,” Mr. Forsayeth said.
The meeting was called to address the ongoing police investigations, the school’s handling of the issue, and a planned culture review. St Michael’s had also been shaken by two threats considerable enough to warrant police attention since the news broke last week, including a bomb threat that led to an evacuation.
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Principal Greg Reeves and Father Jefferson Thompson, school president, stepped down Thursday
CBC News
The board at St. Michael’s College School announced principal Greg Reeves, left, and president Father Jefferson Thompson, right, have resigned in a statement Thursday. (Christopher Katsarov/CP and Congregation of St. Basil)
The principal and president of St. Michael’s College School have both resigned amid allegations of assault and sexual assault between students, according to a statement issued by the private, all-boys’ school Thursday afternoon.
Principal Greg Reeves and Father Jefferson Thompson, school president, stepped down to allow the Roman Catholic school to move “forward without distractions and allow it to focus on healing and change after the horrific events,” the board of directors of St. Michael’s said in the statement.
“Greg Reeves and Fr. Thompson have always put the welfare, education and formation of our students first — and they do so once again today,” board chair Michael Forsayeth said.
“This courageous decision allows us to move forward with our goals: understanding how these events could have occurred, regaining the trust of our community and bringing cultural change to our school.”
I’m not at all surprised to see it ending this way.
– Jean-Paul Bedard, St. Michael’s alumnus
Bill Dunphy, who graduated from St. Michael’s 50 years ago, told CBC News the decision is a “symbolic action” and shows that the board of the prestigious school “really wants to send a signal that they’re looking for decisive action.”
Other alumni, who accused the school of having a culture of “toxic masculinity” and called for reform, say the resignations give the school time to address underlying issues in its classrooms.
“I’m not at all surprised to see it ending this way, or at least moving along in this direction,” said alumnus Jean-Paul Bedard, a former member of the football team who said he experienced sexual violence during hazing incidents at St. Michael’s 35 years ago.
“This definitely doesn’t fix the problem, but this allows a potential solution to come through.”
Alumnus Adam Boni, who graduated in 1987, echoed this and noted it’s an important step in transparency.
“That change allows the school to move on with fresh blood at the helm: new vision and purpose,” he said.
Principal criticized for handling of incidents
On Wednesday, the school reaffirmed its support for Reeves and Thompson after some alumni had called for senior administrators to resign and for teachers who knew about the assaults to step down.
Reeves, who has been criticized for not going to police sooner, defended his actions in an interview with CBC’s The National host Adrienne Arsenault earlier this week.
He said he held off contacting authorities because the alleged victim hadn’t told his family about the incident.
On Tuesday night, Reeves said if presented with the same situation he “would do exactly the same thing.”
The National
Toronto private school principal acknowledges problems amid police probe
Reeves said he notified police Nov. 12 when the administration received a video of an alleged assault, which took place in a washroom. By that evening, school officials said they had received a second video of an alleged sexual assault in a locker room.
Toronto police told reporters Reeves did not report the alleged sexual assault until officers, who had been contacted by media, showed up at the school on Nov 15.
Insp. Dominic Sinopoli, who heads Toronto police’s sex crimes unit, has said the school should have reported the incident immediately.
St. Michael’s College School in Toronto is at the centre of an unfolding scandal. (Paul Smith/CBC)
In Ontario, the Ministry of Education requires public school boards to develop protocols with the police, that include incidents in which school principals have a mandatory obligation to contact police. Suspected sexual assault is among those incidents.
However, many of the standards that govern public schools do not apply to private schools, including the duty to report suspected sexual assault to police, said John Schuman, a St. Michael’s alumnus and Toronto-based lawyer who specializes in children’s rights and education law.
Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders wouldn’t say whether Reeves will be investigated for not alerting police before he did.
“For me to speculate is unfair,” Saunders told reporters Thursday following a meeting of the Toronto Police Services Board.
Andrew Leung, a former science and physics teacher at St. Michael’s, was appointed interim president by the school’s board of directors. He has served as the pastor and rector of Edmonton parishes, St. Alphonsus and St. Clare, for the past two years.
Three St. Michael’s College School students, left, made a brief court appearance on Monday in Toronto and were released on bail. They will be back in court on Dec. 19. (Pam Davies/CBC)
Earlier this week, police laid criminal charges against six students in connection with a gang sexual assault investigation.
Police are investigating six cases that involve students of the school, which teaches Grades 7 to 12. Some of the incidents were captured on video and shared online. Police and the school have said two of the six cases involve sexual assault.
St. Michael’s also expelled eight students in connection with the allegations. It’s unclear if any of the eight are among those who have been charged.
Toronto Mayor John Tory, speaking following a meeting of the Toronto Police Services Board on Thursday, said he hopes the resignations will lead to a new chapter at the prestigious school and that new leadership will address the serious issues the allegations have brought to light.
Tory called what’s happening at the school “a real tragedy for everyone concerned.”
St. Michael’s, which is known for its athletic programs, launched a third-party investigation into the present situation and past incidents. School officials hope a preliminary examination will be done by spring with a more in-depth investigation to wrap up next summer.
With files from CBC’s John Rieti
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Toronto Sun
Published:
Updated:
The president and principal of beleaguered St. Michael’s College School have resigned as police continue their investigation into allegations of a physical and sexual abuse at the prestigious educational institution.
In a statement released Thursday night, the board of directors announced principal Greg Reeves and the school’s president, Father Jefferson Thompson, had stepped down.
The resignations came in the wake of numerous allegations of sexual and physical abuse by students at the exclusive Toronto boarding school, many of which were recorded on video and widely shared over social media.
In the statement, the two chose to resign out of a “shared desire to move the school forward without distractions, and allow it to focus on healing and change.”
Reeves came under fire over allegedly waiting nearly 48 hours to notify police about the videos, a delay he attributed to ensuring a victim of a videotaped assault was able to notify his parents.
Calls for both Thompson and Reeves to step down began in the days after the scandal broke, from both community members and parents of students.
“This administration is too arrogant to accept any responsibility for what has happened,” one parent, who asked not to be named, told the Toronto Sun.
“This is all about protecting the brand and the school. It’s big money.”
On Monday, six students were charged by Toronto police — each facing charges of assault, gang sexual assault, and sexual assault with a weapon in connection with perhaps the most notorious of the numerous videos under police investigation — allegedly depicting a violent hazing ritual by the school’s junior football team involving a boy being sexually assaulted with a broom handle.
Other videos found circulating online reportedly involve a student in his underwear being assaulted in a washroom sink, and another police say involved an assault with a belt.
St. Mikes has announced the launch of an “independent investigation” — aside from the one being conducted by police — into “underlying attitudes and behaviours inconsistent with its cultures and values.”
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Ministry of Education rules in Ontario differ for public and private schools
CBC News
Posted: Nov 22, 2018 4:00 AM ET
St. Michael’s College School principal Greg Reeves says there is a problem at his school and that it needs to do better. It’s a legal grey area whether he should have immediately contacted the Children’s Aid Society when he learned of alleged sexual abuse of a student. (Christopher Katsarov/Canadian Press)
The high school principal of St. Michael’s College School in Toronto may have had no duty to report the sexual assault allegations to police, but it’s a legal grey area whether he should have immediately contacted the Children’s Aid Society.
However, some lawyers say that at the very least, the principal had an ethical responsibility to immediately report the alleged crime and not delay, despite the wishes of the victim.
John Schuman, a Toronto-based lawyer who specializes in children’s rights and education law, said a principal doesn’t necessarily have the expertise to decide whether they should delay calling authorities or to determine how well a victim is coping.
“He may be very, very good at educating and running a school. But this is talking about the emotional welfare and physical welfare of a kid who’s been sexually abused,” Schuman said.
“I don’t think he’s a psychologist, so I don’t think he is in a position to really do that sort of evaluation.”
Police are investigating six allegations involving students at the all-boy private school after an alleged gang sexual assault was captured on camera and shared on social media.
The school’s principal, Greg Reeves, did not report that alleged sexual assault to police until officers, contacted by the media, showed up at the school 48 hours after the administration received a video of the incident.
Toronto police Insp. Dominic Sinopoli has said the school should have reported the incident immediately but Reeves has said he held off contacting authorities because the alleged victim hadn’t told his family about the incident.
On Tuesday night, in a meeting with school alumni, Reeves defended his actions, saying if he had to do it over, he would respond the same way.
Toronto police are investigating six allegations involving students at the all-boy private school after an alleged gang sexual assault was captured on camera and shared on social media. (Tijana Martin/Canadian Press)
In Ontario, the Ministry of Eduction requires public school boards to develop protocols with the police, that include incidents in which school principals have a mandatory obligation to contact police. Suspected sexual assault is among those incidents.
However, many of the standards that govern public schools do not apply to private schools, including the duty to report suspected sexual assault to police, said Schuman. This means, in the case at St. Michael’s, Reeves would not have been obligated to report the alleged abuse to the police, he said.
“Private schools were exempted from almost everything under the Education Act,” Schuman said.
Yet it’s a little less clear what responsibilities Reeves may have had under the province’s Child, Youth and Family Services Act (CYFSA). Section 125 of that act states that a person who performs professional or official duties with respect to children, and has reasonable grounds to suspect abuse must immediately report that abuse to a Children’s Aid Society.
Reeves has acknowledged the legal obligations the school abides by in reporting such incidents fall under that act. He has also said he is not aware of Children’s Aid Services being notified about any incident.
But Schuman said private schools have interpreted Section 125 of CYFSA to mean that principals are only required to immediately contact Children’s Aid Societies in cases of suspected abuse at the hands of a parent or guardian.
And because the video does not show a parent or guardian abusing a child, private schools might conclude they don’t have to report it to Children’s Aid.
“I think that there are arguments to be made on both sides of how that section is worded,” said Erin Ellis, a Toronto-based lawyer who specializes in civil cases involving sexual abuse. “It is a grey area there because the abuse was student-on-student versus a teacher on student or somebody else who had charge of the child.”
Schuman said Reeves could also argue that that he didn’t have a duty to report immediately because there was no time necessity, as the child was out of immediate danger.
However, Schuman believes that Reeves and private schools legally and ethically do have an obligation to report immediately to Children’s Aid.
St. Michael’s alumni held an emergency meeting about the issue Tuesday night. Annual mandatory education about bullying and hazing was suggested. (Simon Dingley/CBC)
“I think that teachers are persons with charge of a child … and if children are abused under their watch it needs to be a reported to the Children’s Aid Society,” he said.
“If a school is taking the view that they don’t have to report stuff or that they are only going to report the stuff that is absolutely clear … that cuts off a lot of information the Children’s Aid Society receives.”
Ellis said, even if Reeves, under the CFYSA, was not legally obligated to immediately inform Children’s Aid, she believes he had an ethical obligation to do so.
“The CYFSA is worded in that it has to be immediate. They drafted that for a reason and they drafted that even though … the victim may not want it reported to the Children’s Aid or to the police.”
As for legal ramifications for not reporting such abuse, a person convicted under Section 125 of the CYFSA faces fines of up to $5,000.
Schuman said a Crown counsel could try to prosecute Reeves, but it’s rare that people are charged with this offence
“There hasn’t been a lot of interest in prosecuting these things. But if you got a Crown who was thinking, ‘Yeah, this needs to be sorted out’ or ‘I’m really angry that he didn’t [report] in this circumstances,’ than absolutely a Crown could try to prosecute him.”
With files from The Canadian Press
About the Author
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Timeline
6 boys arrested and charged in connection with alleged sexual assault
St. Michael’s College School in Toronto is at the centre of an unfolding scandal after a series of alleged assaults and sexual assaults involving students came to light last week. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)
Here’s a timeline of events at St. Michael’s College School based on information provided by the school and Toronto police:
Monday, Nov. 12: Videos surface
In the morning, school administrators receive a video of a hazing incident, which police sources say involved members of the basketball team bullying a student in the washroom and soaking him with water.The school launches an internal investigation and interviews the students involved and their parents.
The school contacts police to seek advice on how to handle the incident. Police advise that if the alleged victim thinks it was an assault, he should report it to police.In the evening, the administration receives a video of a second incident, which police sources say involved a group of students on the football team pinning down another student in a locker room and allegedly sexually assaulting him with a broom handle.
Tuesday, Nov. 13: 4 students expelled
The school investigates both incidents, identifies and interviews all students involved and their parents.Four students allegedly involved in the hazing incident are expelled.
Wednesday, Nov. 14: Police investigation begins
The school continues its internal investigation and expels four students and suspends another one in connection with the locker room incident.Toronto police receive media inquiries about a video of an alleged sexual assault at St. Michael’s circulating on social media.Police send an officer to the school. Prior to the officer’s arrival, police receive word from the media regarding the expulsions of students related to an alleged “sexual assault involving an object.”
The officer meets with the principal, who hands over the video of the alleged sexual assault.Police announce they have launched an investigation into an alleged sexual assault.Police announce the video meets the definition of child pornography and advise it should be deleted immediately.The school emails parents and issues a statement saying it notified police about both incidents on Monday.
Thursday, Nov. 15: Video of 3rd incident surfaces
Police dispute the school’s claim that the administration contacted police about the alleged sexual assault on Monday.The school is made aware of a third incident captured on video and notifies police, which later said it also involved an alleged sexual assault.The school sends another email to parents about the incidents and the expulsions.
Friday, Nov. 16: Info session held for parents
The school holds two information sessions for parents regarding the incidents.
Parents file into a meeting at St. Michael’s College School on Friday. (Farrah Merali/CBC)
Principal Greg Reeves says in a series of media interviews that the school has reported a fourth incident captured on video to police.Reeves admits he didn’t report the alleged sexual assault to police on Monday because the victim had not yet informed his parents about the incident.
The principal of St. Michael’s College School, Greg Reeves, is now talking, as police continue to investigate allegations of sexual assault. 11:08
Monday, Nov. 19: 6 boys arrested and charged
Police say six boys have been arrested in connection with the alleged sexual assault at St. Michael’s — five of them turned themselves in, a sixth one was arrested on the way to school.
Police say they’re investigating three additional incidents, including one involving an alleged sexual assault. They warn the ongoing investigation could lead to more charges.
The accused — two aged 14 and four aged 15 — appear in a youth court and are granted bail. They will return to court on Dec. 19.
A sketch shows two of the students accused of sexual assault sitting in court on Monday. All six accused were granted bail and will return to court on Dec. 19. (Pam Davies/CBC)
Tuesday, Nov. 20: 2 additional incidents revealed
Toronto police say they are investigating after receiving two additional videos, one of which was purported to show a St. Michael’s College School student being assaulted with a belt.
The new submissions bring the total number of videos in police possession to four.
Insp. Dominic Sinopoli, who heads the force’s sex crimes unit, says the acts depicted in the videos involve all males, but it’s unclear whether they are all students at the school and if the events occurred on school property or elsewhere.
One depicts an assault with a belt, while the other shows a threat being made.
Thursday, Nov. 22: Principal, president resign
The school’s principal and president both resign their posts amid criticism of how they managed the burgeoning crisis.
A statement issued in the late afternoon states Greg Reeves and Father Jefferson Thompson stepped down to allow the school to go “forward without distractions and allow it to focus on healing and change after the horrific events.”
The board of directors, who earlier in the week endorsed the school’s top leadership, praises both men in the statement.
“Greg Reeves and Fr. Thompson have always put the welfare, education and formation of our students first — and they do so once again today,” board chair Michael Forsayeth says.
Principal Greg Reeves, left, and president Father Jefferson Thompson, right, stepped down from their posts amid calls for accountability at the school. (Christopher Katsarov/CP and Congregation of St. Basil)
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Boys facing multiple criminal charges in connection with alleged sexual assault
Toronto police announced Monday that six students from St. Michael’s College School have been arrested and charged in connection with an alleged gang sexual assault. (Farrah Merali/CBC)
Toronto police have charged six students in an alleged gang sexual assault at St. Michael’s College School that was captured on camera and shared on social media.
Deputy chief James Ramer said five students turned themselves in on Monday, while another was arrested on his way to school. All six teenage boys, whose identities are protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, are facing multiple criminal charges.
Each student has been charged with:
All six boys — two aged 14 and four aged 15 — appeared in a youth court Monday afternoon and were released on bail. They will be back in court on Dec. 19.
All six were released on between $5,000 and $7,000 bail.
Three St. Michael’s College School students, left, made a brief court appearance on Monday in Toronto. (Pam Davies/CBC)
The charges stem from a sexual assault investigation at the private, all-boys Catholic school that was launched last week.
Insp. Dominic Sinopoli, who heads Toronto police’s sex crimes unit, told reporters police are now looking into two allegations of sexual assault and two allegations of assault, although it’s unclear at this time if the incidents are related.
Sinopoli said the incidents started as hazing before veering into the “criminal arena.”
Sinopoli said police have reason to believe there are more victims and more videos out there, and said he’s “very concerned” that graphic video of the alleged sexual assault is still out there on social media.
“The unintended consequences are far reaching and detrimental to the recovery of the victim,” he said.
Previously, police warned the videos amount to child pornography, and Sinopoli warned anyone who is found with a copy will face serious punishment.
Sinopoli explained that more than 50 witnesses have been identified so far and that more information is coming in to police every day. Asked whether they could expect to lay more charges on students he told CBC News that “depends on the students of St. Mike’s and how much they want to deal with this issue.”
