French Oblates plan to kick out Johannes Rivoire

NTI, victims of former Nunavut priest’s alleged abuse met with Rivoire Wednesday, demanding he return to Canada

Kilikvak Kabloona, NTI’s chief executive officer, speaks to the media following a meeting between Rev. Johannes Rivoire and the NTI delegation inside the French Oblates’ headquarters in Lyon, France, while David Aglukark, an NTI employee also part of the delegation, looks on.

By Emma Tranter

For years, Inuit in Nunavut have called for Rev. Johannes Rivoire to return to Canada to face justice over allegations of sexual abuse, but they were met with silence.

On Wednesday, one of the victims of his alleged abuse, Steve Mapsalak, and two children of another victim, Marius Tungilik, met face to face with the now 91-year-old priest, at the French Oblates’ headquarters in Lyon, France.

Rivoire, a Roman Catholic priest in Nunavut from 1960 through the early 1990s, was charged with historical sexual abuse in relation to allegations in 1998, but those charges were stayed in 2017.

RCMP laid a new charge of indecent assault against Rivoire earlier this year.

Rivoire left Canada in 1993 and has lived in France since. Even though France has an extradition treaty with Canada, French nationals are protected from extradition.

Rev. Vincent Gruber speaks to reporters outside the Oblates’ headquarters on Wednesday.

The delegation, which arrived in Paris on Monday, had just pulled into the Lyon train station on Wednesday when its members were notified Rivoire had agreed to meet with them.

Clearly emotional, delegation members took seats at a boardroom-style table in the French Oblates headquarters, sitting across from Rev. Vincent Gruber, who leads France’s Oblates, also known as the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

The delegation’s meetings with Rivoire — which lasted two hours — and with Gruber were both closed to the news media.

Gruber told reporters in French that the Oblates have begun the process of removing Rivoire from their congregation, a process that takes up to three months and that could go all the way to the Vatican.

Gruber said he had to act, given Rivoire’s repeated refusal to co-operate.

Members of the NTI delegation settle into the room where they met with Rev. Vincent Gruber before meeting with Rev. Johannes Rivoire in another room.

“He loses all his rights on our side,” Gruber said. “It’s because he didn’t obey the order to present himself to justice [in Canada].”

“I believe the victims. Since the beginning. I have no problem with that,” he added.

The meeting with Rivoire came less than 24 hours after the delegation, led by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., appealed again to French authorities for Rivoire’s extradition. That appeal was met with refusal.

Gruber also said the Oblates plan to appeal to the Vatican to push Rivoire to face his charge in Canada.
He said he believes it’s essential that Rivoire face justice in Canada.

“Not only for the presumed victims, for the Inuit Peoples, but also for the Oblate missionaries and the Catholic Church,” he said.

Gruber said the Oblates also want a commission to look into past actions and why there was so much “delay and silence” from the Catholic Church regarding the allegations against Rivoire.

Rivoire refused to speak to media who were waiting inside and outside the Oblates’ headquarters, though at one point it seemed like he might come out, Gruber said.

A view from the street of the French Oblates’ headquarters in Lyon, France.

Before NTI arrived in France on Monday, Rivoire had told the delegation through his lawyer that he would not meet with them.

Kilikvak Kabloona, NTI’s chief executive officer, told reporters that in the meeting, Rivoire denied all allegations of abuse.

“He does recall individuals in Nunavut and then he completely denies any allegations,” she said, adding language was not an issue.

“It is clear to me that Rivoire understands English. He acknowledges that he remembers Steve and other individuals in Naujaat,” Kabloona said.

“He had nodded his head when Steve was speaking, and yet he denies everything.”

Kabloona also said Rivoire speaks Inuktitut and that he understood Inuktitut when it was spoken in the room.

He refuses to travel to Canada because of his “skin condition,” Kabloona said.

Gruber said getting Rivoire to agree to the meeting was “very, very, very difficult.”

He said the Oblates plan to continue to urge Rivoire, who was still in the Oblates’ headquarters on Wednesday evening, to fly to Canada to face justice.
NTI, which is leading the delegation, has purchased a plane ticket for Rivoire to return to Canada on Friday with the delegation.

“I want to see Rivoire on that plane. That is clear,” Gruber said.

A view of the back of the French Oblates’ headquarters.

“We will speak with him again strongly … I can’t force him. I will do everything possible to try to convince him.”

