Retired Quebec judge says he believes sexual abuse allegations against former Nunavut priest

— Canadian Oblates commissioned Andre Denis to investigate handling of allegations against Johannes Rivoire

Former Quebec Superior Court justice André Denis leads the Oblate Safeguarding Commission, an independent review of historical allegations of sexual abuse against Johannes Rivoire in present-day Nunavut.

By Emma Tranter, Tessa Vikander

A retired Quebec Superior Court judge, in a report commissioned by the Canadian Oblates, says he believes allegations made against former Nunavut priest Johannes Rivoire of sexually abusing children in the territory are true.

The report, written by Andre Denis, also suggests the Catholic church was not aware of the allegations made against Rivoire at the time because the RCMP didn’t notify them.

“Rivoire did not tell the whole truth to his superiors, to his confrères, to the Inuit for whom he had pastoral responsibility, and he himself denies a reality that has nevertheless been demonstrated,” Denis wrote in a 57-page report released Tuesday.

Denis’s report is not a legal finding of guilt. His investigation makes conclusions based on a “preponderance of evidence,” and not “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Rivoire, an Oblate priest from France, has long faced allegations he sexually abused children in Nunavut in the 1960s and 1970s. He spent more than 30 years working as a priest in the territory, mostly in Arviat and Naujaat.

Rivoire, who is 92 and lives in Lyon, France, and his lawyer have denied all of the allegations against him. CBC has reached out to Rivoire’s lawyer about the report, but has not received a response.

The Oblates of Mary Immaculate, OMI Lacombe Canada and the Oblates of the Province of France hired Denis to investigate how past allegations against Rivoire were addressed within the congregation.

“The scandal for the plaintiffs is that Joannès Rivoire remains a religious despite all he has done. This is a reality the victims do not accept,” Denis wrote.

Tall man in black frock, in black and white.
Rev. Johannes Rivoire moved to Nunavut in the 1960s and stayed there until returning to France in 1993.

6 years before charges were laid

Denis travelled to France, Italy and Canada, including Nunavut, where he interviewed some of Rivoire’s alleged victims.

He also met at length with Rivoire, who denied the allegations but claimed he had a consenting sexual relationship with a woman in the territory.

Denis also concluded the Catholic church didn’t try to help him escape the Canadian justice system.

Three charges of sexual abuse were laid against Rivoire in 1998. They were stayed in 2017 after the Crown decided there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.

A new charge was brought forward in 2022 and an arrest warrant was issued for Rivoire.

Days before the first complaint was filed with the RCMP in 1993, Rivoire fled Canada for France.

Denis says Rivoire told the church he needed to return home to take care of his elderly parents.

The RCMP finally charged Rivoire in 1998.

“The RCMP had no communication with the Oblates, nor did they notify them of anything throughout the legal process,” Denis wrote.

“Had these complaints been brought before the court in 1993, it is possible to believe that Joannès Rivoire would have returned to Nunavut to face Canadian justice. He probably could have been persuaded to do so.”

Denis says the Oblates were not informed of Rivoire’s charges until more than a decade later.

Five seated people look at the camera.
Delegates with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. speaking to media in Paris, France, in an effort to push the French government to extradite Johannes Rivoire in 2022.

Inuit survivors began speaking publicly about what they went through. A delegation also travelled to France in 2022, and asked that Rivoire return to Canada and face trial, and advocates for survivors of child sexual abuse in France also campaigned on the issue. The Oblates in both countries supported the request.

Although the priest has faced several criminal charges from the Canadian courts, France does not typically extradite people, and in October 2022, the country denied the latest request for Rivoire’s extradition.

Last month, leadership in Rome ruled against Rivoire’s dismissal from the Oblates.

‘I was angry’

Tanya Tungilik, whose late father Marius Tungilik had accused Rivoire of sexual abuse, said she had mixed feelings after reading the report.

“I was angry at a lot of parts but glad that [Denis] said that Rivoire was guilty of the crimes … that he believed us,” she said on Tuesday.

A woman wearing a blue traditional Inuit amauti
Tanya Tungilik, pictured in Rankin Inlet in 2022. Tungilik, whose late father Marius Tungilik had accused Rivoire of sexual abuse, said she believes RCMP also need to be held accountable for why Rivoire was not charged until 1998.

Tungilik said she was troubled by how long it took for the RCMP to investigate the allegations brought against Rivoire.

“Why did it take so long?” she said. “They need to be held accountable, too.”

She also said she doesn’t believe Denis’s claim that the Oblates didn’t know about the allegations made against Rivoire.

“I’m glad that it’s out there,” Tungilik said. “But I’m disappointed and angry that he says that the Oblates didn’t know at all.”

Facts hidden

Denis met with Rivoire in Lyon, France, in the spring of 2023, but explains in the report that he doesn’t believe “the version of events” that Rivoire told him.

Instead, Rivoire left Canada “hiding this terrible reality” from church authorities. He told a “true but incomplete story” that he was only returning to France to care for his sick parents.

Reflecting on meeting the Inuit delegates in 2022, Denis said Rivoire told him he thought those who were accusing him “may be trying to get money out of the Oblates.”

