Oblates Of Mary Immaculate – Page 5

August 6, 2022

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)

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.

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August 3, 2022August 3, 2022

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.”

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July 29, 2022July 29, 2022

NCTR digging into records of Oblate priests who staffed residential schools

Oblates pledge to loosen privacy policy on personnel records

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg.

By Kathleen Martens

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation is doing a deep dive into the backgrounds of religious personnel who ran residential schools for the federal government.

The Centre’s head archivist recently returned from Rome where he spent five days viewing, among other things, personnel records of Catholic Oblate priests.

“We know very, very little about the teachers, the professors, the priests,” said Raymond Frogner in an interview.

“And I think that’s wrong.”

Frogner said the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a missionary arm of the Catholic Church, staffed 48 of the 139 federally funded residential schools in Canada.

He said the group opened its archives to the Centre after the public outcry that followed the discovery of 215 suspected unmarked graves located at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C. The Oblates ran the Kamloops school.

“If we want a complete story of the residential school system – how it was run, what the experience was like – then we need to know more about the teachers who served there,” Frogner added.

“We are currently in discussion with the Oblates to open up the personnel files, and they have agreed to that.”

NCTR — A memorial outside the former Kamloops school that was illuminated orange to honour victims of residential schools in June.

215 graves

The 215 graves announced by Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc leadership are believed to be that of children who died at the school. More suspected graves have been discovered on other First Nations and more searches are planned.

Research by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission identified 3,213 deaths at residential schools between the 1880s and 1990s.

Frogner said he has a list of approximately 15 Oblate priests who were convicted of crimes against children forced to attend the schools and he specifically located those personnel files in the Rome archives.

But he was unable to copy the information due to the Oblates’ privacy policy.

APTN News was denied the personnel file of Fr. Joannes Rivoire, who is accused of sexually abusing an Inuk girl in the 1970s while serving as a church priest in Nunavut for 30 years. Rivoire said he didn’t do it.

Fr. Ken Thorson, who speaks for the Oblates in Canada, said he couldn’t release the information due to government regulations.

“As mentioned in our release, we are actively working with our archival partners to make personnel records of Oblates as accessible as privacy law allows,” he wrote in an email.

“Unfortunately, as Johannes Rivoire is a living Oblate who is currently under investigation by secular authorities, Canadian privacy law prevents us from sharing his personnel records at this time. We have committed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation and will make any relevant records available to law enforcement.”

Oblate priests — Head office of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Canada in Ottawa, Ont.

Oblates’ policy

Thorson did not mention the Oblates’ own policy that protects the information for up to 50 years until after a priest has died.

Frogner said the Oblates’ have told him they may loosen their policy.

“We are currently in discussion with the Oblates to open up the personnel files and they have agreed to that,” he said.

“For one thing, they’re going to reconsider and reduce this 50-year restriction they have on files.”

Frogner said the residential schools were staffed by Oblates from abroad and Quebec.

“We don’t have a hard number of how many missionaries came from other countries but that’s something we are working on getting,” he said.

“We don’t yet have a hard number of the Canadians either. We know a large, predominant amount of them came from Quebec.”

The ‘formation’

Frogner said the personnel files gave him a glimpse of the men who became priests. The Catholic church operated 60 per cent of the schools.

“They took those vows [of poverty, chastity and obedience] when they joined as Oblates, and they had to go through what they called the formation…,” he said.

“And there’s kind of a report card from their superior that graded them on their scholastic work, their moral character, their service, their devotion – all that kind of stuff.”

Frogner noted it’s not just the Centre, which is located at the University of Manitoba, that wants the information. But Indigenous communities have been asking who had access to their children.

“[They] have asked for a more accountable, transparent record of what these priests were doing,” he said of Indigenous leaders and families.

“Really, the [Kamloops grave] discoveries from 2021 cast such a bright spotlight on the activities of the Oblates.”

The Centre wants to tell as full a story as possible about the 100-year school system designed to assimilate Indigenous children into colonial society, Frogner added.

“People can take the records and do with them what they wish,” he said. “I’m quite content to see the records used in court.

“It’s all about a better, more accountable understanding of what happened.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

July 25, 2022July 25, 2022

Another pope’s apology isn’t enough when Catholic Church’s cover-ups and hypocrisy continue to this day

As Francis visits Canada, we need to ask: have churches and governments created conditions allowing clergy to continue their sexual abuse of children?

By Pamela Palmater

The truth is, there have been many apologies issued by many popes.