Insp. Dominic Sinopoli said while no child pornography charges have been laid in connection with this incident, police haven’t ruled that out as a possibility. (Tijana Martin/Canadian Press)
The Canadian Press spoke with police sources who confirmed that the charges filed Monday involved a group of students on the football team allegedly pinning down another student in a locker room and sexually assaulting him with a broom handle.
Sinopoli said Monday that the victim of the alleged sexual assault was doing well.
“He has gotten the support he needs and deserves,” he said.
School dealing with other threats
Sinopoli acknowledged that tensions in the school were high due to the recent events. St. Michael’s principal was unable to attend the news conference Monday due to a security threat at the school.
Police said they had also received unconfirmed reports of threats against St. Michael’s students on social media and in public. Sinopoli told CBC News the school is telling students they don’t have to wear their uniforms travelling to and from school after reports of some boys being threatened while wearing it.
“We want to reiterate that we are monitoring social media, and we’ll act on any reports of reprisals, retaliation, violence or threats of violence,” Sinopoli said.
The school, which has expelled eight students in connection with the allegations, said it supports the police force’s move to file criminal charges. It’s unclear if any of the eight are among those who have been charged.
The school’s principal, Greg Reeves, described the video of the alleged sexual assault as “horrific” and said he didn’t report it to police right away because the alleged target of the attack had not yet told his family about the incident.
“I called his parents because he had not informed his parents about what was going on,” he said. “His mom was out of town — [it] was a difficult moment at that point.”
“We’re as shocked and horrified as you are,” Reeves told reporters at a news conference on Monday afternoon, adding that the school has hired a social worker and launched a confidential voicemail for students to anonymously report abuse or information.
Sinopoli said the school should have reported the incident immediately.
The school has also launched a third-party investigation into the present situation and past incidents. The principal hopes a preliminary examination will be done by spring, with a more in-depth investigation to be completed by next summer.
‘It’s devastating’
Loretta Merritt, a Toronto-based lawyer and mother of a student at the school told CBC she feels the charges against the boys are “justified for sure.”
“I feel sick about it, it’s devastating,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine that children could hurt each other in such a way.”
Merritt said she feels the school handled the situation “quite well.”
“They have put in a tremendous effort in terms of supporting the actual boys who were assaulted, their family, the boys at the school, the larger community and they have been very open and transparent with the parents too,” she said.
Mayor John Tory commented on the St. Michael’s situation Monday, telling reporters what’s transpired is “a very sad story all the way around.”
“This is a school that has a great, distinguished history in our city, but sometimes it can be the case that cultures within organizations like that, not confined to that school or to schools in general, can fail to meet the accepted standard, and fail to keep up even with the changing attitudes, and I think in this case both things have happened here, clearly.”
Police say the investigation is ongoing and information is coming in daily.
With files from The Canadian Press
[From Archbishop Terrance Prendergast’s blogpsot, “The Journey of a Bishop” 25 September 2009]
RINUNCE E NOMINE
NOMINA DEL NUNZIO APOSTOLICO IN FRANCIA
Il Santo Padre Benedetto XVI ha nominato Nunzio Apostolico in Francia S.E. Mons. Luigi Ventura, Arcivescovo titolare di Equilio, finora Nunzio Apostolico in Canada.
ARRIVEDERCI AND ADDIO, ARCHBISHOP LUIGI VENTURA
This morning’s Vatican Information Service published the official notice of the nomination of Canada’s Apostolic Nuncio, Most Reverend Luigi Ventura, as the next Apostolic Nuncio to France, a widely-expected transfer that had been speculated on in the Catholic blogosphere since early summer.
Archbishop Ventura was named to Canada in June 2001, following earlier postings as Nuncio in Chile (1999-2001), Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Niger(1995-1999) and arrived in Ottawa on September 10, 2001, the eve of 9/11.
Since that time he has endeared himself to the bishops of Canada by his fraternal support, delightful candour and commitment to his ministry of representing the Holy Father and the Holy See among us. He has also been close to some of the new movements in the Church, such as but not limited to, Catholic Christian Outreach(CCO), Famille Marie-Jeunesse, Communion and Liberation (CL), Emmanuel and the Neo-Catechumenal Way.
Archbishop Ventura was the Nuncio for Toronto’s 17th World Youth Day in 2002 and was pleased to welcome Pope John Paul II to Canada on that occasion. He has a particular interest in the idealism and zeal of youth, so he was pleased to accept my invitations last October, while I attended the Synod of Bishops, to preside at the commissioning service for youthful missionaries of NET Canada and NET Ireland and to receive the renewal of their missionary commitment on CCO Foundation Day (October 18).
During his time in Ottawa, His Grace has overseen a complete retrofit of the Nunciature, which was badly in need of updating: water and heating, electrical currents, etc. The chapel has been refurbished and the grounds renewed. His successor—let us pray for the one whom the Lord has chosen—inherits an up-to-date physical plant.
We can be sure Archbishop Ventura will not miss Ottawa’s winters and snowfalls, but he will miss the geography he has become acquainted with and the people he has gotten to know as, over the years, he has assisted Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI in renewing the episcopacy of our country. His is quite an accomplishment: seventy nominations and transfers (with a few more in the pipeline) —all in the space of eight years!
I know I speak for many when I say we will miss him; certainly I shall. May the Lord bless and further his zeal for the Kingdom in service now to the Catholics of France, “the eldest daughter of the Church”.
May Our Lady intercede for him in his new mission.
Rosica has now apologized. And it is inevitable that he will face professional consequences
National Post
Special to National Post
By Mathew Block
Allegations that Fr. Thomas Rosica has engaged in serial plagiarism for more than a decade come as a shock.
The Canadian priest is the CEO of Salt and Light, a Catholic media outlet based in Toronto, a widely published writer and a former university president who currently sits on the boards of several institutions of higher learning. He is also known worldwide as the man who interprets the Vatican for the English-speaking media. In a 2015 profile, The Globe and Mail described him as one of Rome’s “most effective communications gurus.”
The first allegation appeared on Feb. 15, when Dorothy Cummings McLean published a news story for LifeSiteNews, a conservative Catholic media site, suggesting Rosica had plagiarized several sources in a speech at Cambridge University earlier this month.
That story led others — myself included — to examine some of Rosica’s other writing more carefully. Matthew Schmitz, senior editor of prominent religion journal First Things, took to Twitter to identify several blog posts and a speech that showed evidence of extensive plagiarism. In one case, 12 paragraphs had been lifted from the National Catholic Register.
“Really, the plagiarism by (Rosica) appears to be endless,” Schmitz tweeted. “I can’t recall seeing a more extreme case.”
While I don’t know Rosica personally, I’ve always appreciated the work he has done helping the public at large to better understand Catholic teachings and news
I turned my attention to the Canadian press, examining a sample of commentary pieces Rosica had written for newspapers — including the National Post — between 2003 and 2016. I was distressed to find clear indications of extensive plagiarism, the most recent a piece in The Globe and Mail from March 18, 2016. It includes, without credit, a summary of Pope Francis’s teachings on mercy by Michiko Kakutani from The New York Times.
Kakutani had written: “Mercy is essential because all men are sinners, in need of God’s forgiveness and grace, and it’s especially necessary today, at a time when ‘humanity is wounded,’ suffering from ‘the many slaveries of the third millennium’ — not just war and poverty and social exclusion, but also fatalism, hardheartedness and self-righteousness.”
Rosica changes the word “men” to “people” and repeats the rest verbatim. In the same article, he also repeats, without credit, sections of text from a 2014 Washington Post article by E.J. Dionne Jr.
In a 2013 piece for The Windsor Star, Rosica not only borrows extensively from other reporters but removes quotation marks from a sentence attributed to Pope Francis — giving the impression that the words are his own.
Rosica has now apologized. And it is inevitable that he will face professional consequences.
I can’t recall seeing a more extreme case
On Feb. 19, when the extent of the plagiarism was still coming to light, the USMC expressed its concern. “We are troubled to hear of the allegations against Fr. Thomas Rosica,” they said in a statement to LifeSiteNews. “The University of St. Michael’s College holds its students and its academic community to the highest standards of accountability and academic integrity.”
It is difficult to imagine how he will be able to continue serving with any educational institution now that he has acknowledged the accuracy of these reports of plagiarism.
Honestly, I wish none of the allegations were true. The Christian media community in Canada is rather small, and while I don’t know Rosica personally, I’ve always appreciated the work he has done helping the public at large to better understand Catholic teachings and news. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak several years ago at a Canadian Church Press conference, and I enjoyed what he had to say. He seems to be a very intelligent, very winsome communicator.
But that’s also why the revelation of his extensive and repeated plagiarism is so disheartening. Whether we know him or not, many of us in Canada’s Christian media have long considered him an example of how to do Christian communications well. That confidence is now broken.
As a Christian, Rosica would know that plagiarism — passing off another person’s words and work as our own — is a sin. I am grateful that he has made public acknowledgement of that sin. And I pray that through repentance he will find comfort in the mercy and love of Jesus Christ, even as he must now deal with the earthly consequences of his actions. May God give him strength for this difficult task.
Mathew Block (@mathewablock) is editor of The Canadian Lutheran magazine and communications manager for the International Lutheran Council.
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Rosica said he lost track of attributions, and relied on material prepared by interns. He failed to check his sources, or to acknowledge them
National Post
February 22, 2019
7:44 PM EST
It was after midnight at the Vatican when Father Thomas Rosica called back. He had a lot going on.
As the Vatican’s long serving senior English-language spokesperson, he was at the landmark papal summit on youth protection, working 18-hour days conveying the church’s message to the world, through the media. This feverish pace is typical of the high-powered circles in which Rosica operates as a major figure in Catholic education and public life in Canada, as former head of Toronto’s 2002 World Youth Day, board member at the University of Toronto’s Catholic college, and chief executive of the television channel Salt and Light. Most recently, he guided communications for St. Michael’s College School in its locker room hazing abuse scandal.
But now Father Rosica had a problem of his own.
For years, he has been plagiarizing in his columns and essays, using words previously published by other authors without credit. Now it was coming out, and although he had quietly told his superior at the Basilian order he had an explanation, it had not quieted the storm.
“What I’ve done is wrong, and I am sorry about that. I don’t know how else to say it,” he said in a phone interview from Rome.
The plagiarized material comes from sources as diverse as Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times’ former book critic; Wikipedia; veteran Vatican correspondent John L. Allen, Jr.; Associated Press news stories; and religious blogs. Rosica even once had a column in the Windsor Star that included a sentence from Pope Francis presented as Rosica’s own words, in a passage copied from the National Catholic Reporter, but lacking the original quotation marks.
What I’ve done is wrong, and I am sorry about that. I don’t know how else to say it
Rosica said he lost track of attributions, and relied on material prepared by interns. He failed to check his sources, or to acknowledge them. People send him quotes and articles all the time, he said, and under the pressure of urgent media deadlines for op-eds on religious affairs, they get mixed up in his notes.
“I realize I relied too much on compiled notes,” he said.
He added that he often has many articles open on his computer at one time, and makes notes by copying work between files, but he said he has not maliciously stolen others’ work as his own.
“It could have been cut and paste,” he said. “I realize the seriousness of this and I regret this very much … I will be very vigilant in future.”
Other people’s words have appeared as Father Rosica’s own on the Salt and Light website, in The Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Toronto Sun and the Windsor Star, among others. This was first revealed in investigations by Dorothy Cummings McLean of LifeSiteNews, and Mathew Block, editor of The Canadian Lutheran magazine. The National Post found additional examples, simply by searching distinctive phrases.
So now, at a moment of crisis in Catholic reconciliation over child sexual abuse, the Vatican’s message guy was spiraling into a public moral crisis of his own.
A request for comment from the office of Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications, was not answered by press time.
Examples of unattributed copy appear in both Catholic and lay media, and in many cases would have been professionally edited. Many are descriptions of basic facts or background context, sometimes several sentences long. In a 2011 article on the National Post website about Pope John Paul II, a basic description of canon law on beatification, the process leading to sainthood, is the same as in an article that appeared a couple of weeks earlier in the Catholic News Service.
John Thavis, former Rome bureau chief for the Catholic News Service, contacted the National Post to say that his articles are among those that had been partly copied, and that Rosica and Salt and Light were subscribers and therefore “free to use the material we provided.”
In The Globe and Mail in 2016, a paragraph that summarizes Pope Francis’s thoughts on mercy is identical to a passage from two months earlier in a review of a book by the pope by Kakutani, one of America’s best-known literary critics.
A 2008 column in the Toronto Sun about martyrdom takes two full paragraphs on Islamic history from an Associated Press report by Brian Murphy, a longtime foreign correspondent, now with The Washington Post, who did not immediate reply to a request for comment. The column also reworks a comment about martyrdom by Andrea Riccardi, an Italian church leader and now cabinet minister, into Rosica’s own observation.
It’s ironic that someone who stands accused of this is part of the pope’s media team
Rosica said he instructed staff to remove his essay The Ignatian Qualities of the Petrine Ministry of Pope Francis, from the Salt and Light website when he learned of the complaints this week. That essay includes an entire paragraph from Wikipedia about Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order of which Pope Francis is a member. It also takes a sentence from David Gibson, then of the National Catholic Reporter, now director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture, who did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Several other examples of identical text remain freely available online.
“Plagiarism is a very serious concern to us, and Postmedia will be reviewing all of the pieces that Fr. Rosica has contributed to various papers in our chain,” says Lucinda Chodan, Vice-President Editorial, Postmedia.
Editor-in-chief David Walmsley said The Globe and Mail will also review everything Rosica has ever written for them.
“It is wrong what happened,” Rosica said. I take full responsibility for this happening. I regret it. I’m glad someone brought it to my attention. I will be much more vigilant in anything that goes out under my name, or that goes out from me. It’s wrong.”
He acknowledged that for a journalist, academic or professional to do this is dishonest.
We don’t have a precedent for this.As an academic order, we would obviously take that very seriously
“I’m going to apologize, first of all to the collegium (the governing body of the University of St. Michael’s College). I will apologize that this came to light, and it’s wrong, and it’s not going to happen again.”
Rev. Donald McLeod, chair of the collegium, issued a statement: “Over the course of his career, Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB, has served the Collegium and the general community of the University of St. Michael’s College with distinction. We acknowledge the gravity of the developing situation, and intend to address the matter internally going forward.”
CSB refers to the Basilian order of priests, which is a major force in Catholic education in Toronto, at both the high school and university level.
Father Kevin Storey, CSB Superior General, said he did not immediately know what the official response ought to be. He suggested the price Rosica could end up paying is in credibility and invitations to participate as much as he has in public life.
“We don’t have a precedent for this,” Storey said. “As an academic order, we would obviously take that very seriously.”
Neil MacCarthy, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Toronto, said plagiarism in general is a serious allegation and he expected to hear more from Rosica.
“The variety and the volume is serious,” said David Mulroney, the former ambassador and former president of the University of St. Michael’s College. He volunteered that he had bureaucratic conflicts with Rosica while he was there, but acknowledged Rosica is “brilliant” and a “giant” in Canadian Catholicism. He also said longstanding confusion about board governance and the role of Basilians in particular has been an issue for the school that he raised when he was president.
“It’s ironic that someone who stands accused of this is part of the pope’s media team,” Mulroney said. “He owes it to his various constituencies — journalist, educator, pastor — to come forward and explain what has happened.”
The whole episode is “mystifying,” Mulroney said. “He could write these things on his own.”
• Email: jbrean@nationalpost.com |
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Tue Feb 19, 2019 – 3:28 pm EST
TORONTO, February 19, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The University of St. Michael’s College has responded to charges that Fr. Thomas Rosica, a Basilian Father, has committed multiple acts of plagiarism.
Rosica is on the Collegium, one of the governing bodies, of the Toronto Catholic college. The University of St. Michael’s College (USMC) is affiliated with the University of Toronto and run by the Congregation of St. Basil.
Martyn Jones, a spokesman for the USMC, told LifeSiteNews, “We are troubled to hear of the allegations against Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB. The University of St. Michael’s College holds its students and its academic community to the highest standards of accountability and academic integrity, and as a federated university in the University of Toronto, we follow the U of T’s Office of Student Academic Integrity and its Code of Behavior on Academic Matters.”
Yesterday a former President of USMC, David Mulroney, responded to a tweet by First Things editor Matthew Schmitz about the Rosica scandal.
Reflecting on Rosica’s honorary doctorates and his participation in the governance of USMC, Assumption University in Windsor, and St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY, Schmitz tweeted, “If someone who holds so many honors from, and so many positions of responsibility at, Catholic institutions suffers no consequences for extensive plagiarism, observers could reasonably question the quality and integrity of Catholic academia.”
In response, Mulroney tweeted that this was a valid criticism.
“This is an important point,” he wrote. “Failure to investigate suggests that major Catholic universities in Canada value ideological compatibility over academic rigor.”
LifeSite revealed last week that Father Thomas Rosica, a prominent media consultant for the Vatican and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and long-time CEO of Canada’s Salt + Light Television organization, had plagiarised portions of a speech he gave at the Von Hügel Institute at Cambridge University. The Von Hügel Institute’s video of the lecture has now been removed from YouTube.
Since then, journalists and other members of the public have found and published on Twitter several new incidences of plagiarism found in Rosica’s published writing.