Gruber was also clear that the Oblates are not paying for Rivoire’s living expenses, his lawyer or his pension.

“We are not paying for Rivoire for a very long time,” Gruber said. “We are determined to pursue our efforts to the maximum to convince Johannes to present himself to the Canadian justice system.”

The other members of the delegation declined to speak to media immediately following the meeting.

NTI is expected to hold a press conference in Lyon Thursday morning.

Complete Article HERE!

B.C. victim sues estate of priest sex offender and Catholic church officials

In May 1989, Harold McIntee, then aged 59, pleaded guilty to 17 counts of sexual assault against males.

1989 file photo of Harold McIntee being led away by a Williams Lake sheriff.

By Keith Fraser

A B.C. man who claims he was one of 17 young men who were sexually abused by a Catholic priest over a period of 25 years is suing the perpetrator’s estate and Catholic Church officials for damages.

The victim, who is only identified by initials in the lawsuit, says that while on assignment in and around Terrace in 1981 or 1982, Father Harold Daniel McIntee sexually abused him and two other young men.

He says that while staying overnight at the Secret Heart rectory with McIntee, he was experiencing abdominal pain and McIntee asked him to remove his pants to see if he had a swollen testicle.The plaintiff, who was then aged 17 or 18, says that in the remote mining community of Kitsault, where the priest helped him to gain employment, McIntee climbed into his bed asking for a hug and proceeded to place his hand inside his shorts and masturbate his genitals.

McIntee allegedly committed the abuse in the context of a pattern of grooming that was designed to gain the plaintiff’s trust, break down his boundaries, and maintain his silence.

In May 1989, McIntee, then aged 59, pleaded guilty to 17 counts of sexual assault against young men, including an offence against the plaintiff, according to the lawsuit, and was sentenced to two years in jail and three years probation.“The grooming and abuse by McIntee were not isolated occurrences perpetrated by a lone deviant,” says the lawsuit filed in B.C. Supreme Court.

“The grooming and abuse suffered by the plaintiff was a perpetuation of a nearly 2,000-year history, pattern and continuum of systemic abuse suffered by children and vulnerable persons in dioceses and at institutions run by various Roman Catholic entities in Canada and throughout the world.”

The lawsuit says that prior to being in Terrace, McIntee was involved in the First Nations Ministry at St. Joseph’s Indian Residential School in Williams Lake between 1959 and 1963, serving alongside Glenn William Doughty, who was also ordained by the religious order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

Doughty was later charged with and convicted of multiple counts of sexual abuse of young males, says the suit.McIntee also served alongside and under Father Hubert O’Connor, who was the principal of St. Joseph’s and later became Bishop of Prince George until 1991 when he resigned amidst multiple charges of sexual abuse of Indigenous girls, it says.

“At all material times, the (Oblates of Mary Immaculate) knew or ought to have known that many of its priests and brothers, including but not limited to McIntee, had a propensity to groom and sexually abuse vulnerable persons,” says the writ.

The plaintiff claims that the cause of the grooming and abuse of the plaintiff is rooted in the culture of the church, which he says permitted “dark networks” to form where clergy abusers identified and communicated with one another about their abuse of children.

“The plaintiff says the culture permitted similar dark networks to form in Western Canada, causing or contributing to his grooming and abuse.”

As a result of the alleged abuse, he claims he has suffered injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder, a major depressive disorder, chronic sleep disturbance and fatigue, diminished capacity for intimacy impacting his social relationships and confusion over his sexual orientation.

He is seeking a declaration that the church’s culture constitutes a public nuisance and is seeking damages.

No response has yet been filed to the lawsuit, which contains allegations that have not been tested in court. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver, one of the named defendants, could not be reached for comment.

Complete Article HERE!

Nunavut Inuit headed to France to seek extradition of former Oblate priest

Tanya Tungilik says she wants to meet face to face with the former French Oblate priest her late father alleged sexually abused him as a child.

MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, who is not part of an upcoming delegation to France, holds a photo of Fr. Johannes Rivoire during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Thursday, July 8, 2021. The former priest has long been accused of abusing children in Nunavut.

By Emily Blake

Tanya Tungilik says she wants to meet face to face with the former French Oblate priest her late father alleged sexually abused him as a child.