But as Pope Francis’s visit to Canada begins this weekend, the question to be asked is whether these men have taken substantive actions to end the abuse in which the church they lead has been complicit.

The Catholic Church and its officials have directed, authorized, counselled and/or were complicit in the horrific physical and sexual abuse of children; subjugation, vilification and violence against women; and the deaths of millions of Indigenous peoples in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South America and the African continent. According to recent inquiries, that abuse has continued into the present.

For some First Nation, Inuit and Métis survivors, this papal visit to Canada that begins this weekend in Alberta is an important part of their healing journey. For others, the Pope is the last person they want on their territories, as he represents a religious organization that has caused much misery around the world.

In 2017, Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse found that from 1950 into the 1980s, 4,445 victims were sexually abused in a Catholic setting, but not all victims were recorded before 1950. It found that the cover-up of sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests and brothers was systemic — a matter of church policy — and abusers were neither reported to the police nor expelled.

Last year, an independent inquiry concluded that there have been more than 216,000 victims of sexual abuse by French Catholic clergy between 1950 and 2020. The church was found to have turned a blind eye to the abuse perpetrated by 3,000 priests and other people involved in the church. The evidence showed that the church was more concerned about protecting its image than preventing the abuse from continuing. Like the situation in Australia, the church did not hold abusers to account. To make matters worse, in some countries, those sexual predators have been left to continue the abuse.

An investigation by The Associated Press in 2019 found that nearly 1,700 priests and other clergy members that the Roman Catholic Church itself considers “credibly accused of child sexual abuse” live under the radar with easy access to children. The investigation revealed that these men are employed as teachers, counsellors, juvenile detention officers, nurses and foster parents, or work in family shelters and even Disney World — roles that keep them disturbingly close to children.

They easily pass fingerprint tests and/or criminal record checks (since they were never prosecuted); not surprisingly, a large number have gone on to commit additional sexual assaults. The fact that the church never held them to account for child sexual abuse is bad enough, but the subsequent cover-up and failure to monitor them now has put countless American children at risk.

The question needs to be asked here in Canada: have churches and governments created the conditions allowing Catholic clergy to continue their sexual abuse of children?

In 2016, the federal government spent over $1.5 million to hire 17 private investigators to identify those believed to have committed sexual abuse at residential schools. More than 5,300 perpetrators were identified, but not for the purposes of criminal prosecution. Instead, they were invited to participate in the hearings related to compensation, but not surprisingly, the vast majority did not accept the invitation.

Of the more than 5,000 sexual predators who abused the majority of 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Métis children in residential schools, a mere fraction have ever faced criminal charges. Fewer than 50 have been convicted; and of those, most spent only months in prison. It begs the question: where are they now — and how many more children have they abused because neither the churches nor law enforcement saw fit to protect children from known sex offenders?

The pomp and circumstance surrounding the Pope’s visit has overshadowed these important questions.

It would be wrong to assume that the legacy of Indian residential schools is about historic or past abuses. There were many horrific abuses in those schools, from medical experimentation and torture to severe beatings and deaths. The many unmarked graves being identified across the country are evidence that the extent of the crimes is far worse than has been reported.

The failure to hold the perpetrators to account — then and now — created an opportunity for the abuse to continue into the present, just as it has in other countries. While not all survivors want criminal prosecutions, some do. But the passage of time permitted by the church and government will have clearly prejudiced their cases. Had Canada created a special prosecution team when they first knew about the abuses, things may have been different — but maybe not, given the change of tactics by the church in other parts of the world.

Churches can now be covered by “church abuse and molestation” liability insurance, which means that any litigation or claims against the church for abuse may well have to face a team of aggressive insurance lawyers. In some areas, the Catholic Church has adopted more aggressive litigation tactics like hiring private detectives to dig up dirt on claimants; engaging large, powerful law firms; fighting to keep documents secret; and/or filing countersuits against parents.

In one case, the Diocese of Honolulu countersued a mother, claiming she failed to protect her children from abusive priests. These actions are clearly meant to dissuade others from bringing forward criminal or civil cases. One Roman Catholic cardinal called out the church for concealing, manipulating and/or destroying documents in an effort to cover up sexual abuse.

In addition to the Catholic Church not sharing all documents related to Indian residential schools in Canada, the federal government destroyed 15 tons of paper documents related to the residential school system between 1936 and 1944. St. Anne’s residential school survivors are still battling Canada in court for the release of documents that detail the abuse they suffered in Fort Albany, Ont.