Mathew Adam Block, editor of the Canadian Lutheran magazine, discovered that Father Rosica had passed off as his own the words of veteran reporters John Allen Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter, Nicole Winfield of the Associated Press, and Cindy Wooden of the Catholic News Service in an article he wrote for Canadian daily The Globe and Mail in 2006.
The Canadian Lutheran editor also found out that Rosica had reproduced parts of a 2006 Catholic News Agency (CNA) article by Jim Thavis in a 2013 article the Salt + Light chief wrote for the Globe and Mail.
Block also discovered an article Rosica wrote for the Globe and Mailin 2016 years later, in which certain sentences are taken from Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times and E.J. Dionne Jr of the Washington Post.
He also disclosed that Rosica had, on the occasion of the beatification of Pope John Paul II in 2011, plagiarized from a week-old article by Cindy Wooden and a 2005 Der Spiegel interview with Rüdiger Safranski.
Block has, by press time today, also found reproductions of the work of Archbishop Bustros, Bishop Robert McElroy, and Father Thomas Reese of America magazine in Rosica’s newspaper journalism. He also found a review of Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ in which Rosica had copied sentences by from then-Father, now Archbishop Augustine Di Noia and historian Elizabeth Lev.
“And yet, despite all this, there hasn’t been a public word about the crisis from Fr. Thomas Rosica,” Block tweeted.
“I pray that he will publicly acknowledge his sin and repent that he may receive Christ’s mercy. May God give him strength for this difficult task.”
Today Caroline Farrow, a well-known English Catholic apologist, told LifeSiteNews, via social media, that Rosica had reproduced a section of Cardinal Baldisseri’s speech to British Parliamentarians in 2014 in a 2015 article he wrote for the UK’s Catholic Herald. Farrow later tweeted this information and her discovery that Rosica reproduced part of a 2013 America article by Drew Christiansen, S.J. in an article he wrote for his Salt + Light blog in 2018.
Farrow was astonished at the amount of evidence weighing up that Fr. Rosica has been plagiarizing undetected for years. It reminded her of a disgraced Swiss writer whose journalistic malfeasance made headlines in 2011.
“He’s the Vatican’s Johan Hari,” Farrow told LifeSiteNews.
LifeSiteNews has reached out to the Superior General of the Congregation of Saint Basil, Assumption University in Windsor, Ontario, St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, the Von Hugel Institute and St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge University, but has not yet received responses from these Catholic institutions.
See side-by-side comparisons, courtesy of Mathew Adam Block:
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LifeSite News
Fri Feb 15, 2019 – 5:09 pm EST
Feb. 19, 2019 update: Fr. Rosica’s Feb. 8 lecture at Cambridge University has been removed from Youtube. A message when attempting to watch the video now states: “This video is unavailable.” LifeSiteNews downloaded the original video before it was deleted. A shortened version of this video is now included in this story.
CAMBRIDGE, England, February 15, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A Vatican consultant and frequent English-language spokesman for the Vatican accused Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò of “lies” in a lecture in which he passed off other writers’ words as his own.
At a February 8 lecture at Cambridge University, Fr. Thomas Rosica, executive director of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation, suggested Archbishop Viganò was a liar. Rosica described the Vatican whistle-blowers’ witness as a “diabolical masterpiece.”
Authors whom Fr. Rosica plagiarized in that speech – often word-for-word and at significant length – include Cardinal Edwin O’Brien, Gregory K. Hillis, Fr. Thomas Reese, Cardinal Walter Kasper, and Fr. James Martin.
(View a comparison of Fr. Rosica’s original speech with the plagiarized passages. Click here. Or see table at bottom.)
Fr. Rosica’s biography on the Salt and Light website says he holds “advanced degrees in Theology and Sacred Scripture from Regis College in the Toronto School of Theology [1985], the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome [1991] and the École Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem [1994].” From 2011-2015, he served as President of Assumption University in Windsor, Ontario.
He holds honorary doctorates from Gannon University, Niagara University, St. Mark’s College at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and Toronto’s Regis College.
In his 2018 testimony, Archbishop Viganò revealed that disgraced Archbishop Theodore McCarrick had been protected by high-ranking Church authorities, including Pope Francis himself.
Describing the current events in the Church as a “perfect storm”, Rosica said:
Some of you in the room may be too young to remember a book and related movie entitled The Perfect Storm –an expression … which describes when several weather patterns meet at the same time, clash and produce violent and horrible damage. The Catholic Church that we love and strive to serve is in the midst … of a perfect, diabolical storm. Not just the Church in Great Britain, the USA, but also around the globe: Chile, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and God alone knows how many more countries to come!
The appalling, shameful life of a Cardinal of the Church, the shocking 900-page plus report of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury that related unspeakable depravities of priests against young and vulnerable persons; a former Vatican Nuncio’s vicious accusations against the Church’s highest authorities that is nothing but a full-frontal attack of half-truths and lies against the Vicar of Christ and Successor of Peter.
“A series that has been rightfully called a ‘diabolical masterpiece’ of Archbishop Viganò,” he added to the prepared speech in his recorded presentation.
Bishop Robert Barron had originally used the phrase “diabolical masterpiece” last summer to describe the clerical sexual abuse scandal, not Archbishop Viganò’s testimony. The phrase was subsequently picked up by Cardinal Edwin O’Brien. In his speech, Rosica reproduced – with some adjustments – a section of the Cardinal’s September 8, 2018 letter to the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher about “the perfect storm” without attribution.
Cardinal O’Brien’s original passage read:
Many of you recall the book and movie The Perfect Storm – when several weather patterns meet at once – they clash and create terrible damage.
Our Catholic Church is in the midst of a perfect storm – a perfect demonic storm: Chile, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, the United States – and how many more to come?! The revolting, profoundly shameful double life of a Cardinal of the Church. The almost pornographic 900-page report of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury –unspeakable depravities of priests against the young and vulnerable. A former Vatican Nuncio’s accusations against the Church’s highest authorities.
It has been called ‘A DIABOLICAL MASTERPIECE’!
Cardinal O’Brien was mentioned in Archbishop Viganó’s testimony as a member of a “homosexual current” in the Roman Catholic Church. The harsh language in Rosica’s speech about he “former Vatican Nuncio,” however, seems to be Rosica’s own addition.
Near the beginning of his lecture, Father Rosica reproduced a passage – word for word – from an essay by Gregory K. Hillis, a professor of Theology at Bellarmine University, without attribution. The passage, originally published by Hillis on 16 March 2016, read:
While the Church can offer a broad theological vision that focuses on the interconnectedness of all things, it cannot pretend to have all the answers to specific concrete questions. In these circumstances, ‘honest debate’ must be encouraged that respects divergent views. This means that the church itself should be included in the dialogue, but it also means that voices currently not in the debate need to be included.
Rosica also borrowed extensively, without attribution and usually word-for-word, from an essay by Fr Thomas Reese published in the National Catholic Register in 2017. He also mined Cardinal Walter Kasper’s work, again without attribution, and slightly adapted paragraphs from an article by Fr. James Martin, S.J. titled “The Witch Hunt for Gay Priests.” Once again, Rosica failed to give credit to the author.
(View a comparison of Fr. Rosica’s original speech with the plagiarized passages. Click here.)
LifeSiteNews reached out to Fr. Rosica via Salt+Light TV for comment but did not receive a response.
Professor John Rist, who was present at the talk, told LifeSiteNews via email that Rosica’s lecture was “a very rhetorical affair” and that he challenged the priest’s ecclesiology in the subsequent question session.
“You have spoken much of unity and dialogue within the Church while also directing slanderous comments at Archbishop Viganò,” Rist recalled saying to Rosica.
Rist then quoted Father Rosica’s notorious remark regarding his belief that, with Pope Francis as its earthly head, the Catholic Church is now “openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.”
Rosica defended himself by saying that the passage was taken out of context, the scholar recalled.
The professor then asked Rosica if Pope Francis himself were not responsible for the “now near total rift” among Catholics.
“If your description of the state of the Church is accurate, must one not conclude that the present pope, so far from carrying out his primary duty of unifying believers, has more than any other single individual contributed to the now near total rift between liberal and traditional Catholics which is putting the faith of thousands of Catholics at risk?” Rist said he asked.
In response, Rosica said only that the distinction between “liberal” and “traditional” did not go back to the time of Jesus, Rist told LifeSiteNews.
Rosica was the guest of the Von Hügel Institute at St Edmund’s College in Cambridge University. His gave his lecture, “Catholicity: Crises and Opportunities,” to an audience of about 30 people.
Father Rosica is known for speaking harshly of orthodox Catholics, whom he accused years ago of forming a “Catholic Taliban.” He roughly admonished Catholic pro-lifers in print when they objected to the ostentatious funeral given for pro-abortion Senator Ted Kennedy by Boston’s Catholic hierarchy.
Rosica is also known for his pro-homosexual sympathies. He has defended LGBT activist Fr. James Martin, rejected the Catechism’s description of the homosexual inclination as “objectively disordered,” and said the phrase “intrinsically disordered” is “harsh.” Rosica was a longtime admirer of the late Gregory Baum, a homosexual dissident former priest whom he interviewed on Salt and Light in 2012.
The advertisement for the Von Hügel lecture described Rosica as a “renown[ed] author, speaker, commentator and lecturer in Sacred Scripture at Canadian Universities” as well as “the Vatican’s English language media attaché at the last five Synods of Bishops as well as assistant to the Director of the Holy See Press Office during the Papal Transition of 2013.”
If you have any more information on this story, please contact Dorothy Cummings McLean at dmclean@lifesitenews.com.
A side-by-side comparison of Fr. Rosica’s original speech with the plagiarized passages. View this table as a PDF here
| Fr. Thomas Rosica
While the Church can offer a broad theological vision that focuses on the interconnectedness of all things, it cannot pretend to have all the answers to specific concrete questions. In these circumstances, “honest debate” must be encouraged that respects divergent views. This means that the church itself should be included in the dialogue, but it also means that voices currently not in the debate need to be included. |
Gregory K. Hillis
While the Church can offer a broad theological vision that focuses on the interconnectedness of all things, it cannot pretend to have all the answers to specific concrete questions. In these circumstances, ‘honest debate’ must be encouraged that respects divergent views. This means that the church itself should be included in the dialogue, but it also means that voices currently not in the debate need to be included. |
|---|---|
| Fr. Thomas Rosica
[E]cumenism is not just about theological dialogue over matters of doctrine. There is also the ecumenism of friendship, prayer and social action. Ecumenical friendship at work and in neighborhoods and among families has taken us way beyond the uncomfortable tolerance of the past. … the ecumenism of social action as members of different churches work together to change the world. |
Fr. Thomas Reese
Ecumenism is not just about theological dialogue over matters of doctrine. There is also the ecumenism of friendship, prayer and social action. Ecumenical friendship at work and in neighborhoods and among families has taken us way beyond the uncomfortable tolerance of the past. … The ecumenism of social action has also progressed significantly as members of different churches work together to change the world. |
| Fr. Thomas Rosica
The crisis of the ecumenical movement is paradoxically the result of its success. Ecumenism for many became obvious. But the closer we come to one another, the more painful is the perception that we are not yet in full communion. We are very impatient. We are hurt by what still separates us and hinders us from joining around the table of the Lord; we are increasingly dissatisfied with the ecumenical status quo; in this atmosphere, ecumenical frustration and sometimes even opposition develops. Paradoxically it is ecumenical progress that is also the cause for the ecumenical malaise! … The results of ecumenical progress have not yet penetrated into the hearts and into the flesh of our Catholic community and of other churches as well. Ecumenical theology is not present as an inner dimension in many theological programs and ministerial formation. |
Cardinal Walter Kasper
… the crisis of the ecumenical movement is paradoxically the result of its success. Ecumenism for many became obvious. But the closer we come to one another, the more painful is the perception that we are not yet in full communion. We are hurt by what still separates us and hinders us from joining around the table of the Lord; we are increasingly dissatisfied with the ecumenical status quo; in this atmosphere, ecumenical frustration and sometimes even opposition develops. Paradoxically it is the same ecumenical progress that is also the cause for the ecumenical malaise. … The results of ecumenical progress have not yet penetrated into the hearts and into the flesh of our church and of the other churches as well. Ecumenical theology is not present as an inner dimension in theological programmes. |
| Fr. Thomas Rosica
after the first rather euphoric phase of the ecumenical movement that followed the Second Vatican Council, the last decades have seen us experiencing signs of tiredness, disillusionment and stagnation. Some speak even of a crisis, and many Christians no longer understand the differences on which the churches are arguing with each other. Others hold that ecumenism is outmoded and that interreligious dialogue is now the only agenda du jour. Let us be very clear about such discussions: there is a difference but not a competition between the two dialogues, for ultimately to be effective, interreligious dialogue presupposes that Christians can speak one and the same language. The necessity of interreligious dialogue makes ecumenical dialogue even more urgent. … crisis? How do we,overcome the current problems? What are these problems? … outside the Catholic Church, which, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling towards Catholic unity. The concept “elementa” or “vestigia” comes from Calvin. Obviously, the Council – unlike Calvin – understands the elementa not as sad remains but as dynamic reality, and it says expressly that the Spirit of God uses these elementa as means of salvation for non-Catholic Christians. Both the Council and the ecumenical decree acknowledge explicitly that the Holy Spirit is at work in the other churches in which they even discover examples of holiness leading to martyrdom. … and the Decree on Ecumenism state expressly that the Church is a pilgrim Church, an ecclesia “semper purificanda”, which must constantly take the way of penance and renewal. … Ecumenism is not possible without conversion and renewal. Ecumenism therefore is no one-way street, but a reciprocal learning process, or – as stated in |
Cardinal Walter Kasper
after the first rather euphoric phase of the ecumenical movement which followed the Second Vatican Council, the last decade has seen us experiencing signs of tiredness, disillusionment and stagnation. Some speak even of a crisis, and many Christians no longer understand the differences on which the Churches are arguing with each other. Others hold that ecumenism is outmoded and that interreligious dialogue now represents the new agenda. In my opinion, there is a difference but not a competition between the two dialogues, for ultimately to be effective interreligious dialogue presupposes that Christians can speak one and the same language. Indeed, the necessity of interreligious dialogue makes ecumenical dialogue even more urgent. … Why this crisis? How do we overcome the current problems? What are these problems? … outside the Catholic Church, which, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling towards Catholic unity.[7] The concept “elementa” or “vestigia” comes from Calvin.[8] Obviously, the Council – unlike Calvin – understands the elementa not as sad remains but as dynamic reality, and it says expressly that the Spirit of God uses these elementa as means of salvation for non-Catholic Christians.[9] Consequently, there is no idea of an arrogant claim to a monopoly on salvation. On the contrary, both the Council and the ecumenical Encyclical acknowledge explicitly that the Holy Spirit is at work in the other Churches in which they even discover examples of holiness up to martyrdom.[10] … and the Decree on Ecumenism state expressly that the Church is a pilgrim Church, an ecclesia “semper purificanda”, which must constantly take the way of penance and renewal.[14] … Ecumenism is not possible without conversion and renewal.[16] … ecumenism is no one-way street, but a reciprocal learning process, or – as stated in |
| Fr. Thomas Rosica
Some of you in the room may be too young to remember a book and related movie entitled The Perfect Storm –an expression … which describes when several weather patterns meet at the same time, clash and produce violent and horrible damage. The Catholic Church that we love and strive to serve is in the midst … of a perfect, diabolical storm. Not just the Church in Great Britain, the USA, but also around the globe: Chile, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and God alone knows how many more countries to come! The appalling, shameful life of a Cardinal of the Church, the shocking 900-page plus report of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury that related unspeakable depravities of priests against young and vulnerable persons; a former Vatican Nuncio’s vicious accusations against the Church’s highest authorities that is nothing but a full-frontal attack of half-truths and lies against the Vicar of Christ and Successor of Peter. |
Cardinal Edwin O’Brien
Many of you recall the book and movie The Perfect Storm – when several weather patterns meet at once – they clash and create terrible damage. Our Catholic Church is in the midst of a perfect storm – a perfect demonic storm: Chile, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, the United States – and how many more to come?! The revolting, profoundly shameful double life of a Cardinal of the Church. The almost pornographic 900-page report of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury – unspeakable depravities of priests against the young and vulnerable. A former Vatican Nuncio’s accusations against the Church’s highest authorities. It has been called ‘A DIABOLICAL MASTERPIECE’! |
| Fr. Thomas Rosica
many priest abusers had a homosexual orientation. The majority (but not all) of the clerical abuse crimes were cases of priests preying on male adolescents and boys. Also, the majority (but However, that many abusers were priests with a homosexual orientation does not mean that all or even most gay priests are abusers. It is a dangerous and unjust stereotype. … lead to places of deep darkness, characterized by an increased hatred for innocent individuals, the condemnation of an entire group of people who are part of the Church, and a distraction from the real issues underlying this crisis of sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults |
Fr. James Martin
Many priest abusers had a homosexual orientation. That is undeniable. …the majority (but not all) of the clerical abuse crimes were cases of priests preying on male adolescents and boys. Also, the majority (but not all) of the sexual harassment cases were men harassing other men or young men. It is a dangerous and unjust stereotype. Simply because a certain percentage of a group acts in a certain way does not mean the entire group or even most of the group acts in the same way. That many abusers were gay priests does not mean that all or even most gay priests are abusers. … lead us to a place of great darkness, characterized by an increased hatred for innocent individuals, the condemnation of an entire group of people and a distraction from the real issues |
CTV News
Published Wednesday, February 20, 2019 10:00PM EST
Last Updated Thursday, February 21, 2019 9:58AM EST
CTVNews.ca Staff, with a report from CTV National News’ London correspondent Daniele Hamamdjian
Warning: This story contains graphic details of sexual abuse.
