Today, priests undergo safe-environment training, and are taught never to be alone with a child. Every diocese has a lay committee that examines new allegations of sexual abuse. If a victim comes forward, he is immediately offered counselling and support. And if the complainant is under 18, police are automatically called (adults reporting historic abuse are given the option to alert authorities; some victims prefer not to). “There used to be a lack of understanding about sexual abuse,” says Winnipeg Archbishop James Weisberger, speaking on behalf of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. “We tended to see it like alcoholism, that it was a moral problem and completely within the power of the individual to change. So normally, when people were discovered doing things like this, they were called in and given a royal dressing-down, hoping that they would be scared out of that kind of behaviour.”
And if that didn’t work, they would be transferred to a new community, free to exploit another batch of unsuspecting children. “That is not the way we deal with things today,” Weisberger says.
For many victims, the Church’s epiphany smacks of damage control, not genuine change. While bishops talk about care and compassion, their attorneys are busy fighting lawsuits at every turn. And unlike their American counterparts, Canada’s bishops still have no idea how far-reaching the problem is on this side of the border. Is the prevalence rate lower than four per cent? Or higher? In the U.S., each diocese is also subject to an annual public audit, detailing exactly how many new allegations are levelled in a given year. In Canada, we only hear about a case if it lands in court. The public has no idea how many accusations have been covered up with hush money, or how many victims have been scared into silence.
When asked about specific Canadian statistics, Weisberger says such a study would be expensive (the John Jay analysis cost US$4 million) and that kind of money would be better spent on safe-environment training and counselling. “I can see why people could be concerned about this,” he says. “But the bishops have decided in Canada that they don’t want to approach it that way.”
But why, after so much sin and deceit, should people now trust the Church to do the right thing? “Simply by the way we are dealing with things,” Weisberger answers. “I don’t know how else you can prove it.”
Philip Latimer has a different strategy. Now 47, he was an altar boy at St. Paul’s Church in Havre Boucher, N.S., when he was raped for the first time by Father Allan A. MacDonald. “My life was forever changed,” Latimer says, holding back tears. “I can only describe it to you this way: he reached into my soul, tore out everything in me that was good—mentally, physically and emotionally—and ran me through a blender.”
Latimer would have qualified for financial damages under the settlement signed by Lahey, but when he heard about the announcement he decided not to bother with the paperwork. Latimer had spent his life trying to forget Father MacDonald, and he wanted to keep it that way. But in late September, when word spread that Lahey was caught with child pornography, something snapped. “I couldn’t help but focus on this fact,” he says. “I kept thinking: ‘what am I going to do? What can I do? What should I do?’ ”
What he did was opt out of the class-action settlement and file a lawsuit of his own. If Lahey—the man supposedly looking out for victims—was victimizing others, what else is going on behind rectory doors? “The more and more people who commit this crime, the better and better they are at trying to hide this crime,” Latimer says. “Their plan is never to admit anything that they knew, and so my plan is to reveal everything that they knew.” Beyond the statistics.