Tanya Tungilik says she wants to meet face to face with the former French Oblate priest her late father alleged sexually abused him as a child.

She is to join a delegation of Inuit planning to travel from Nunavut to Paris and Lyon, France, next week to seek the extradition of Father Johannes Rivoire to Canada. The trip, led by Nunavut Tunnagavik Inc., a group representing Nunavut Inuit, is to also include Tungilik’s brother, Jesse Tungilik, and Steve Mapsalak, who has also accused Rivoire of abuse.

Tungilik says her father, Marius Tungilik, who died in 2012, alleged he was sexually abused by Rivoire when he was 13 years old while working at the Co-op store in Naujaat, Nvt. Those accusations have never been heard in court.

“I want to see Rivoire himself in Lyon and tell him what he did to my dad and to our family,” Tungilik said. “I want him to know how it affected us and that my dad died because of him from all the trauma he had gone through.”

Marius Tungilik had said he was also sexually abused as a child by an Oblate brother at Sir Joseph Bernier Federal Day School and its student residence Turquetil Hall in Chesterfield Inlet, Nvt. His disclosure played a role in prompting an apology from Roman Catholic Bishop Renald Rouleau in 1996, which he helped to write.

Tanya Tungilik shared her family’s story with Pope Francis when he visited Iqaluit earlier this summer, when he apologized for the role the Roman Catholic Church played in the residential school system.

Rivoire, who is now 91 years old and lives in Lyon, has long been accused of sexually abusing Inuit children when he was an Oblate priest in Nunavut from the 1960s until 1993, when he returned to France.

A Canadian warrant was issued for his arrest in 1998 but four criminal charges were stayed in 2017.

Following a new complaint to the Nunavut RCMP in 2021, Rivoire was charged in February with one count of indecent assault of a girl in Arviat and Whale Cove between 1974 and 1979. A fresh Canada-wide warrant was issued for his arrest and Canadian judicial authorities sent an extradition request to France.

Although Canada and France share an extradition treaty, it does not require either country to extradite its own citizens.

Rivoire denied the allegations against him in an interview with APTN from his retirement home this summer, and said he does not plan to return to Canada.

Kilikvak Kabloona, CEO of Nunavut Tunnagavik Inc., said the Oblates have told the group that Rivoire refuses to surrender and it has no other course of action. She said while the Oblates have expressed their support for the request to have Rivoire extradited, she is concerned they continue to pay for his living costs in France and his lawyer.

The group’s president, Aluki Kotierk, said she’s hoping to raise awareness about the case in France and believes the French public will support Rivoire’s extradition, particularly since a report released in October 2021 detailed the widespread sexual abuse of children by clerics in the French Catholic Church over the past 70 years.

The delegation has requested to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti while they are in Paris, but have not received a response.

Kotierk said Rivoire, through his lawyer, declined to meet with delegation members while they are in Lyon, but she is hoping he will change his mind.

Tungilik said if Rivoire refuses to meet, she plans to protest outside his residence.

During their time in France, the delegation also plans to meet with Sister Veronique Margron, president of the Conference of Religious in France, Antoine Garrapon, head of the commission responsible for compensating victims of abuse from the French Catholic Church, and Father Vincent Gruber, who leads France’s Oblates.

Complete Article HERE!

The complicated extradition to Canada of a French priest accused of pedophilia

A man protests during a meeting with Pope Francis at Nakasuk Elementary School Square in Iqaluit, Canada, Friday, July 29, 2022. Pope Francis travels to chilly Iqaluit, capital of northern Nunavut, to meet with Inuit Indigenous people, including school children and survivors of residential schools, in his final day in Canada. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

by Lance Vaughn

Canada has asked France to extradite Joannes Rivoire, a priest accused of committing various sexual crimes against minors in Nunavut, an area in northern Canada populated almost exclusively by Inuit. The case of this priest has been public for some time and also known to high ecclesiastical hierarchies, but he has come back to talk about it because the extradition was requested during the recent visit to Canada by Pope Francis, who apologized on behalf of the Catholic Church. for the oppression, violence and abuses committed by the clergy between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries against indigenous peoples.

Beyond the formal apology, for decades the representatives of indigenous peoples have been demanding that the case of Rivoire be addressed: it has become, for them and for Canada, the symbol of the impunity of sexual assaults against children committed by members of the Church .