As Catholic Church officials meet with sex abuse survivors this week, some following the news may not even know they were also victims.
Jeffrey Fischer of London, Ont., was abused as a child going to church in nearby Guelph, but had largely repressed the incidents from his memory and was left with occasional visions.
“One of them was being a little kid and standing with my trousers down and everything above mid-level was foggy,” Fischer told CTV News.
His memories resurfaced back in August, when CTV News profiled a priest from Ireland who abused children before being transferred to Canada.
Father Arthur Carragher was transferred to the Saint Joseph’s Church in Guelph back in 1971, the same year a mother complained that he abused two boys in Ireland. Church documents do not indicate why Carragher moved to Canada. He retired in 1995 and died in 2011.
In the August story, Troy Bridgeman, a former altar boy at the Saint Joseph’s Church, indicates he was not abused as a child, but says Carragher used to tell him stories about a little boy who disobeyed his father and got trapped inside an airtight vault.
Fischer says he’s that little boy.
“I was shaking and our family knows we’re not very demonstrative of a family,” he said. “My brother just held me because I was shaking so much.”
Fischer says Carragher used to lock him in a bathroom while he made sure everyone else in the church had left, then he would return to fondle him while telling him it would help him become a man.
Fischer says once he saw an image of Carragher on the screen, the visions of what had happened to him came back like a “percussion from a bomb.”
“The immediate reaction was a sense of relief,” he said. “It was it. That was it. That’s what happened.”
He hopes opening up about his experience helps others with their repressed memories.
Daniele Hamamdjian, CTV News in Rome
It’s no exaggeration to say that it’s a privilege to do any kind of reporting that has the potential to affect people, and occasionally trigger change.
But rarely can it literally change the course of someone’s life.
This is what happened after we reported on a pedophile priest from Ireland who was transferred to Canada in 1971 after a complaint was made that he had abused two brothers.
Jeffrey Fischer wasn’t golfing like he normally would be on a sunny Saturday afternoon in August. He happened to be home alone while his wife and four daughters were out of town. A CTV report came on, two days after it originally aired, and in Fischer’s own words, it reverberated throughout his body.
He saw a photo of Fr. Arthur Carragher, now deceased, and instantly recognized him.
He called his brother, an OPP officer, and for the first time in his life said the words, “I was abused.”
How, for all those years, did he not remember that he was assaulted, that he was forced to stay quiet in a tiny bathroom at St. Joseph parish in Guelph while Fr. Carragher pulled down his pants and told him this is how he would become a man? Quite simply, he had blocked it out.
Since the story aired, we were made aware of two other men who say they were abused by Carragher at St. Joseph’s. The parish in Guelph, still fiercely Catholic, has raised his name once during Sunday mass and encouraged people to come forward, but no one has.
As one abuse survivor said this week in Rome, every time a victim speaks out, it gives another victim permission to do the same.
Fischer’s decision to let us tell his story was incredibly courageous and he did so with only one intention, to help at least one other person do the same.
Photos
Father Arthur Carragher admitted to sexually abusing children before his death in 2011.
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Warning: This story contains graphic details of sexual abuse.
DUBLIN, Ireland — An Irish man is speaking out about the childhood sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a Catholic priest – a priest who later spent three decades in Canada.
Mark Vincent Healy says he is still tormented by the way Father Arthur Carragher fondled him in a locker room when he was only nine years old.
“He took my trousers down and he was fondling and masturbating me, and I said, ‘What are you doing to me?’ But I couldn’t get away. There was this authority figure that is now playing with you in away — ‘playing’ is a terrible word — was criminally assaulting you.”
Healy says he shut the memories out for decades. Then he had a nervous breakdown.
He went on to campaign for other victims of assault and was the first male survivor in Ireland to meet Pope Francis, who is under pressure to act on the growing global abuse scandal as he visits Dublin this weekend.
But now Healy is turning his attention to Canada, specifically, St. Joseph’s Parish in Guelph, Ont., where Carragher was transferred in 1971.
According to The Congregation of the Holy Ghost, nothing in Carragher’s file explained his transfer to Canada in 1971. It was also the same year a Dublin mother told school officials he had assaulted her two young boys.
The Congregation of the Holy Ghost, also known as the Spiritans, claims priests were sent to various parts of the world at that time. Victims say that is a convenient explanation, just not the actual one.
Carragher retired in 1995, one year before the formal accusations began to emerge.
In 2001, after Carragher confessed to molesting two Dublin boys in the 1960s, the congregation sent him for a six-day psychological assessment at Southdown, a facility where other priests accused of preying on children had been treated.
His victims say he told them, “this is what it feels like to be a man.”
There came a point when he was wanted in Dublin, but with no extradition treaty between Ireland and Canada, Carragher, even as a self-confessed child molested, lived out his last days in Toronto. He died in 2011.
Healy says he thinks more victims are out there and he doesn’t believe a word that Canadian church officials have told him.
He also feels he let his nine-year-old self down, but he is trying to seek his forgiveness.
“I didn’t help him,” he says. “It took a time for me to get over the guilt of all of this.”
Carragher had a particular “reprehensible interest in prepubescent boys,” Healy added, “perversely interested in forcing a child to a sexual awakening they hadn’t a clue about to which they had not even physically developed and to which they would never recover from psychologically.”
Healy doesn’t hold Canada responsible for “granting Carragher refuge.” He says Canada was also a potential victim of this man.
During the student sex scandal at Toronto’s prestigious Basilian-run St. Michael’s College the Basilans put out the following statement:
Note that the contact person is Father Thomas Rosica
(click image to enlarge)
Media Statement Regarding Serious Incidents at St. Michael’s College School
St. Michael’s College School in Toronto is the first foundation of the Basilian Fathers in North America. We are deeply saddened and troubled by the events that have come to light over the past days. Our primary concern in all of this situation is the protection of students, young people and vulnerable persons. We are working closely with the school officials and police authorities to establish a timeline of the events of this very sad situation. The school will issue statements when all information has been gathered.
For media inquiries related to this issue, please contact:
Father Thomas Rosica, CSB
Phone: 416-879-5766
Email: trosica@basilian.org
Cornwall Free News
The Alexandria Cornwall Catholic Diocese issued a release today related to charges against Deacon Peter McBride, 78.
According to Florida media he was observed receiving a sex act while in a massage room.
Oddly enough the release above is different than the one in Florida which reported that the US diocese notified our local as opposed to the release stating that they learned from the media?
“Peter McBride is a deacon from Canada and not incardinated in the Diocese of Palm Beach, however he had been given permission to minister while he was here. Since all clergy are fingerprinted before they are given permission to minister, and their fingerprints are retained on file in the event of any legal action involving law enforcement, the Diocese was recently notified by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that an incident had occurred. The Deacon’s permission to perform any public ministry in the Diocese of Palm Beach was immediately rescinded and his home Diocese in Canada was notified.”
The massage parlors were alleged to have been involved in human trafficking as well as sex work.
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A deacon working at the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall has been suspended from ministry after he was arrested in last week’s human trafficking sweep in Vero Beach, Florida.
Peter McBride, 78, was released on a US$1,000 bond after being charged with soliciting prostitution in a sting by Indian River County law enforcement agencies and Vero Beach police.
Police alleged human traffickers lured women to the massage parlours, were they would be forced to work as prostitutes. Police alleged McBride solicited sex from one of the women at East Spa in Vero Beach, and was observed receiving a sex act.
Police are quoted as saying officers do not believe clients were aware the women were there against their will.
There is a suggestion from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that fingerprints taken of all clergy given permission to minister in the state played a role in the allegation and charge.
The Diocese of Palm Beach is quoted in several Florida media reports as saying it was notified of McBride’s charge and immediately rescinded his permission to perform any public ministry within the diocese. The Florida diocese had previously allowed McBride to minister at St. Helen’s Catholic Church in Vero Beach, where he spends his winters.
It also said it had contacted the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall, although in the Alexandria-Cornwall diocese’s statement distributed by director of administration Deacon Pierre Aubé, the diocese said it learned of McBride’s arrest through local media.
The Standard-Freeholder had contacted the dioceses on Thursday to confirm reports a local deacon had been arrested in Florida. The diocese’s statement was distributed Friday morning.
McBride’s suspension has been referred to the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall’s committee for safe environment.
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Cornwall Standard Freeholder
A deacon working within the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall has been suspended from ministry after he was arrested in Vero Beach, Fla.
Peter McBride was released from police custody on a US$1,000 bond after being charged with soliciting prostitution in a sting by Indian River County law enforcement agencies and Vero Beach police last week.
Police had been conducting an investigation of several spas in Indian River County as part of a larger investigation into human trafficking in the state.
Police alleged human traffickers lured women to the massage parlours, were they would be forced to work as prostitutes. Police alleged McBride solicited sex from one of the women at East Spa in Vero Beach, and was observed receiving a sex act.
Police are quoted as saying officers do not believe clients were aware the women were there against their will.
There is a suggestion from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that fingerprints taken of all clergy given permission to minister in the state played a role in the allegation and charge.
The Diocese of Palm Beach is quoted in several Florida media reports as saying it was notified of McBride’s charge and immediately rescinded his permission to perform any public ministry within the diocese. The Florida diocese had previously allowed McBride to minister at St. Helen’s Catholic Church in Vero Beach, where he spends his winters.
It also said it had contacted the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall, where McBride is incardinated– though in the Alexandria-Cornwall diocese’s statement distributed by director of administration Deacon Pierre Aube, the diocese said it learned of McBride’s arrest through local media.
The Standard-Freeholder had contacted the dioceses on Thursday to confirm reports a local deacon had been arrested in Florida. The diocese’s statement was distributed Friday morning.
McBride’s suspension has been referred to the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall’s committee for safe environment.
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Cornwall Newswatch
02 March 2019
In this photo from the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, Peter George McBride, 78, of Vero Beach, Fla. is charged with soliciting prostitution. He is among 173 suspects arrested in a human trafficking sting in the Vero Beach, Fla. area. (Indian River County Sheriff’s Office via Newswatch Group)
VERO BEACH, Fla. – A local deacon with the Alexandria-Cornwall Catholic Diocese is among 173 people charged in a human trafficking sting in Florida.
State police authorities issued warrants after a six month investigation into human traffickers, who were luring vulnerable women into massage parlours where they were coerced into working as prostitutes.
The 173 suspects are facing various charges from human trafficking to racketeering and soliciting prostitution.
Peter McBride, 78, was arrested last week and charged. He is accused of soliciting sex at a Vero Beach spa – one of the five spas in Indian River County that were part of the investigation, according to Treasure Coast News.
He has been released on $1,000 bond.
McBride was visiting and had received permission to minister at the local church while he was in town. That has been revoked and the Canadian diocese was immediately notified of the situation, the paper reported.
Vero Beach is about 250 kilometers north of Miami, Fla. on the state’s east coast.
Alexandria-Cornwall Deacon Pierre Aube issued a statement to Cornwall media Friday morning, stating that Peter McBride has been immediately suspended from the ministry and the case has been referred to the Committee for Safe Environment.
McBride, who is listed on the St. Peter’s Parish website as a deacon, spends his winters in Vero Beach, Fla.
The Alexandria-Cornwall Catholic Diocese says it won’t comment further on the case.
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WBPF
Deacon Peter McBride ministered in Vero Beach
Updated: 11:21 PM EST Feb 26, 2019
VERO BEACH, Fla. —Of the hundreds of men arrested in the last week on charges of soliciting prostitution, police have now identified one suspect as a Catholic deacon.
Deacon Peter McBride was arrested in Vero Beach.
The Catholic Diocese of Palm Beach said McBride was visiting from Canada and had been ministering at St. Helen’s Catholic Church in Vero Beach while he was here.
According to court documents, McBride is accused of going to the East Spa in Vero Beach on Dec. 8, where he was observed receiving a sex act.
Police later raided that spa and several others, saying the women performing the sex acts inside were there against their will.
Police said those women were victims of human trafficking.
Investigators do not believe clients such as McBride knew the women were at the spas involuntarily.
In response to the arrest, the Diocese of Palm Beach released a statement:
“Peter McBride is a deacon from Canada and not incardinated in the Diocese of Palm Beach, however he had been given permission to minister while he was here. Since all clergy are fingerprinted before they are given permission to minister, and their fingerprints are retained on file in the event of any legal action involving law enforcement, the Diocese was recently notified by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that an incident had occurred. The Deacon’s permission to perform any public ministry in the Diocese of Palm Beach was immediately rescinded and his home Diocese in Canada was notified.”
McBride is currently free on $1,000 bond.
He declined to comment to a WPBF 25 News crew, saying only, “It’s now in the hands of the lawyers.”
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The Vero Beach Police Department hosts a news conference Feb. 21, 2019 detailing a prostitution and human trafficking ring that was busted across Treasure Coast, Palm Beach and Orange counties. Hannah Schwab, hannah.schwab@tcpalm.com
A visiting deacon at a Vero Beach Catholic church is one of dozens of men accused of soliciting prostitution as part of a human trafficking investigation in Indian River County.
Peter McBride, a former visiting deacon at St. Helen’s Catholic Church, was arrested last week after he allegedly went to East Spa in Vero Beach and solicited sex. McBride is currently released on $1,000 bond.
East Spa is one of five spas Indian River County Sheriff’s deputies and Vero Beach Police officers have shut down as part of a multi-county investigation into potential human trafficking in the spas.
The Diocese of Palm Beach said McBride is a visiting deacon from Canada, and had received permission from the diocese to minister while he was in town. He is now not permitted to minister in local churches, a spokeswoman said.
“Since all clergy are fingerprinted before they are given permission to minister, and their fingerprints are retained on file in the event of any legal action involving law enforcement, the Diocese was recently notified by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement that an incident had occurred. The Deacon’s permission to perform any public ministry in the Diocese of Palm Beach was immediately rescinded and his home Diocese in Canada was notified,” the diocese said in a statement.
Staff members at the church declined to comment about the arrest.
A six-month investigation revealed human traffickers were luring vulnerable women to massage parlors in Indian River County, where they were coerced into working as prostitutes, Vero Beach police announced Thursday.
Indian River County agencies issued warrants for 173 people, on charges ranging from human trafficking to racketeering to soliciting prostitution.
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12-13 June 2015: First Ontario District Cardinal McGuigan Province 2015 Exemplification in Honour of Monsignor Rudy Villeneauve hosted by Bishop Brodeur Assembly 0977 (
Noronha Cecil Facebook
Cecil Noronha
Father Cecil Noronha
Father Cecil
Indian born priest. Ordained 19 December 1981.
Former Salesian priest, meaning he was a priest with the religious order of priests the Salesians of Don Bosco. At that time he had the initials sdb behind his name to indicate that he was a Salesian. He was a Salesian when he arrived in Canada (year at this time unknown). At some point joined the Voluntas Dei Insitute (initials I.V. Dei or i.v. Dei behind his name). The Voluntas Dei Insitutute is what is known as a secualr instiute. It was founded in Candaa by an Oblate priest, Father Louis-Marie Parent, O.M.I. Here is a little more information:
History of Voluntas Dei and Voluntas Dei in Canada (Click images to enlarge)
On 29 June 2018 Father Cecil Noronha was charged with: Sexual Assault on a Person Under Sixteen Years of Age, contrary to section 271; Sexual Interference, contrary to section 151; and with Uttering Threats – Cause Death or Bodily Harm, contrary to section 264.1(1)(a).
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From OPP: Any person with information about these incidents should immediately contact the Ontario Provincial Police at 1-888-310-1122 or their nearest police authority. Should you wish to remain anonymous, you may call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) or submit information online where you may be eligible to receive a cash reward of up to $2000.
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Next court date: 14 June 2019: 10 am, Preliminary Hearing, Espanola Ontario courthouse (100 Tudhope St, 2nd Fl, Suite 3); 04 April 2014: 10 am, Preliminary Hearing, Espanola Ontario courthouse (100 Tudhope St, 2nd Fl, Suite 3),
[Note: preliminary hearings are open to the public. There is usually always a ban on publication of the evidence, but people are free to attend.]