All of these actions — from hiding documents to failing to prosecute sex offenders — betray government- and church-stated commitments to reconciliation. If either institution wants to engage in substantive reconciliation, it must listen to the survivors, the families and community leaders who have made demands that go beyond carefully worded apologies. There have been many diverse Indigenous voices calling for substantive action in addition to an apology. I believe that all of these actions should be implemented, including, but not limited to the following:

Government and the Catholic Church must take whatever means necessary to stop ongoing sexual abuse of children and take urgent steps to prevent it in the future;

Governments and the church must hold known sexual predators to account;

Governments and the church must contribute whatever funding is necessary to identify the children in unmarked graves across Canada, and support communities to bring them home and/or memorialize them;

All documents related to any aspect of Indian residential schools, day schools and other church activities impacting Indigenous peoples must be released by governments and the church;

Stop fighting St. Anne’s residential school survivors in court;

The church must finally pay its agreed-upon compensation and any additional compensation needed to make full reparations for its crimes and cover-ups related to Indigenous peoples;

All 94 Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to be implemented without further delay;

Return lands held by the Catholic Church back to First Nations who desire their return;

Immediately rescind, repeal or withdraw the Doctrine of Discovery (by whatever legal means necessary to give it effect);

Canada should appoint a special prosecutor to bring sexual offenders to justice in a way that does not retraumatize survivors, families and communities;

There should be an independent review of the actions of the church in relation to sexual abuse in Indian residential schools; and

Ensure that known abusers are listed and not permitted to work near children.

Understanding that survivors will each have their own vision of reconciliation, for many, anything less than an apology that includes an unqualified admission of the crimes committed, a full acceptance of responsibility, and a commitment to end the abuse and make full reparations will be just another empty apology and continuing injustice for First Nations, Inuit and Métis.

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July 22, 2022July 22, 2022

Canada’s Inuit seek Pope’s help to return accused priest from France

Pope Francis waves as he leads the Angelus prayer from his window, at the Vatican July 17, 2022.

By Rod Nickel

Canada’s Inuit people will press Pope Francis to help return a retired Roman Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse to face charges in Canada, a former political leader in the country’s North said.

Francis plans to visit Canada July 24-29 to apologize for abuses of indigenous children in government schools largely run by the Catholic church.

Retired priest Johannes Rivoire, 93, is charged with sexual assault related to his work in northern parishes for the Catholic congregation Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The charge against Rivoire, who lives in Lyon, France, was laid by Canadian police in February.

A woman alleged that Rivoire sexually assaulted her between 1974 and 1979, when she was a young girl. Neither the charge nor any allegations against Rivoire have been proven in court.

Rivoire, who has French and Canadian citizenship, did not respond to a request for comment Reuters made through France’s Oblates.

The woman who alleged the assault, now a grandmother, said to this day she does not like Sundays, when her abuse often took place. She keeps her hair short, remembering that her abuser would pull the long hair she had as a girl, to keep her quiet.

“I’m hoping (Francis) can help,” the woman told Reuters. “We’re Inuit, we have feelings too. We’re hurt from inside to outside.”

Identities of sexual assault victims are protected by Canadian courts.

Inuit have long alleged that Rivoire sexually abused children during his work in northern Canada from the 1960s to 1993.

Police laid three sex-related charges against Rivoire in 1998, but by then he had left for France. Canada’s Justice Department dropped those charges in 2017 concluding there was little chance of conviction given his departure.

Father Vincent Gruber, who leads France’s Oblates, said the group has asked Rivoire over the years to deal with the charges against him but he has refused.

Piita Irniq, 75, a former Nunavut politician, said he will use the five minutes he is scheduled with the Pope in Iqaluit next Friday to raise Rivoire’s case.

Irniq’s childhood friend, Marius Tungilik, said he was sexually abused by clergy, including Rivoire, as a boy in what’s now Naujaat, Nunavut.

The trauma drove Tungilik to drink heavily, leading to his 2012 death, Irniq said.

“He used alcohol to try and heal from what happened.”

The extradition treaty between Canada and France states that neither country is bound to extradite its own nationals. A spokesperson for Canada’s Justice Department declined to comment on whether Canada asked France to extradite Rivoire.

France’s foreign ministry and justice ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

“We urge Johannes Rivoire to do what he should have done long ago, cooperate with police and make himself available for the legal process,” said Father Ken Thorson, leader of OMI Lacombe, one of Canada’s Oblates groups.

A Vatican spokesperson said he needed to seek more information about Rivoire.

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