On Thursday 4 August, the Canadian Minister of Justice, David Lametti, confirmed the news of Rivoire’s extradition request, also saying that “collaboration and cooperation are essential to address the shameful legacy of residential schools”, that is, the boarding schools for indigenous people established by Canadian government and managed largely by the Catholic Church in which, within a system of forced assimilation, children suffered numerous physical and psychological violence, often living in conditions on the verge of survival. “It is important for Canada and its international partners that serious crimes are investigated and prosecuted,” Lametti said.

The French Foreign Ministry in turn confirmed that it had received the extradition request and made it known that it is currently “being processed by the Ministry of Justice”. Rivoire has dual nationality, but his extradition from France, a source close to the case explained to Agence France-Presse, could represent “a problem” because it is “very complicated” to extradite French citizens.

Today Joannes Rivoire is 91 years old. He lived in Canada from the early 1960s until 1993, when he returned to live in France, near Lyon, in a residence for priests of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate missionaries, a male religious institute of pontifical right. His sudden departure from Canada actually coincided with the filing of two lawsuits against him for sexual assault and obscene acts. The facts were committed between 1968 and 1970, on those who at the time were Inuit children. The police, on that occasion, did not even manage to question the priest, who had already escaped.

Last March, two journalists from Le Monde, Marie-Béatrice Baudet and Hélène Jouan, published an investigation into Rivoire and managed to meet and talk to him. In their article they told how one of the two abused people who had reported Rivoire in 1993 was called Marius Tungilik: he had died in 2012 at the age of 55 “from alcohol abuse”. According to his testimony, the priest had sexually assaulted him in 1970, in Naujaat, in the Nunavut region, when he was 12 years old.

A childhood friend, Piita Irnik, now 75 years old and also an Inuit, described to the two journalists the moment when Marius Tungilik had told him everything: “We had known each other since childhood, but it was only in 1989, during a joke about hunting, who had the courage to tell me about it for the first time. It was a very difficult conversation, ”said Piita, himself sexually abused in a boarding school for indigenous people. “Joannes Rivoire destroyed the life of my best friend and that of other Inuit children. I will not have rest until he is brought to justice ».

On September 29, 2021, Irnik took advantage of a ceremony honoring the survivors of residential boarding schools to ask Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, “where the Rivoire file had gone.” “We’re working on it,” Trudeau replied.

Joannes Rivoire has always denied any accusation against him saying he is innocent. Or rather saying that “we are all sinners”, that his life “is almost over” and that he is “preparing to pass over to the other side: I am at peace with God who, I hope, will give me paradise”. The two journalists from Le Monde asked Rivoire if he was aware of the complaints filed against him in 1993: “I have nothing to do with it,” she said. And when they asked him if he remembered Marius Tungilik he replied: “Yes, but I don’t know where I met him. Do you know he was an alcoholic? Make no mistake, though: he didn’t start drinking because he was abused, he said he was abused because he was ashamed of drinking. “

Canada had requested a second arrest warrant against Rivoire last February after the filing, in September 2021, of a new complaint for sexual assault in the 1970s and presented by Louisa Uttak, a 53-year-old Inuit woman.

“I have met Father Rivoire twice in my life, in Arviat and Rankin Inlet”, two Inuit settlements in the Kivalliq region, in Nunavut: “The first time, in 1974, I was 6 years old,” he told Le Monde. He said that the priest had waited for the end of the mass and then took her aside and abused her: «he touched Me and masturbated. And while he did this to me, he showed me an image of the devil, threatening me: “If you say something, you will go to hell.” I was scared, so scared… I was just a little girl ». Louisa Uttak said she found the courage to speak out as she watched her grandchildren grow up: “Now I only want one thing, to have Father Rivoire in front of me to ask him: ‘Why? Why did you do this to me? “”

At the end of March, the Inuit representatives of Canada met the Pope in private, explicitly asking him to intervene in the Rivoire case: “We would like those victims to have a semblance of justice and that the families of the deceased victims also witness the recognition of a certain level of responsibility “. However, their demands have been going on for decades.

When the Vatican was informed of the accusations against Rivoire, it gave the Oblate missionaries of Mary Immaculate of France three instructions: prevent the priest from any contact with minors, put him in a residence and withdraw him from active ministry. Father Ken Thorson, leader of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Canada, said that Rivoire should not shy away from justice: “We encourage Johannes Rivoire to do what he should have done a long time ago: cooperate with the police and make himself available for a trial, if not in Canada, in France ”. Thorson also added that the Oblates are available to share documents and information with the competent authorities.