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Unless otherwise indicated the following information is drawn from annual copies of the Canadian Catholic Church Directory (CCCD) which I have on hand and media (M)
29 June 2018 : charged with: Sexual Assault on a Person Under Sixteen Years of Age, contrary to section 271; Sexual Interference, contrary to section 151; and with Uttering Threats – Cause Death or Bodily Harm, contrary to section 264.1(1)(a) (M)
2018: Preparing children at St. Mary’s School, Massey for confirmation (Confrmation prep for St Marys School, Massey )
2017: Pastor, Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, Massey, Ontario (CCCD) ( initials I.V. Dei behind his name in index of parishes, but not in index of names at back of book. Index of names shows his as a priest incardinated outside of Canada but practising his ministry in Canada)
2016: Pastor, Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, Massey, Ontario (CCCD) ( initials I.V. Dei behind his name in index of parishes, but not in index of names at back of book. Index of names shows he is as a priest incardinated outside of Canada but practising his ministry in Canada)
01 July 2015: Pastor, Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church, Massey, St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church Walford, and Pastor St. Lawrence the Martyr Roman Catholic Church Webbwood Ontario ( Father Noronha to Massey )
2015: Pastor, Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church, Elliott Lake, Ontario (CCCD)
2014: appointed Pastor, Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church, Elliott Lake, Ontario ( Father Noronha Toronto Appointment)
2014: Canadian District of the Voluntas Dei Institute, Toronto ( Father Noronha Toronto iv Dei )
2014: Not listed in CCCD index (CCCD)
2013: blessed the ground for sod turning ceremony for Toronto Catholic District School Board construction of an addition at Monsignor Fraser College Monsignor Fraser College in Toronto Father Cecil Noronha, It Starts in the Schools, October 2013, Toronot Catholic District School Board
(Also scroll down to “Breaking Ground for New School Addition”) The school provides adult education to persons age 16 and over. According to its website: “Monsignor Fraser College is a quadmestered Catholic Secondary School, which welcomes adolescents, and adults of all faiths, who wish to complete their Ontario Secondary School Diploma or Certificate, to study English as a Second Language within a Diploma program, or to upgrade work skills. Organized with campuses in many different parts of the city, this school offers a safe and welcoming learning environment. “
2013: not listed in CCCD index
School year 2013-2014: According to Monsignor Fraser College Handbook for school year 2013-2014: on staff at the Orientation Centre, Monsignor Fraser College
2012: not listed in CCCD index (CCCD)
2011: not listed in CCCD index (CCCD)
June 2011: listed as officiant at funeral in Elliott Lake, Ontario ( Obituaries – Elliot Lake, ON)
2010: address in Montreal 11991, av Pierre-Baillargeon, Montréal QC, which is a Salesian Centre – also Don Bosco youth Leadership Centre (CCCD)
11 April 2010: listed as one of clergy who worked to have the first ever Rosary Service in Konkani, one of the national languages in India. The service was held in the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary in Scarborough, Ontario (External link to Ektain Zavun Ters Korumya ) The following shows a relevant portion of a page extracted from the website:
(Click image to enlarge)
29 November 2009: Celebrated Mass on feast of St. Francis Xavier (the links to the article are unfortunately dead)
(Click to enlarge image)
27 August 2005: Offered Mass at Bonderam Festival and GOA at Kinsmen Centre, Toronto. Decribed as former Principal of Don Bosco School, Panaji . The event was sponsored by the Divar Association
2001: Full time chaplain at Lester B. Pearson Airport, Toronto external link to (Misas.org) Relevant extraction below:
(Click on image to enlarge)
2002, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1995: address on Kingsview Blvd., Weston, Ontario, an address for the Salesians . In CCCD index he is shown as a Salesian with initials sdb after his name.(CCCD)
1996: Chaplain at Monsignor Percy Johnson School in Rexdale. On occasion ‘says’ mass at Springwater Christian Camp at Minesing, near Barrie, Ontario. (Scroll down to 05 August 1996 article “Camp a haven for family togetherness)
1994, 1993: not listed in CCCD index (CCCD)
c 1986: Don Bosco Sulcorna (Goa, India) (It seems to be a school of Agriculture?) (Father Noronha Don Bosco Sulcorna mid 80s)
mid 80s: Principal at Salesian at school in Sulcorna, India (External link )
1985: not listed in CCCD index
1982-1984: Principal St. Dominic Savio High School , Andheri, Mumbai. The school is a a Don Bosco Institution run by the Salesians of Don Bosco, an International Religious Organization founded by St. John Bosco. (History St. Dominic Savio High School
1981: ORDAINED (CCCD)
19 December 1981: ORDAINED ( Father Cecil Noronha ordination date (Souvenir of the 4th CENTENARY of the Faith) ) From Valenintwe N. Pimenta, Souvenir of the 4th CENTENARY of the Faith, St. John the Evangelist Church, Maril, V.N. Pimenta: A Brief History of the Catholic Church in Bassein-Thane-Salsette-Bombay-Karanja-Chaul (the Province of North Konkan) with some details pertaining to the Parish of Marol (Marol Bombay 400 059, 27 December 1988)
28 June 2018: charged with
– Sexual Assault on a Person Under Sixteen Years of Age, Contrary to section 271
-Sexual Interference, contrary to section 151
-Uttering Threats, Cause Death or Bodily Harm, contrary to section 264.1(1)a
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Accused is not a stranger to the family and the incidents have been occurring over a period of time
Elliott Lake Today
NEWS RELEASE
ONTARIO PROVINCIAL POLICE
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MASSEY – On June 29, 2018, members of the Manitoulin-Espanola Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Detachment received a report of a sexual assault of a young person. The accused individual is not a stranger to the family and the incidents have been occurring over a period of time.
As a result of a police investigation, Cecil Noronha, age 66, from Sables-Spanish Rivers Township, Ontario has been charged with the following Criminal Code offences:
The accused is scheduled to appear before the Ontario Court of Justice in Espanola on Sept. 17, 2018.
Any person with information about these incidents should immediately contact the Ontario Provincial Police at 1-888-310-1122 or their nearest police authority. Should you wish to remain anonymous, you may call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) or submit information online where you may be eligible to receive a cash reward of up to $2000.
Victims of Sexual assaults are not alone. If you have been sexually assaulted or know someone who has, there are local resources to help you. You can visit the Manitoulin Family Resources website for assistance.
A toll free call can also be placed to the Assaulted Women’s Helpline at 1-966-863-0511 where your information will remain anonymous and confidential. If you are in an immediate crisis, please dial 9-1-1.
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SaultOnline
05 July 2018
The OPP have charged a man with Sexual Assault of Youth. Cecil NORONHA, 66, from Sables-Spanish Rivers Township, Ontario. He was charged, June 29th, by the Manitoulin-Espanola OPP Detachment after they had received a report of sexual assault on a minor. NORONHA is known to the family and is not a stranger. It is claimed the incidents occurred over a period of time and occurred more than once. NORONHA has been charged with the following
-Sexual Assault on a Person Under Sixteen Years of Age, Contrary to section 271
-Sexual Interference, contrary to section 151
-Uttering Threats, Cause Death or Bodily Harm, contrary to section 264.1(1)a
NORONHA will appear in front of an Ontario court of Justice in Espanola on September 17th, 2018
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Mid North Monitor
Published on: June 11, 2018 | Last Updated: June 11, 2018 7:37 AM EDT
On Saturday, June 9, Massey Legion Branch 432 held a rededication and dedication ceremony to rededicate the cenotaph and unveil, as well as dedicate two memorial benches in front of the Legion. One bench was given to the Legion by an anonymous donor while the other was installed by the branch.
Several dozen local residents attended the ceremony, including dignitaries Mayor Leslie Gamble of Sables Spanish River Township and Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing MP Carol Hughes. Hughes expressed MP Michael Mantha’s regrets for not attending as he had a prior commitment in Sault Ste Marie.
Several Legion members marched with bagpiper Roscoe Patterson from the Massey Post Office to the Legion, arriving at 10:45 a.m. for the raising of the flags and the singing of our national anthem. Prior to a scripture reading from Legion Chaplain Reverend Lyn Heely all attending joined in singing the hymn ‘Abide With Me.’ In advance of the laying of the branch wreath by District H commander Steve Frech and branch president Wesley MacDonald, the rifle team did a rifle salute. First vice-president Brenda Mercieca of the Ladies Auxiliary also laid a wreath at the base of the cenotaph.
Speakers included District H commander Steve Frech, Hughes and Gamble, as well as Father Cecil Noronha from the local parish.
Hughes commended members for Branch 432’s contributions to the Sables Spanish Rivers community, as well as thanking Frech for the stories he told everyone attending of local residents who made the supreme sacrifice in their service to Canada.
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Date ? 2013-2014
The Toronto Catholic District School Board is pleased to announce the start of construction of an addition at Monsignor Fraser College, 2900 Midland Avenue Campus.
A partnership project with Redemption Reintegration Services/United Way, the
$2.2 million addition will be a joint use facility housing Monsignor Fraser College’s alternative education program for students aged 16 to 18 during the school day and for the use of Redemption Reintegration Services programming after school hours and on weekends. The Midland campus is also home to the Msgr. Fraser College’s programs for 18-20 year olds as well as the over 21 program.
As part of the construction contract, a local youth has been given the opportunity to job shadow the General Contractor’s site superintendent.
Among those present for the sod turning were Director of Education Angela Gauthier, Trustee Garry Tanuan, Councillor Mike Del Grande, Fr. Cecil Noronha, Superintendent of Education Vincent Burzotta and Principal John Wujek.
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Fr. Noronha blessed the ground
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The Interim
Published: Monday, August 5, 1996, 11:42 am
By: Mike Mastromatteo
From the entrance way, the Springwater Christian Campground (SCC) in Minesing, near Barrie, Ontario, appears no different from other facilities in the Huronia area. But a closer look at the property gives an indication that this campground is unlike others dotting the central Ontario landscape.
An abundance of crucifixes and religious icons on the proprietors’ home make a strong faith statement. A few yards to the east, one discovers a secluded park dedicated to unborn children. Tiny, hand-mad crosses represent the lives of babies lost to abortion. Visitors are encouraged to adopt spiritually these innocent victims, while others might offer atonement for having surrendered their unborn child to abortion.
Further along, an outdoor grotto to Our Lady offers a quiet spot for prayer and reflection. Two large stone tablets, worthy of Moses, stand engraved with the Ten Commandments – a bold reminder of a living faith.
Springwater Christian Campground is one family’s attempt to inject faith values into the sometimes harsh realities of today’s business environment. It represents not only a turning away from the bottom-line, but an opportunity for fathers, mothers and children to celebrate family life in a Catholic-Christian atmosphere.
It didn’t start out that way. Owners Marilyn and Victor Carvalho purchased the property in 1989 intent on operating a regular camp ground get-away for the large market in Southern Ontario. Foregoing secure work as teachers for a chance at a more serene lifestyle, the couple uprooted their five children from their Pickering home for a new kind of adventure.
Hard reality however intruded their sanctuary.
“We became fed up with drunken parties, smoking, profanity, and people looking for sex at every opportunity,” Victor told The Interim. “It wasn’t the kind of environment we wanted for our children.”
Towards the end of their first season, the Carvalhos made the financially precarious decision to transform the campground into something more uplifting. Today Springwater Christian Campground prohibits smoking, drinking, profanity, and premarital sex on the property. While these rules may be difficult to enforce at all times, they appeal to the family-oriented visitor who believes vacations are not excuse for indulgence.
The camp’s mission is “to provide and promote a year round alcohol and smoke free, Catholics-Christian environment for recreation, reflection and fellowship.” The new regime led to an immediate drop in the number of campers using the site. Even the local campground association resisted the family’s efforts to transform the camp. With a declining customer base and falling revenues, the Carvalhos seriously considered selling the property. A sluggish economy however, kept potential buyers away. After much prayer and reflection the Carvalhos decided to keep the property in hopes that a new family-oriented customer base would develop.
‘Reflection Valley’
Today, the 40-acre Springwater camp offers hiking trails, play areas for children, sport fields, miniature golf, a petting zoo, campfire sites and a snack bar. A new hall is available for music, drama, seminars and other presentations. A “reflection valley” including the Stations of the Cross, the memorial to the unborn and the prayer grotto provide food for the spirit.
Father Cecil Nrornha, chaplain at Monsignor Percy Johnson School in Rexdale, has celebrated masses at Springwater Christian Camp. He praised the Carvalhos for their willingness to suffer financial loss on a matter of principle.
“Not many people would put aside economic concerns to stand for what they believe in,” Father Noronha said. “I’m hoping that some groups might come foreword to support the campground operation while the Carvalhos go through this difficult adjustment period,”
Father Ambrose Sheehy, pastor of St. Mary’s parish in Barrie and a frequent guest at the camp, said Springwater is a powerful example of what lay people can do in strengthening today’s families.
Scarborough school teacher Sheryn Ratnasingham recently organized a get-together for her extended gamily at Springwater in September. A total of 14 family members came together at Springwater for a weekend of games, relaxation and reflection.
Although heavy rainfall curtailed some of the outdoor activity, the family found the weekend entirely rewarding. “We don’t often get a chance to spend time together as a family,” Sheryn told The Interim, “We were able to open up to each other and be ourselves.”
She said the Carvalhos went out of their way to welcome the new arrivals and to see to their comforts. “They made us feel more like family than guests,” Sheryn said, adding that her family is considering a second visit sometime in 1997.
While Springwater is earning a sterling reputation in south-central Ontario, the Carvalhos’ struggle is not over. Victor reported that the business has foregone close to half-a-million dollars in revenue since the no-smoking, no-drinking policy went into effect. Revenues dropped from $100,000 in 1989 to only $5,000 the following year. The amount doubled to nearly $11,000 in 1991 and the upward trend continued until 1995. Figures for 1996 show some stagnation, a fast Victor attributes to unfavorable weather conditions this past summer.
Sticking to the rules
“Some people have told us that they love the Catholic-Christian atmosphere of the camp, but they wish we would relax the no smoking-no drinking rule,” Victor said. “We could fill the camp all summer long if we eliminate the rules, but we’re determined to live by them.”
Victor emphasized that anyone is welcome to stop by the Unborn Park, the grotto of Our Lady or the Stations of the Cross for a moment prayer and reflection. There is no admission charge for these areas and visitors are not required to make donations.
“People can park their cars and pray for as long as they wish,” Victor said. “They don’t even have to let us know of their arrival.”
Although the regular camping activity runs from May through October, the campground is in use year round. Catholic Family Weekends take place the second and fourth weekend of each month. Other weekends are usually reserved for singles/young adult gatherings. The weekend activity includes reflection, prayer vigils, reconciliation, the celebration of Mass and recreation. A $180 fee includes all meals and accommodation at one of the Springwater mobile homes. Families providing their own tents and food can partake in the weekends for a $30 fee.
The Carvalhos are considering a plan to admit all families free of charge and asking for donations. “Some people may be under the impression that we’re financially assisted by the province or by the church,” Victor said. “By considering donations approach, we’re hoping to emphasize that this is not a subsidized operation.”
Winter Activity
In the winter season, visiting families stay with host families in nearby Barrie. The admission fee normally charged for campground use is passed on to the host families to cover expenses, although the Carvalhos provide meals for Catholic Family Weekend participants.
Another unique feature of the camp is the Festival for Life held in July. This weekend-long event includes Mass (prayer and worship for non-Catholic participants), reflection on the plight of the unborn, guest speakers, workshops and a candlelight vigil at the Unborn Park. Often the proceeds from the Festival of Life go in support of Ontario pro-life organizations.
The Carvalhos have scheduled a Christmas party for Jesus on Sunday, December 8. Instead of receiving gifts, partygoers are asked to bring a Christmas gift for Santa Claus, who then presents them to needy families. SCC will also be the site for an outdoor New Year’s party, December 31.
While there are no guarantees as to the viability of Springwater, the Carvalhos are determined to stick to their guns. “There are so few places where families can come together in a Catholic-Christian environment,” Victor said. “We realized we would be taking a big risk, but we figured that God had given us this opportunity, it was up to us to make it work.”
For more information about Springwater Christian Campground, write SCC, R.R.2, Minesing, Ontario, L0L 1Y0, or call toll-free 1-800-843-6013. The Carvalhos are also on the Internet and can be contacted at their website address, sprngh2o@bconnex.net.
Toronto Sun
Published:
Updated: March 21, 2019 6:34 PM ED
All they speak are empty words.
When Bob McCabe filed his lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Toronto in 2014, he says church leaders told him how sorry they were that he’d been sexually assaulted as an altar boy by one of their priests more than 50 years before.
And yet not only did they still refuse to settle, forcing the case to go to a gruelling trial, but when the jury awarded him $550,000 they took the Guelph man back to court to appeal the amount.
“Father (Brian) Clough said we’re really sorry, it should never have happened, but then they appeal it? I was absolutely disgusted. And all because they didn’t like the number, they appealed it and put a victim through another two years of trauma. It’s unconscionable,” says McCabe, 67.
“It all comes down to money.”
After a 16-day trial, a jury in 2017 ordered the diocese to pay McCabe general and aggravated damages of $250,000, loss of income of $280,000, treatment expenses of $5,000, and punitive damages of $15,000 for increasing his suffering by waiting until the morning of the trial before admitting fault.
McCabe was relieved the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision earlier this week upheld all but the punitive damages.
“The tension just exhaled out of me. I’ve been in limbo for years and I now had my life back.”
He was 11 when Father Alphonse Robert came to Scarborough where he lived with his devout Roman Catholic family.
“I was the most naive little sucker you ever met,” he recalls.
“When the priest wore the collar, he was God’s representative and you never questioned what he told you to do. That was drilled into me by my own mom.
“I was the perfect victim for this guy and he scoped me out perfectly. The mind of a pedophile must have some kind of instinctive radar — not only who is susceptible, but who won’t say anything.
“In fact, I thought it was my fault.”
In 1963, the priest took him to visit the Basilica of Notre Dame in Montreal and they stopped overnight in Cornwall.
That’s where Robert fondled the altar boy and performed oral sex on him.
