A Québec judge orders a Catholic religious order to pay compensation to victims of sexual abuse.
A Quebec court has ordered a religious group to compensate victims of sexual abuse involving several of the organization’s priests — a total payout that could eventually reach millions of dollars.
The Quebec Superior Court ruled Thursday that the Redemptorist Order will have to pay at least $75,000 in damages to each victim who attended the Saint-Alphonse Seminary between 1960 and 1987.
It’s interesting, as always, that the religious order has to be forced to pay compensation; that it doesn’t simply do everything it can to compensate because it’s the right thing to do and because religion is supposed to make people good.
“It’s the tip of the iceberg,” said lawyer Pierre Boivin.
“In a class-action (suit), people don’t communicate with us until there is a judgment.”
In his ruling, Justice Claude Bouchard said ex-students who can prove they were victims of assault “of a particular nature” will also be eligible for an additional $75,000.
Boivin said the Roman Catholic order has the funds to pay the damages, which could end up totalling several million dollars.
And if the order doesn’t have the funds, it can sell off its property.
Former student Frank Tremblay launched the suit in 2010 against the order, the school and his attacker, Rev. Raymond-Marie Lavoie.
To this day, only Lavoie has been convicted of criminal charges. In 2011, he pleaded guilty to 18 counts involving 13 victims over an 11-year period from 1973 to 1984 and was sentenced to jail time.
Of the nine priests named in the class-action suit, six are dead and the other three have claimed that they live below the poverty line.
The judge ordered Tremblay be awarded the full amount of $150,000.
Not a huge sum, either.
“The whole organization was gangrenous and Justice Bouchard saw that very well,” Tremblay told The Canadian Press.
Carlo Tarini, a spokesman for the Quebec Association of Victims of Priests, calls Tremblay “a genuine hero” for coming forward.
“The Redemptorist fought like alley cats to defend the indefensible,” Tarini said.
“They did everything to prevent the victims from testifying, and when they did, they were astonishingly evil — especially for people who give lessons in morality.”
Good to know, isn’t it – they fought like alley cats to prevent the victims from testifying, and they were astonishingly evil. That’s how they roll.
…they fought like alley cats to prevent the victims from testifying…
And here are some local alley cats:
The [14-year-old girl] said she confided in [Catholic priest] Bayhi on three separate occasions in the confessional booth, telling the priest that the man had “inappropriately touched her, kissed her and told her that ‘he wanted to make love to her,'” according to court documents.
In a court deposition, the girl said Bayhi told her to handle the situation herself because “too many people would be hurt” otherwise. She said when she asked for advice from the priest on how to end the abuse, “He just said, this is your problem. Sweep it under the floor and get rid of it,” according to details outlined in the Supreme Court decision.
…
Before the case went to trial, the diocese sought to prevent the parents of the teenager from using any evidence or description from the girl’s confessions. A district judge denied the motion, saying the testimony of the teenager was relevant and she was able to waive her own secrecy privilege.
Ugh, tag fail, middle paragraph is also from the article.
This is just the latest in a long serious of such abuse cases. The first ones go back to the 70s, with the largest scandal being that of the Duplesis orphans. Those orphans were children born out of wedlock who were placed in various Catholic institutions back in the 20s, 30,s 40s and 50s.