During the Pope’s visit to Canada, the representatives of the indigenous people renewed their request for intervention: “We would like Rivoire to be extradited to Canada to face the charges in court and we asked the Pope to intervene to ask him directly to return to Canada” .

However, there is a precedent, concerning the former priest Eric Dejaeger, who after being accused of pedophilia crimes was expelled from his country of origin, Belgium, sentenced in Canada in 2015 to nineteen years in prison for sexually assaulting 23 Inuit children. Last May he was granted probation.

Complete Article HERE!

Hundreds of residential school photos found in Rome archives

Raymond Frogner knew he found something important when he located images of residential school students in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate archives

Raymond Frogner, the head archivist for the Winnipeg-based National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, was recently in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate archives in Rome searching for documents related to the religious order’s time running residential schools in Canada. Frogner is shown in this undated handout photo.

By Kelly Geraldine Malone

Raymond Frogner says when he found images of residential school students in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate archives in Rome, he knew he was looking at something important.

“It did have a very historic feeling to it, very profound,” the head archivist for the Winnipeg-based Centre for Truth and Reconciliation said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.

Few archivists are able to explore the religious order’s private records in the Italian city, Frogner said. But he spent five days early last month looking through the archives at the Oblate General House, where photos, personnel files and manuscripts describe the group’s actions around the world since its founding in 1816.

That legacy includes a significant presence in Canada.

The Oblates operated 48 residential schools, including the Marieval Indian Residential School at Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan and the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, where the discovery of unmarked graves last year spurred calls for justice and transparency.

Frogner pored through the archives in the former residence of an Italian nobleman. He worked in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and a large fresco nearby depicted Jesus and the founder of the Oblates, Eugène de Mazenod.

But his interest was sparked by what was inside a set of metal drawers.

“The big find for me was in the photographs.”

There were 20 drawers of photos and three of those contained images of the order’s missions in Canada. Many depicted children in residential schools in the early 20th century.

Frogner said he suspects there are up to 1,000 photos that could be important to understanding what happened in Canada.

“Not to my surprise, the archivist at the archives there had no idea the significance of what they were holding,” he said.

The next step is to work quickly to digitize the photos, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and Oblates said in a recent joint statement. The images are then to be transferred to the centre in Manitoba.

“The records we assessed will help compile a more accurate timeline of Oblate members at residential schools throughout Canada,” said Stephanie Scott, executive director for the centre, in a statement.

Frogner said the hope is to work with communities to identify the students in the photos.

“For us, as we go through records and try to uncover the destiny of children that have been lost, these are photographs that might indicate at certain points in time where these children were located,” he said.

Frogner brought with him a list of priests known to have committed crimes against children.

He looked through personnel files on the actions and locations of priests. While none of those files contained information about crimes, Frogner said they showed priests moving locations frequently, having difficulty working with children or advising a priest to get married and leave the order.

“(Information) was very much couched in vague terms..”

Frogner said he did not have enough time to fully parse those records. After the images are digitized, he hopes to examine the personnel documents more fully.

The order’s long-standing practice is to keep personnel records sealed for 50 years after a member’s death. The order has said it is taking steps to accelerate access to the files.

The order’s files currently in Canada likely contain more complete information, Frogner added.

The Oblates have already provided the national centre with more than 40,000 records and 10,000 more have been digitized.

The Royal British Columbia Museum received about 250 boxes of materials, a third of which relate to residential schools, from the Oblates beginning in 2019.

There are also agreements between the Oblates and other archives to transfer relevant records.

Frogner said he knows his recent findings are of particular importance as Pope Francis visited Canada last week to apologize for the role members of the Roman Catholic Church had in residential schools.

Throughout the papal visit, Indigenous leaders urged the release of all documents related to the institutions.

The Oblates have previously apologized for their involvement in residential schools and the harms they inflicted on Indigenous Peoples. Rev. Ken Thorson of the OMI Lacombe Canada based in Ottawa said in a news release that transparency is critical to truth and reconciliation efforts.

“While it has been a constructive year of partnership, I know that these steps are only the beginning of a continued journey towards truth, justice, healing and reconciliation.”

Complete Article HERE!