McCabe remembers he couldn’t get home fast enough. He also vividly recalls knowing he couldn’t tell his parents.
“It was me against God. They were never going to believe me.”
Robert would be moved around, with new allegations sending him off to new parishes.
And new victims.
In the ensuing decades, McCabe learned to drown his nightmares in alcohol — ultimately losing his job, destroying his first marriage and alienating his children.
He contemplated suicide.
“But I didn’t have the courage. I was even a failure in death.”
In Dec. 2010, McCabe sought help.
On Christmas Day three years later, finally sober, the memories of the assault suddenly came flooding back.
He knew Robert was dead, but it was time to hold the church accountable.
“My lawyers warned it was going to be hell. But I had no idea.”
He figures the church’s strategy was to drag it out and hope he’d walk away long before it got to trial.
“They ran into someone like me who’s too Irish and too stubborn to do that.”
But when the church appealed the $550,000 award, he admits it almost drove him back to drink for the first time in eight years.
He’s lucky to have a good therapist, a new wife, and children who have forgiven him.
He worries about other victims who don’t have that kind of support to pull them back from the brink.
That’s why McCabe is setting aside some of the award to set up a foundation to pay for counselling for sexual abuse victims.
He believes there are many like him still hidden in the archdiocese’s records, broken men abused by the same priest, or by others, and who’ve been left to battle addictions or PTSD on their own.
“I don’t believe a pedophile just picks out one child,” he says.
“If there are other victims – though I classify myself as a survivor — I would love to find them and seek justice for them.”
So he is challenging the Toronto diocese to make this right.
“Open up your records,” McCabe insists, his voice breaking.
“Men are dying.”
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canadianunderwriter.ca
21 March 2019
by Greg Meckbach
If your client is successfully sued for being vicariously liable for the behaviour of a sexual offender, should that client have to pay punitive damages simply for not admitting liability before the trial?
Judges are not unanimous on this issue.
In a ruling released Tuesday March 19, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled partly in favour of The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation for the Diocese of Toronto, which was successfully sued by a sexual assault victim, whose assailant was a priest.
Lawsuits arising from sexual abuse on the part of priests has cost churches – and their insurers – millions in recent decades. Often the plaintiffs allege the church corporations were negligent in failing to prevent the abuse.
The lawsuit against the Diocese of Toronto arose from the 1963 sexual assault by Father Alphonse Robert of the victim, who was an 11-year-old altar boy at the time. The perpetrator has since died.
In 2017, a jury ruled that the diocese was vicariously liable for Father Robert’s behaviour. The victim was awarded $550,000, which include $15,000 in punitive damages. The rest of the award – which was upheld on appeal – was comprised of $250,000 in general and aggravated damages of $280,000 for loss of income and treatment expenses of $5,000.
The diocese, which admitted it was vicariously liable, appealed the damage award and was partly successful. By the time the trial started, the only dispute was on how much money the victim should be awarded.
In its divided ruling released March 19, 2019, two of the three appeal court judges quashed the $15,000 in punitive damages. The majority ruled that Justice Gordon Lemon of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice should not have let the jury decide whether to award punitive damages.
Not all plaintiffs who win lawsuits are awarded punitive damages, which are only intended if the defendant’s actions were “egregious, high-handed and outrageous,” Justice Lois Roberts of the Court of Appeal for Ontario wrote.
It was not improper or malicious for the diocese to not admit liability before the trial, Roberts wrote on behalf of herself and Chief Justice of Ontario George Strathy.
Justice Mary Lou Benotto had a different take, in her dissenting ruling.
It was reasonable for trial judge Lemon to ask the jury whether the failure of the diocese to admit liability before the trial warrant an award of punitive damages, Justice Benotto wrote.
The failure of the diocese to admit liability was making the plaintiff’s trauma worse, a forensic psychologist testified during trial. This was why Justice Lemon put the decision of punitive damages to the jury.
But no reasonable jury, properly instructed, could make such an award, Justice Roberts countered.
“There was no basis in fact or law for this claim that punished the appellant for not making an earlier admission of liability. Punitive damages cannot be awarded solely for the failure or delay of a defendant to admit liability. To create such a category of punitive damages would completely undermine the foundation of the litigation process,” wrote Roberts.
Litigation is an adversarial and expensive process, Justice Roberts added.
“Regardless of the underlying cause of action, all parties find the litigation process enormously stressful, especially plaintiffs who bear the burden of proving liability and damages because they commence the proceedings. In sum, while a defendant’s failure or delay to admit liability may give rise to an adverse costs award, it does not serve as a standalone basis for punitive damages.”
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Toronto Star
Tues., March 19, 2019
TORONTO—A Roman Catholic priest’s sexual abuse of an 11-year-old altar boy more than 50 years ago warranted an award of more than half a million dollars in compensation, Ontario’s highest court ruled on Tuesday.
In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeal rejected arguments from the Toronto diocese that the victim’s lawyer had inflamed the jury with closing comments.
A former teacher wants offices in Kamloops searched for documents related to her case
The Columbia Valley Pioneer
Mar. 7, 2019 12:08 p.m.
News
A former elementary schoolteacher who is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kamloops and a retired priest — alleging sexual abuse at his hands while she taught at Our Lady of Perpetual Help four decades ago — wants offices in Kamloops searched for documents related to her case.
As reported by Kamloops This Week in December 2016, Rosemary Anderson originally filed an eight-page notice of claim in B.C. Supreme Court, claiming sexual abuse at the hands of Father Lindo Molon and an apparent coverup by then-Bishop Adam Exner.
In the document, Anderson claims to have been vulnerable when she began teaching at the North Shore school in 1976.
Her claim describes Molon as her superior at the school. The original claim states she went to Molon for help after the death of her father.
“Commencing in or around September 1976 and continuing for approximately eight months, Father Molon — approximately 20 years older than the plaintiff and in a position of superior spiritual, religious, moral and vocational power and/or authority — exploited the plaintiff and repeatedly performed sexual acts upon the plaintiff innumerable times, including intercourse,” the document reads.
Anderson claims in the document to have reported the incidents to Adam Exner, the bishop of the Kamloops diocese in the spring of 1977, after which Molon was transferred to an Ontario parish.
The claim also states Anderson was ordered to leave the Kamloops diocese “by the close of the school year, under threat of slander and/or harassment by the OLPH education committee.”
In the document, Anderson claims to have suffered a loss of potential earnings. She is also seeking aggravated damages, punitive damages and special damages.
“The defendant, Father Molon, exploited the plaintiff’s vulnerability, religious devotion and obedience to manipulate her into submitting to the sexual assaults,” the claim reads, also accusing Exner of wrongdoing.
“The bishop intimidated the plaintiff and demanded that she leave the diocese under threat of slander and harassment by the education committee that governed the plaintiff’s employer, the OLPH elementary school.”
In June 2017, Exner responded to the civil claim, denying liability.
In a follow-up to the original filing, Anderson filed a notice of application in B.C. Supreme Court on Feb. 27, asking for an order to search offices of the Archdiocese of Kamloops.
“She contends that there is a real concern that material documents exist that have not been appropriately searched for, disclosed or explained,” the court documents state.
The church has said such documents do not exist.
A court date of April 1 has been set to hear the application.
Molon is now 86 and living in Ontario. Court documents state he “lacks capacity” and is represented by his litigation guardian, the Ontario Public Guardian and Trustee. On May 16, 2018, his guardian responded to the civil claim, denying liability.
The latest filing from Anderson includes information from the Aug. 14, 2018, evidence given by now Archbishop Emeritus Exner.
During that questioning, Exner admitted that people in Kamloops in the mid-1970s came to him with concerns about Molon, but that he never took notes, though he concluded he “had to do something about this man” — whom Exner appointed as assistant co-pastor at OLPH parish in November 1974.
Exner said he had no knowledge regarding the absence of records in Molon’s personnel file with respect to events between 1975 and 1976, the period of time during which Exner admitted to receiving reports and investigating Molon’s sexual transgressions.
The last letter in Molon’s file from 1975 is dated Feb. 21, 1975. The next letter in his file is dated March 15, 1977.
Exner said Anderson came to him to report that a relationship with Molon developed after she went to him for counselling after the death of her father.
In his testimony, Exner described Molon as “a playboy and she was not the only one he was taken advantage of. He was taking advantage of quite a few people.”
Exner said he heard many rumours of Molon involved in “inappropriate relationships with women,” adding that while he did not speak with the women allegedly involved, he did speak with Molon, who, according to Exner, replied, “I’m human.”
Exner did not formally suspect Molon until Oct. 24, 1977. He said he considered defrocking Molon, but “still wanted to leave a door open for possibility of rehabilitation,” conceding that Molon “wasn’t co-operative in any sense” to the offer of rehabilitation.
Exner also admitted he was concerned about the effect of the events involving Molon and the parishioners and that it was a scandal.
According to court documents, “removing the scandal was a foremost concern.”
None of the allegations raised have been proven in court.
The civil trial is scheduled to be held in October.
(Names of victims of sexual assault and those alleging they were sexually assaulted are not typically published, per Canadian Press Style guidelines, but Anderson has authorized KTW to use her name)
________________________________________
As reported by Kamloops This Week in December 2016, the woman originally filed an eight-page notice of claim in B.C. Supreme Court, claiming sexual abuse at the hands of Father Lindo Molon and an apparent coverup by then-Bishop Adam Exner
The Dec. 30, 2016, edition of KTW detailed the lawsuit filed by a former elementary school teacher against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kamloops.
A former elementary schoolteacher who is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kamloops and a retired priest — alleging sexual abuse at his hands while she taught at Our Lady of Perpetual Help four decades ago — wants offices in Kamloops searched for documents related to her case.
As reported by Kamloops This Week in December 2016, Rosemary Anderson originally filed an eight-page notice of claim in B.C. Supreme Court, claiming sexual abuse at the hands of Father Lindo Molon and an apparent coverup by then-Bishop Adam Exner.
(KTW does not normally publish names of victims of sexual assault and those alleging they were sexually assaulted, per Canadian Press Style guidelines, but KTW has neen authorized to use her name).
In the document, Anderson claims to have been vulnerable when she began teaching at the North Shore school in 1976.
Her claim describes Molon as her superior at the school. The original claim states she went to Molon for help after the death of her father.
“Commencing in or around September 1976 and continuing for approximately eight months, Father Molon — approximately 20 years older than the plaintiff and in a position of superior spiritual, religious, moral and vocational power and/or authority — exploited the plaintiff and repeatedly performed sexual acts upon the plaintiff innumerable times, including intercourse,” the document reads.
Anderson claims in the document to have reported the incidents in the spring of 1977 to Adam Exner, the bishop of the Kamloops diocese, after which Molon was transferred to an Ontario parish.
The claim also states Anderson was ordered to leave the Kamloops diocese “by the close of the school year, under threat of slander and/or harassment by the OLPH education committee.”
In the document, Anderson claims to have suffered a loss of potential earnings. She is also seeking aggravated damages, punitive damages and special damages.
“The defendant, Father Molon, exploited the plaintiff’s vulnerability, religious devotion and obedience to manipulate her into submitting to the sexual assaults,” the claim reads, also accusing Exner of wrongdoing.
“The bishop intimidated the plaintiff and demanded that she leave the diocese under threat of slander and harassment by the education committee that governed the plaintiff’s employer, the OLPH elementary school.”
In June 2017, Exner responded to the civil claim, denying liability.
In a follow-up to the original filing, Anderson filed a notice of application in B.C. Supreme Court on Feb. 27, asking for an order to search offices of the Archdiocese of Kamloops.
“She contends that there is a real concern that material documents exist that have not been appropriately searched for, disclosed or explained,” the court documents state.
The church has said such documents do not exist.
A court date of April 1 has been set to hear the application.
Molon is now 86 and living in Ontario. Court documents state he “lacks capacity” and is represented by his litigation guardian, the Ontario Public Guardian and Trustee. On May 16, 2018, his guardian responded to the civil claim, denying liability.
The latest filing from Anderson includes information from the Aug. 14, 2018, evidence given by now Archbishop Emeritus Exner.
During that questioning, Exner admitted that people in Kamloops in the mid-1970s came to him with concerns about Molon, but that he never took notes, though he concluded he “had to do something about this man” — whom Exner appointed as assistant co-pastor at OLPH parish in November 1974.
Exner said he had no knowledge regarding the absence of records in Molon’s personnel file with respect to events between 1975 and 1976, the period of time during which Exner admitted to receiving reports and investigating Molon’s sexual transgressions.
The last letter in Molon’s file from 1975 is dated Feb. 21, 1975. The next letter in his file is dated March 15, 1977.
Exner said Anderson came to him to report that a relationship with Molon developed after she went to him for counselling after the death of her father.
In his testimony, Exner described Molon as “a playboy and she was not the only one he was taking advantage of. He was taking advantage of quite a few people.”
Exner said he heard many rumours of Molon involved in “inappropriate relationships with women,” adding that while he did not speak with the women allegedly involved, he did speak with Molon, who, according to Exner, replied, “I’m human.”
Exner did not formally suspect Molon until Oct. 24, 1977. He said he considered defrocking Molon, but “still wanted to leave a door open for possibility of rehabilitation,” conceding that Molon “wasn’t co-operative in any sense” to the offer of rehabilitation.
Exner also admitted he was concerned about the effect of the events involving Molon and the parishioners and that it was a scandal.
According to court documents, “removing the scandal was a foremost concern.”
None of the allegations raised have been proven in court.
An Oct. 7 court date has been set for the civil trial.
So, on appeal the Archbishop of Guam was found guilty by a Vatican tribunal:
04 April 2019: CDF upholds guilty verdict of Guam archbishop for abuse of minors” & related article
Tut. Tut. Bad boy!!
Exactly what kind of message is the Vatican sending here?
Here we have an Archbishop who molested children, was found guilty by a Vatican tribunal no less….and ‘they’ still believe he’s fit to be a priest?!!!!
What will it take? What will it take for Church officials to decide that the very presence of clerical sexual predators in the priesthood is an insult to God, Church, all decent priests, the faithful and all who have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Roman Catholic priest victims?
Unconscionable.
I have said it before and will say it again, when I hear that every known clerical sexual predator will be defrocked/laicized I will believe that Church officials are serious about protecting children and ridding the Church of sexual predators. If canon law does not currently allow for such action, then, for the love of God, change the code.
*****
Previous convicted serial molester Father Gilles Deslaurier had a court date in Alexandria, Ontario on Wednesday. His next court date is:
08 May 2019: 9 am, “to be spoken to,: Alexandria courthouse ( 110 Main St N, Alexandria, Ontario) ‘
Please keep the complainant and all victims of Father Gilles Deslaurier in your prayers.
Enough for now,
Sylvia
The Ottawa Citizen
Updated: April 7, 2019
The dimly lit conference room looked like so many others — a long table with nameplates and microphones, surrounded by drab olive drapes and beige carpet.
On this particular Thursday, however, two things stood out: a painting of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus on the wall behind the head table, and the speaker whose back they appeared to be looking at: Pope Francis.
Wearing his white cassock, the Pope faced the tiered rows of cardinals, archbishops, bishops and other clergy in their respective plumage, and in under two minutes read his opening address, delivering his words in a dry monotone and barely lifting his eyes to look at his audience.
The occasion was the Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church, a four-day summit held at the Vatican in February for Roman Catholic officials to address the issue of the abuse of minors by church clergy.
“In the face of the scourge of sexual abuse by churchmen to the detriment of minors,” the Pope said, “I have decided to meet you, patriarchs, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, religious superiors and leaders, so that together we might listen to the Holy Spirit and, with docility, with its guidance, hear the cry of the little ones who plead for justice.”
He demanded that action be taken: “The holy people of God look to us and expect from us not simple and predictable condemnations, but concrete and effective measures to be put into place.
“We need to be concrete.”
In the end, however, concrete measures were not taken. Delivering a Sunday mass to mark the end of the conference, the Pope laid much of the blame for the abuse on the devil’s doorstep: “The consecrated person, chosen by God to guide souls to salvation, lets himself be subjugated by his own frailty, or by his own illness, thus becoming a tool of Satan,” he said.
He also challenged the world at large to solve the issue. “There aren’t enough explanations about child abuse,” he said. “Humbly and bravely we must recognize that we stand before the mystery of evil, which rages against the weakest because they are an image of Jesus. This is why in the church there is now a growing awareness of having not only to try and stem the most serious abuses with disciplinary measures and civil and canonic trials, but also to face the phenomenon decisively both inside and outside the church.
“It feels it is called to fight this evil that touches the centre of its mission to announce the Gospel to the little ones and to protect them from the ravenous wolves.”
The National Catholic Reporter, an American newspaper that reports on matters involving the Roman Catholic Church, described the Pontiff’s concluding remarks as “a melodramatic avoidance of the truth.”
David McCann wasn’t particularly surprised by the church’s response.
For decades, he’s been trying to get an official apology for the abuse that he and hundreds of other boys suffered at a Catholic training school in Alfred, about 70 kilometres east of Ottawa.
“It’s still the same ‘I-hope-that-you-eventually-get-what-you-want’ sentiment, but no commitment on their part to apologize,” McCann said recently from his home in Vancouver.
“You can have all the pretty words you want, all the promises, all the commissions, and bring people in from around the world, but if you can’t spend 10 minutes saying ‘I’m sorry,’ I don’t think you’re that serious. I don’t think they know how to deal with it. It’s a bunch of old men in dresses who don’t have a clue.”
‘If you can’t spend 10 minutes saying ‘I’m sorry,’ I don’t think you’re that serious.’
It has been six decades since McCann was abused, and 30 years since he went public with his story. His decision to do so opened a floodgate of similar allegations from more than 1,600 former wards of either St. Joseph’s Training School for Boys, in Alfred, or St. John’s in Uxbridge, about 70 kilometres northeast of Toronto.
More than 120 perpetrators were identified by former students, but by the time McCann came forward, many of the accused had died, while others were deemed too infirm to stand trial. Still, almost 200 charges were laid against nearly 30 De La Salle Brothers of the Christian Schools and Christian Brothers of Ontario, the Catholic religious lay orders that ran the schools, and other staff.
At the time, it was the largest such scandal to come out of Canada, although similar stories have since surfaced all over the world, most notably, perhaps, the hundreds of cases of abuse in Massachusetts uncovered by the Boston Globe in 2002 and depicted in the 2015 film Spotlight. The Globe’s investigation led to even more cases coming to light. Only last month, former Australian Archbishop and Cardinal George Pell was sentenced to six years in jail for molesting two choir boys in the 1990s. Pell is the highest-ranking Catholic official to be convicted of child sexual abuse.
In a 2014 interview with La Repubblica newspaper in Italy, meanwhile, Pope Francis said that about two per cent of Catholic clergy members — or roughly 8,000 — including priests, bishops and cardinals, were pedophiles. The Pope referred to them as a “leprosy” within the Church.
Among the 16 convicted of abuse at St. Joseph’s and St. John’s was McCann’s chief tormentor, Brother Joseph, a.k.a. Lucien Dagenais, who was given a five-year sentence after being found guilty of seven counts of indecent assault, six counts of assault causing bodily harm and two counts of buggery. Throughout the court proceedings, Dagenais showed no remorse and maintained his innocence.
In passing sentence, Justice Hector Soubliere noted: “We built walls around that school: not of brick and mortar, but of much stronger material — walls of silence and indifference. I’m even tempted to say walls of ignorance.”
And while the memory of the crimes committed by Dagenais and others has, in many cases, been blurred by the passage of time, their rough edges worn smooth, the physical and psychological damage inflicted on the boys placed in their care often remains.
Now 72, McCann says he’s never really healed.
“I still pay the price,” he says, noting that he lives alone and hasn’t been in a serious relationship in years.
He well recalls lying frightened in the dark, one of about 50 youngsters in a room of steel-framed beds laid end-to-end, row upon row, and hearing footsteps approach.
It was December 1958, and McCann, then a 12-year-old delinquent from Kingston, had, along with two friends, been arrested the previous month after the trio went on a one-night crime spree, breaking into and robbing eight Kingston businesses of, among other things, $300 in cash, a $50 watch and some sticks of dynamite.
His accomplices got probation, but McCann, already no stranger to the courts, was sent to St. Joseph’s.
“I believe that at St. Joseph’s Training School there will be discipline and the instruction given to him that will try and correct his ways,” said Judge James Garvin. “We hope so anyway.”
A psychologist, Dr. Oscar Karabenow, thought otherwise, but his report to McCann’s probation officer arrived too late: McCann had already been taken from school by a police officer and driven to St. Joseph’s.
A scrawny, freckle-faced boy with big ears, McCann wasn’t tough. True, he frequently skipped school, but often to go read at the Kingston Public Library. He had never been away from home before.
At St. Joseph’s, a provincially funded reformatory, he found an imposing and menacing institution — a stone building he recalls today as cold, smelly and dank. The charges there were overseen by men in black robes, members of the De La Salle Brothers of the Christian Schools, an order with roots in early-1700s France. The Brothers had petitioned the Ontario government to create a school for delinquent Catholic boys — St. John’s Industrial School, which opened in 1895.
St. Joseph’s opened in 1933, with three dozen boys shipped there from St. John’s. At the school’s opening ceremony, Ontario premier George Henry remarked that “No child should emerge from industrial schools without a better outlook on life.”
Speaking on behalf of the Christian Brothers, Brother Martial, the superior, pointed to the inscription on the lintel stone above the main entrance, which read, in French and English, “Young man, I say, Arise.”
“The command is divine,” he noted. “We are but the humble instruments, but if in the passage of years, we can but point to one man whom we were permitted to help on to the right road, then would this investment of labour and of love not be in vain.”
William Martin, the province’s minister of public welfare added: “The passion, zest and enthusiasm of youth must be safeguarded and guided into the proper channels if the future of civilization is to be made safe and secure.”
While many of the boys in their charge had been sent to St. Joseph’s for criminal misdemeanors, not all had run afoul of the law. Upwards of 30 per cent of the boys were runaways from residential schools, while others were “unmanageables” who simply proved too much for the parents or guardians who sent them there. At any one time, there were about 160 boys at the school, some sent there from as far away as Kenora.
The purpose of the schools, as outlined in the Training Schools Act of 1937, was “to provide the boys or girls admitted therein with a mental, moral and vocational education and training and with profitable employment.”
But former Renfrew North Liberal MPP Sean Conway recalled in 1996 in the Ontario legislature the school’s reputation as “synonymous with some kind of Alcatraz” when he was a youngster.
“On more days than I can remember,” he said, “in the elementary school, the very Catholic elementary school to which I was sent … we were told, ‘Be bad and you’ll go to Alfred.’”
On this particular night, McCann listened and the footsteps stopped at his bed, and a tall figure leaned over and whispered in the young boy’s ear, “Viens avec moi.”
McCann didn’t understand French, so Brother Joseph mumbled the phrase again, this time in English. “Come with me.”
Known to the boys as The Hook for a table saw accident he’d suffered years earlier, leaving him with just his middle finger and stump of his thumb on his left hand, Brother Joseph took McCann to a room off the dormitory, and raped him.
“I don’t remember all the details,” McCann admits. “It’s something I don’t try to think about very often. But it was repeated several times.”
It was repeated not just with McCann, but hundreds and hundreds of boys, both at St. Joseph’s and St. John’s. The abuse came in all forms: sexual, physical and psychological. “I saw grown men — beefy guys — beat little frail 11- and 12-year-old kids into a pulp and unconsciousness,” recalls McCann. “They beat them black and blue.”
“They ripped the kid out of me,” said former St. Joseph’s ward Gary Sullivan in 1990, according to journalist Darcy Henton’s 1995 book, Boys Don’t Cry. “It was nothing but absolute terror.”
In the Recorder’s Report Concerning Physical and Sexual Abuse At St. Joseph’s and St. John’s Training Schools for Boys, prepared by Benjamin C. Hoffman and presented to the Reconciliation Process Implementation Committee in 1995, a number of former students spoke anonymously of their experiences at the schools.
“I have hated, hated all my life,” said one who was sent to St. Joseph’s in 1938, five years after it opened, when he was nine. “I cannot express love, I have never known love. My son loves me and I don’t show him love.”
“I saw many young children beaten up and strapped,” recalled another. “I saw Brother —— wake up young children and take them to a room to sexually assault them. I saw children handcuffed to a pillar in the basement. They would be pushed and kicked. I saw Brother —— use a pool table stick to hit children if they would not have anal sex with him. Children were given cold showers then strapped. If I told any Brothers that another Brother tried to have sex with me, I would be strapped.”
Former student Gerry Sirois described St. Joseph’s to Henton as “like Dachau with games.”
Sixty years ago, David McCann felt alone and abandoned, bewildered and confused by the fact that his family didn’t protect him.
“I understand now that they had no way to protect me, but it took me a couple of years to sort that one out,” he says. “But kids don’t have the skills set to deal with these things — a lot of adults don’t, either.”
His mother tried to help. While visiting her son once at St. Joseph’s, McCann broke down and told her about the abuse he’d suffered. “My mom could wheedle anything out of me,” he says. But when she returned home to Kingston and raised the subject with her parish priest, she was threatened with excommunication if she continued to spread such horrible lies.
So the abuse continued, and McCann tamped his emotions down. “I didn’t dream about it,” he recalls. “I basically buried it, closed the door, nailed it shut, plastered it over and let the memories … they were just there.
“I didn’t deal with it at all. I didn’t talk to people about it. I think what it did was it made me not trust people. Here I’d been raised in the church where these priests and bishops and Christian Brothers and nuns were all these really righteous people, and then you see them doing something like that. I just learned really to not trust anybody.”
McCann’s reactions to his abuse — his feelings of betrayal that his family didn’t help, his lifelong lack of trust in others and his attempts to bury his experiences rather than confront them — are not uncommon, says University of Ottawa psychology professor and clinical psychologist Elisa Romano, who specializes in childhood maltreatment and its impact on development.
Studies, Romano said, suggest that men who have suffered sexual abuse don’t tell anyone about it for an average of 20 years.
“Imagine living with something that is such an invasion of you as a person for so long.”
Apart from the inherent power imbalance that gave the Brothers an upper hand over their wards, Romano adds that many of the boys at training schools such as St. Joseph’s and St. John’s would have faced the additional burden of not being listened to if they spoke out against their keepers.
“All children are vulnerable, but these particular children may have been even more vulnerable because perhaps they wouldn’t have been believed, perhaps they would have been perceived as lying because these are boys who had significant behavioural challenges.
“If you’ve been hurt by people that you trusted,” she adds, “whether it was people in this institution that were supposed to look out for you, or whether it was people in your neighbourhood or in your family, you start to develop a sense that it isn’t safe to be around people because they do hurt you, and that could definitely affect your ability to trust, your ability to make yourself vulnerable.”
Gerry Belecque is among the St. Joseph’s alumnus who for decades buried his experiences there. The North Bay resident didn’t tell even his wife about it until McCann went public with his story in 1989, exactly 30 years after Belecque arrived at St. Joseph’s, and 26 years after he and his wife were married.
“She grew up across the street and we’ve known each other since we were four,” he says, “so I expect she had been told by her parents that I ended up there. So I think she knew I was a bad boy and went somewhere, but I never told her where.
“And I never told my parents what happened there, ever. I didn’t want anyone thinking I was a ‘faggot.’ Those were the words that were used: ‘faggot’ or an ‘abuser,’ and if you were abused, you were going to abuse. And as you get older, the more you learn about life, the less you want to say about it. That’s the way I felt — it was in the past, it was gone.”
Belecque was just 14 when he was sent to St. Joseph’s in May 1959. An occasional truant from school who ran with a couple of older boys, he first got into trouble for stealing chocolate bars from a delivery truck when he was 13. He violated his parole by hitchhiking to Toronto one night with the same boys and acting as a lookout while they attempted to break into a store there. A judge decided that a stay at St. Joseph’s was in order.
The abuse, Belecque recalls, began before he even arrived at St. Joseph’s.
Wearing a leather jacket and Wellington boots, his hair Brylcreemed like Elvis, Belecque was handcuffed to the passenger door of his probation officer’s car for the drive to Alfred. Belecque says that as they drove along Hwy. 17, the officer began to fondle him. When Belecque tried to push the advance away, “then he grabbed my hand, wanting me to fondle him.”
At a rest stop halfway to Ottawa, the abuse continued in a washroom, where Belecque, now handcuffed by the wrist to his probation officer, was forced to grab the PO’s penis while he relieved himself.
Belecque thought that things had improved when he finally arrived at the school and was greeted by one of the Brothers, wearing a black frock and white collar. “I thought, ‘This is going to be easy,’” Belecque recalls. “‘This is going to be a cakewalk. I’m not in jail here, and there are no fences around it. It’s just a school.’ There’s a statue of St. Joseph out front, holding a child, and above the door are the words ‘Young men arise.’
“So OK, I’m a bad kid, and I’m going to go there and they’re going to straighten me out. I’m not going to give them any trouble. I’m here now and I’m going to do good. I always respected these people, so I thought ‘I’ll get what I give.’ So that’s my first impression.”
Early on in his 16-month stay at St. Joseph’s, he hung back and watched others, but soon became involved in activities there, particularly athletics, competing in gymnastics and hockey. Boys who played on the school’s sports teams faced less abuse than others, but no one was immune.
Belecque describes Brother Leo (Leopold Monette, who was eventually sentenced to five years after being charged with 21 counts of assault causing bodily harm, eight counts of indecent assault, one count of buggery and one count of gross indecency) as tough and unpredictable.
“He was ex-army, and wanted the boys to excel at sports. But he was the kind of guy who was your friend one minute, and the next you didn’t know. He’d punch you in the face and you’d think, ‘Oh, shit, what did I do?’” While working in the kitchen once, handing out meals, Belecque was beaten for sneaking an extra slice of toast to one of the older boys.
Belecque recalls another Brother beating boys with canes, hockey sticks and pool cues. “He’d let you have it, across the head or face, every time. He was a little wee runt of a guy, and he’d kick the shit out of you at the drop of a hat. He beat me up a few times, for like a ball going off the pool table.”
That same Brother, Belecque says, ran the maintenance shop behind the school. The curtains were always closed and Belecque walked in one day to find one of the boys performing oral sex on the Brother. “That was my first encounter with that, and (the Brother) kicked the living shit out of me — and him, the boy, for not locking the door. He kicked us and beat us up. And you’d be walking around with a black eye and nobody would ask ‘Where’d you get that?’ Everybody minded their own business. No one wanted to get into anyone else’s stuff.”
A week after that beating, Belecque was working in the shop when the same Brother approached him from behind and rubbed his penis against Belecque’s back for a few minutes. “I think I got off lucky,” Belecque says.
It was Brother Gabriel (Aimé Bergeron, two years less a day for one count of indecent assault and one count of buggery) who was charged with sexually abusing Belecque. “And he was in charge of the altar boys,” Belecque says. “Give me a break.
“What goes through these people’s minds?’ he wonders. “It happened, and you go ‘OK, it happened. That’s the way that person is.’ But after a while when I got out of there, I thought, ‘Why? Why do they do this? What’s the matter with these guys? And I can never get an answer in my mind.
“I’d like to call people up who are abusers and ask them that question. What are you thinking? What goes through your mind when you’re doing that? Are you thinking that you’re helping these kids by showing them what sex is about? You’re religious, you’re Catholic, and you believe these people represent Christ or God on Earth or whatever, and then they do this, and you think ‘There is no God.’”
Belecque returned to North Bay from Alfred in September 1960, 16 years old and a loner. Around the same time, reports of abuse at St. Joseph’s began to circulate in official circles. In an August 1960 letter to Ottawa archbishop M.J. Lemieux, Archie Graham, deputy minister of Ontario’s Department of Reform Institutions, wrote, “We know that you will appreciate our desire to take the necessary action before the growing number of complaints received by us from parents, welfare workers and others reaches such a magnitude that the matter becomes public knowledge, in which event the school, this department, and the Church can only suffer.”
And still the abuse continued.
Back in North Bay, Belecque married and had two children, but his anger remained. He drank, did drugs and gambled.
This was not an uncommon outcome for former students. According to The Recorder’s Report concerning abuse at the schools, “The men as a group are bitter, poor, marginalized and lack self esteem.” Upwards of 80 per cent of them maintained that some or all of the problems they faced after leaving training school were related to the abuse they suffered there.
It wasn’t until the mid 1970s, when he decided to finish high school and then earn his BA in sociology and psychology, that Belecque recognized the source of many of his troubles. “I took those subjects because I wanted to know what was going on in my mind,” he says. “It was personal. And a lot of those things in the books applied to me. I was neurotic, I was psychotic.
“So that’s when I started to see a psychiatrist.”
But he told no one else, not even his wife, out of embarrassment and a fear that others might think him a “weirdo.”
•
David McCann similarly did not deal with the abuse he suffered. Released from St. Joseph’s after two years, he moved into a summer cottage on Lake Ontario, just west of Kingston, where he lived alone for two years before returning home to his parents’.
“I didn’t deal with it. I just buried it,” he says. “As a 12-year-old when this happens to you, you just go, ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ But it took years before I figured out that I was in no way to blame, that the system was to blame.”
Part of that realization came in 1989, when he saw a news report on TV about the then-emerging story of child abuse by the Christian Brothers of Ireland in Canada, at Mount Cashel Boys School, an orphanage in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The news floored him. He wasn’t alone, he realized. And in the case of Mount Cashel, it looked as though something might be done about it: Newfoundland interim premier Tom Rideout had appointed a Royal Commission to investigate.
And so McCann, who by coincidence had been speaking with Toronto Star reporter Darcy Henton about an unrelated story, came forward with his allegations.
Other victims surfaced, and McCann and a few others, including Belecque, helped found Helpline, and advocacy group for former students of St. Joseph’s and St. John’s. Rather than pursue a class-action lawsuit, the group elected to work with the religious groups that ran the schools, the archdioceses of Ottawa and Toronto and the Ontario government to reach a reconciliation agreement with the hundreds of victims who came forward. Ultimately, although the Christian Brothers of Ontario, who ran St. John’s, refused to participate, the other sides agreed to a $16-million settlement. Reports varied, but most recipients received in the neighbourhood of $20,000.
A 1996 story in the Citizen looked at what some of the former students did with their settlement. Some opened businesses and at least one had dental work done, to replace the teeth that the Brothers had knocked out. Still others spent theirs on drugs or alcohol.
For many, though, the settlement arrived too late: 32 of the victims had committed suicide.
McCann, meanwhile, continued to seek apologies. As part of the reconciliation agreement, the Ottawa and Toronto archdioceses apologized, with Ottawa archbishop Marcel Gervais doing so at a noon mass at Notre Dame Cathedral in April 1996. For some, the act helped. McCann at the time said, “It puts a lot of devils to rest.”
McCann also found some unexpected encouragement during the mass. Seated in the pew in front of him were a woman, a man and a young girl, perhaps five or six years old. The girl, McCann recalls, repeatedly turned to her mother to ask why the man behind her was crying.
“Now there’s a part of the Catholic mass where you turn to your neighbour and greet them,” says McCann. “And the mother turned around and looked directly at me and said, ‘Mr. McCann, I know who you are, and I want to thank you and all the men with you. You’ve made the world a safer place for my child.’ And if you want validation for whether it was worth doing, in that one moment that woman told me that everything we did was worthwhile. There’s another child who won’t go through what we did.”
But others were not as comforted. One former student, Paul Gagnon, stood and shouted at Gervais: “I don’t want an apology from you. I want an apology from the brothers that ruined my life. I want an apology from those two dogs — those two pedophiles.”
Another former student, Jimmy Toal, confessed his circumspect resignation. “All of this brings back memories,” he told the Citizen at the time. “It’s never really done.”
As part of the agreement, Ontario premier Mike Harris was to “propose an all-party resolution in the legislature, apologizing for and condemning the abuse.” He refused, however, instead leaving the apology to attorney general Charles Harnick to deliver while Harris was out of town. McCann responded by taking Harris to court. Ultimately, it was premier Dalton McGuinty who, in 2004, offered an apology on behalf of the province.
“I don’t like all of Dalton McGuinty’s policies,” says McCann, “but on 10:30 on Election night, after he’d been elected, his senior aide called me on the phone and said ‘I just spoke to Dalton, and he asked me to ask you to give him 60 to 90 days to assume the reins of power, and he will rise in the legislature.’ And he did rise in the legislature and spoke, not only as the premier, but he begged the indulgence of the House after everybody else had spoken, and he rose and spoke as a Catholic and as a father.
“I give the guy a lot of credit. The entire time he spoke, he looked at us, and the second time he spoke, he talked about sitting at his breakfast table and looking at his 12-year-old son, and he said, ‘I can’t imagine that happening to my son, and as a father and a Catholic, I apologize. I’m appalled.’”
In 1990, as his public allegations began to snowball, McCann and 15 other survivors hand-delivered a letter to Angelo Palmas, Apostolic Pro-Nuncio to Canada, at his Rockcliffe residence, asking the then-Pope, John Paul II, for an apology. McCann never received a reply.
Two Popes later, in 2017, McCann travelled to the Vatican where, at the behest of the Pope, he was seen by Father Hans Zollner, professor of psychology and current president of the Centre for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. The pair spoke for a couple of hours. “(Zollner) was hopeful that Francis would apologize,” recalls McCann, “but he was very clear that he had no authority to speak for the Pope.”
Over the years, popes have spoken on the issue of abuse of minors by clergy. In a 2002 address to U.S. Cardinals, Pope John Paul II said, “People need to know that there is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young.”
In 2008, Pope Benedict apologized for the sexual abuse of children by priests and clergymen in Australia, noting, “I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that, as their pastor, I too share in their suffering.”
Benedict was criticized, however, for delivering the apology to a group of Catholic bishops, seminarians and novices, rather than victims.
Two years later, at a mass at Westminster Cathedral in London, Benedict again acknowledged and somewhat apologized for the suffering caused by the church, saying, “I think of the immense suffering caused by the abuse of children, especially within the church and by her ministers. Above all, I express my deep sorrow to the innocent victims of these unspeakable crimes …
“I also acknowledge with you the shame and humiliation that all of us have suffered because of these sins.”
And last August, in a 2,000-word letter addressed to the “People of God,” Pope Francis admitted that the Church “showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.” This came after a U.S. grand jury confirmed that more than 1,000 children had been sexually abused by “predatory” priests in Pennsylvania while church officials failed to discipline offenders and often covered up incidents.
“Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others,” the Pope added.
For some, though, any apology now is simply too little too, late.
Gerry Belecque long ago lost his faith in God, and has avoided church since leaving St. Joseph’s. “When there are weddings, I sit outside,” he says. “When there were baptisms, I always stayed outside.” On occasions when felt he had no choice but enter, such as at his parents funerals, he stayed at the back.
“If the apology comes from the people who did it, that’s a different thing. But if it comes from those who knew that they did it but didn’t do anything, big deal. It doesn’t make a damn difference to me if the Pope apologizes. It’s just words. They don’t give a goddamn, and they’re still doing it. So apologies don’t mean anything.
“You never get closure,” he adds. “It took me a long time to get over it. Right now I’m not seeing anybody, but I’ve got one foot in the grave, maybe.”
Yet McCann persists. “There aren’t many Don Quixotes in the world, and I don’t mind tilting at windmills. It’s a chance to continue to make a difference in the world. It gives meaning to going out there and saying it doesn’t hurt to apologize. It wouldn’t hurt Francis to stand on the balcony in St. Peter’s Square and say he’s sorry. He doesn’t have to come to Canada to do it. It would carry just as much weight. For a lot of people, just the words are enough.”
St. Joseph’s Training School for Boys was officially opened on Aug. 6, 1933, by Les Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes d’Ottawa. In 1973, the Ontario Ministry of Correctional Services assumed operation of the school, which was renamed Champlain Training School. It closed in 1984. St. John’s closed in 2003.
The dioceses across the United States are all publishing names of priests deemed to have been credibly accused. Included on the list released by the The Diocese of Owensboro Kentucky is the name of a Father Gilbert Henninger. Henninger, born in 1907 and ordained in 1937, was a student in Ottawa from 1941 to 1943.
Where and what he was studying for those years is unknown. It could have been Ottawa University, or St, Paul’s University?
Here is the information provided on the Owensboro website:
Date of Ordination: 5-22-1937
Date of Death: 3-5-1990
6/27/37 – 8/16/37: St. Peter, Stanley
8/16/37-9/4/37: St. Rose, Cloverport
1937-38: St. Francis de Sales, Paducah
1938-39: St. Paul, Owensboro and St. Joseph, Owensboro
1939-41: Chaplain at St. Francis Academy, Owensboro
1941-43: student in Ottawa, Canada
1943-62: Chaplain to Ursulines at Mt. St. Joseph
1962-82: St. Martin, Rome
Since there were multiple allegations against him then I think it is reasonable to beleive that chances are high that he was molesting while he was in Ottawa. I will therefore put his name on the list, but will link to this post rather than try to put together a page. I unfortunately just do not have any further information about this priest and/or his time in Ottawa.
[Do you suppose that in the interest of transparency we’ll ever see the day that Canadian bishops publish the names of clergy convicted and/or credibly accused?]
Enough for now,
Sylvia
They were families who looked to Rev. Amer Saka as their spiritual guide and the answer to reuniting their families.
London Free Press
Updated: January 26, 2019
They were families who looked to Rev. Amer Saka as their spiritual guide and the answer to reuniting their families.
On the promise he would be able to get their loved ones out of refugee camps and into Canada, they forked over their savings to sponsor them and made plans for the future.
But, as a judge heard Friday, at least $438,000 of that money is gone, likely gambled away at various casinos.
Saka, 53, the former priest at St. Joseph’s Chaldean Catholic Church in London and St. Oraha Chaldean Catholic Church in Kitchener, pleaded guilty to one count of fraud over $5,000 for two years of deceit that broke the hearts of the people of the small Catholic sect who trusted him the most.
The actual loss stands at more than $640,000, when factoring in the $207,000 reimbursed to families by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hamilton, the organization that oversees the local Chaldean churches.
And by the time Saka is sentenced, both the Crown and defence agreed the total will likely climb higher.
The case points to vulnerabilities in the refugee sponsorship system and how easily the efforts of caring families can be erased when their funds fall into the wrong hands.
In the agreed statement of facts from the Crown and the defence, read to the court by assistant Crown attorney Adam Campbell, Saka’s initial intentions were to help his flock before his gambling addiction took over.
Saka is originally from Iraq, ordained in Baghdad, and has been a priest for more than 25 years.
He came to Canada in 2008 and was with the London and Kitchener parishes for years. He was suspended from his duties in March 2016.
In 2011, Saka went to the Diocese of Hamilton on behalf of some of his Kitchener parishioners wanting to start a sponsorship program to bring family members from Iraq. The diocese became the sponsorship agreement holder with the federal immigration department and St. Oraha was deemed the community constituent co-sponsor with the diocese on immigration applications.
Families gave money to Saka so the church could show immigration officials there was enough money to settle refugee families for one year. The money was held in trust until the refugees arrived. Saka was responsible for disbursing the money to the newcomers on behalf of the church.
The partnership was successful from 2012 to 2014 when six applications were approved and five families were settled in Canada.
There was a distinct change in 2014 when the federal government dropped the quotas for refugees from Iraq and other countries in the Middle East. That announcement prompted a flood of requests from Saka’s church members, some of whom had known Saka from Iraq.
Because of the nature of some of the information in the applications, the diocese told Saka the monies to support the refugee families had to be come from family sponsors, not St. Oraha Church.
Saka complained the applications were taking too long to process. At one point, an envelope of applications that Saka had given the dioceses was misplaced.
In 2015, when a salaried member of the diocese took over the sponsorship program from a volunteer, errors were discovered in the applications sent in by Saka and they had to be sent back to him to be fixed. Also, it appeared Saka was taking the money from families before the applications were approved by the diocese. The backlog of Saka’s applications grew.
In 2015 and 2016, the diocese became aware the priest was not giving the trust money to the arriving families. In February 2016, police were called in to investigate.
They discovered a large group of hopeful people who had lost substantial amounts of money. In some cases, refugees arrived and the diocese had to cover the missing trust money because it was the co-sponsor. In other cases, money was given to Saka, but the sponsored relatives never arrived in Canada.
And in some cases, the sponsorship applications were never submitted to the diocese.
Saka did give some arriving families cash, but it was a fraction of what had been raised to sponsor their re-settlement. In total, he reimbursed the families $17,000.
Campbell pointed to 15 cases where money was given to Saka and problems followed. The amounts varied from $15,000 to $65,000.
The parishioner who trusted Saka with $65,000, and lost all of it, has launched a civil suit against Saka and the church. His relatives are in Turkey and possibly the United States.
In another case, a family lost $20,000 and was never reimbursed. The family they wanted to sponsor was accepted by Australia.
Campbell told Ontario Court Justice Allan Maclure the Crown can’t determine how much money was given to Saka for applications that were never sent in. There was no supporting documentation, but London police were able to see that some money was deposited into Saka’s personal bank accounts.
In February 2016, Saka told his bishop that he had misused the money.
The police had already learned large amounts of cash were gambled away at casinos in Point Edward, Windsor and Niagara Falls. Video footage from the casinos showing Saka gambling were played at his preliminary hearing.
Defence lawyer Iryna Revutsky told Maclure that Saka has been treated for a gambling addiction. She said she would have materials regarding his diagnosis and psychological assessment at his sentencing hearing, scheduled for May 6.
Campbell said he will seek restitution and a fine as part of his sentencing submission.
In an email, Msgr. Murray Kroetsch, chancellor and vicar-general of the Diocese of Hamilton, said the diocese was “pleased” Saka had pleaded guilty and that it continues to give financial assistance to those affected “in accord with the requirement of this program.”
“The admission of Father Saka will bring some measure of closure to those family affected by his betrayal of trust,” he said.
London immigration lawyer Ed Corrigan said the Saka case reminded him of a case about two decades ago in London when Polish families lost money through a sponsorship program at their church. In that case, he said, a priest’s family ended up with the money and several families came to him for help.
“The government of Canada puts a notice on the immigration webpage warning people about unscrupulous consultants and people who are not legally authorized to represent immigrants or refugees,” he said.
He said those serious about helping family should consult with a lawyer. “I hear a fair number of problems of people who take advantage of new immigrants, newcomers and refugees in particular.
“Unfortunately it’s not an isolated problem. When people see money, the vultures start to circle.”
Corrigan added it’s “incumbent upon the government of Canada to aggressively prosecute such people to send a message this is wrong and shouldn’t be taking advantage of newcomers, refugees and immigrants.
And another…
The page for Father Henri Paradis msa is posted.
As you will see, he was all over the place. I finally stopped – I realized I could literally could spend days listing dates on which he said Mass here, gave a retreat there, conducted a mission somewhere else or was off on a pilgrimage. I may add more dates over time, but for now I think there is enough information to get a general feel for Father Henri Paradis’ whereabouts over the past years.
Those in the Ottawa Archdiocese please note and spread the word that Father Paradis’ has ministered within the boundaries of the archdiocese, and that at least one of his pilgrimages to Medjugorje was advertised in Ottawa Communique du Jeudi.
Please keep the complainant in your prayers.
Enough for now,
Sylvia
Ottawa Citizen
Updated: May 22, 2019
Two men have told court that they were sexually assaulted by a Catholic priest as teenagers in the same bed at a church rectory in Richmond.
Barry McGrory, 85, a former Ottawa priest, faces four charges based on two historic sex abuse complaints dating to the late 1960s.
Charges in connection with a third complainant were withdrawn last year after the man died of cancer.
McGrory, who was officially removed from the priesthood last year by the Vatican, has pleaded not guilty.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin ruled Tuesday that Crown attorney John Semenoff will be allowed to use similar fact evidence as part of the case against McGrory.
In making her ruling, O’Bonsawin said the complainants both alleged they were assaulted in the same bed at St. Philip Parish in Richmond after being plied with alcohol or medication.
In both cases, she noted, McGrory is alleged to have entered the bedroom of the church rectory where the complainants were sleeping to commit the assaults.
One case involved a single incident of sexual touching, O’Bonsawin said, while the second involved a series of alleged sex assaults.
Despite those differences, the judge concluded, “there’s a high degree of connectedness between the two incidents in question.”
The ruling means O’Bonsawin will be able, when assessing evidence in the case, to use the testimony of one complainant to corroborate elements of the other’s account.
McGory’s defence lawyer, Leo Russomanno, told court Tuesday that his client has elected not testify. As a result, the trial will proceed to closing arguments Wednesday.
McGrory did speak with police after his arrest in November 2016.
In a transcript of that interview, entered as a court exhibit, McGrory is asked by Det. Steve Cashen if he had sexual relations with one of the complainants, who was 15 at the time of the allegations.
“I could have had, yeah,” McGrory told Cashen, according to a vetted transcript of the interview.
The complainant told police that he met McGrory in 1968 after he started to play touch football. He said McGrory would provide him and other boys with alcohol, and that the priest on several occasions invited him back to St. Philip Church under the pretext that he needed help with some work at the rectory.
The complainant also told police that McGrory became good friends with his guardian, who gave the priest access to their home.
The complainant told police McGrory would let himself into the house late at night, and that he would often awake to the priest fondling his penis.
The complainant said he didn’t cry out because he was afraid of being labelled a homosexual. What’s more, he told police, McGrory warned him that no one would take the word of a troubled youth over a priest.
In his police interview, McGrory told Cashen that he met the boy while playing Saturday morning touch football in New Edinburgh.
“I felt great compassion for him,” McGrory said. “I think he was often depressed.”
McGrory admitted to drinking with the youth, but he refused to explain what he meant when he said that he “could have” had sexual relations with him.
“I’ll have to leave it at that,” said McGrory, who later told Cashen that his defence lawyer would “bawl the hell out of me” if he went further.
He flat-out denied having oral sex with the youth, saying he had “an antipathy” to that sex act.
The man lodged a complaint with Ottawa police in September 2016 — three months after the Citizen revealed the story of McGrory’s disturbing sexual misdeeds while pastor of Holy Cross Parish in the 1970s and ’80s.
The Archdiocese of Ottawa has settled out of court with two women who said they were abused as adolescents while McGrory led the parish.
One of the victims was paid $300,000 in the largest known settlement of its kind in the Ottawa diocese.
In an interview published at that time, in May 2016, McGrory said that he was a sex addict as a young priest, and suffered from a powerful attraction to male and female adolescents.
McGrory said he told then-archbishop Joseph-Aurèle Plourde about his sexual problems in the mid-1980s, and asked for treatment.
Instead of receiving help, McGrory said, he was transferred to a Toronto organization dedicated to assisting remote Catholic missions, many of them in Canada’s North.
Four years after leaving Ottawa, in 1991, McGrory was charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old Indigenous youth. He was convicted of the crime and given a suspended sentence.
McGrory said he was healed of his attraction to adolescents after “surrendering” himself to God, and has remained celibate with the help of a group called Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, which employs a 12-step program similar to that pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous.
Ottawa born and raised, McGrory holds a PhD in theology from Thomas Aquinas University in Rome. In 1974, he was named pastor of the Holy Cross Parish, where he became a high-profile peace and social justice activist.
He was dismissed from the priesthood last year by the Vatican through a process known as “laicization.” His official removal from the priesthood followed a determined campaign by one of his acknowledged victims, Colleen Passard, who reached an out-of-court settlement with the diocese for the abuse she suffered after meeting McGrory at Ottawa’s Holy Cross Parish in the 1970s.
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