Denis’ research of historical documents found Rivoire “did not tell the whole truth to his superiors.”

His report quotes a 2013 conversation between Rivoire and Father Yves Chalvet de Récy, when Chalvet had just learned of the arrest warrant for Rivoire.

At that point, Rivoire is said to have told Chalvet the children he was accused of abusing “were looking for tenderness that they didn’t have in their families.”

“If I’m not innocent, the children aren’t either,” Rivoire told Chalvet.

“It’s true that I’m not innocent, but allegations of sexual assaults on minors are a fabrication. That’s why I came back to France in the first place.”

Ken Thorson, provincial lead of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate Lacombe, poses for a photo.
Ken Thorson, provincial lead of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate Lacombe, says he accept the report’s findings.

Rev. Ken Thorson, with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate Lacombe Canada, said they accept the report’s findings “with a heavy heart.”

“We wish to apologize unequivocally to anyone who was harmed by an Oblate priest and to continue taking concrete steps towards transparency and transformation, informed by guidance from victims, survivors and Inuit representatives.”

Complete Article HERE!

Pope meets with child protection board as events outside Vatican show abuse scandal isn’t going away

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis sought to encourage his child protection board on Thursday to continue helping victims, as new developments outside the Vatican underscored that the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal isn’t going away anytime soon.

Francis met with his Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which is expected to soon release the first-ever audit of safeguarding procedures and policies church-wide.

But as that report is being compiled, church officials in Switzerland reported a surge in victims coming forward since the September publication of a bombshell report that found over 1,000 cases of abuse since the mid-20th century in a country with a relatively small Catholic population.

The diocese in northwestern Basel, for example, reported that more than half of the suspected 183 cases in the last 13 years emerged in the last six months. Swiss news agency SDA-Keystone reported at least 70 other cases across four other dioceses since the report was issued.

Closer to home, a criminal court in Sicily handed down an important verdict this week against a priest whom the Vatican apparently exonerated on a technicality even after one of his victims wrote to Francis, begging for him to intervene.

The case was being closely watched since Italy’s Catholic hierarchy has only recently and reluctantly begun confronting its legacy of abuse in a country where the issue is still somewhat taboo.

The verdict by the tribunal in Enna sentenced the priest, the Rev. Giuseppe Rugolo, to four and a half years in prison for attempted sexual violence and violence-related charges against three minors. The court also held his diocese, Piazza Armerina, Sicily, responsible for paying civil damages and legal fees, according to the sentence on Tuesday.

Piazza Armeria Bishop Rosario Gisana was caught on intercepted wiretaps confessing to having covered up for the priest. But a lawyer for the diocese, Gabriele Cantaro, stressed in a statement Thursday that the liability didn’t stem from the actions of Gisana or his predecessor, but merely from the diocese’s general responsibility for the actions of its priests.

According to the newspaper Domani, which covered the case closely, the Vatican’s sex abuse office shelved the case on technical grounds because Rugolo was only a seminarian when the abuse occurred. The Vatican’s in-house norms at the time only called for canonical sanctions against priests who abused minors, not seminarians.

Il Messaggero newspaper reported in 2021 that one of Rugolo’s victims wrote to Francis directly, begging him to intervene after he and his parents had spent years trying to get the church to take action against Rugolo, who was sent to a diocese in northern Italy after the accusations were raised.

Amid Italian media coverage of the case, Francis on Nov. 6 heartily praised Gisana when the bishop led a group of pilgrims to the Vatican.

“This bishop is great. He was persecuted, calumnied but he’s been firm, always correct, a correct man,” Francis said in remarks that outraged victims’ advocates.

Francis told his child protection advisers on Thursday that listening to victims was crucial to helping them heal.

“In our ecclesial ministry of protecting minors, closeness to victims of abuse is no abstract concept, but a very concrete reality, comprised of listening, intervening, preventing and assisting,” he said in remarks read by an aide as Francis continues to recover from the flu.

Complete Article HERE!

Polish Catholics get a new leader as the church struggles to reckon with sexual abuse

— The leaders of Poland’s influential Catholic Church have chosen moderate Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda to be their new principal, at a time when the church is struggling to reckon with the abuse of minors by some Polish clergy

Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda

The leaders of Poland’s influential Catholic Church on Thursday chose moderate Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda to be their new principal, at a time when the church is still struggling to reckon with the abuse of minors by some Polish clergy, while the number of Poles going to church has fallen sharply.

At a two-day conference, bishops and archbishops elected Gdansk Archpishop Wojda, 67, to replace the conservative Archbp. Stanislaw Gądecki, of Poznan, as the head of the Polish Episcopate, for a five-year term, a communique said.

More than 90% of Poles, a nation of some 38 million, are still officially members of the Catholic Church, but figures from 2022 showed less than a third of Catholics attended mass, according to the church’s statistical institute.

For 27 years, from 1990 until 2017, Wojda served at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelizations of Peoples, during the terms of three popes: Polish-born John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis. He was then appointed archbishop of Bialystok, in eastern Poland, bordering Belarus. In 2021, he was made archbishop of Gdansk.

During his tenure in Bialystok, when thousands of migrants arrived at the border with Belarus, Wojda called for openness and tolerance, but also stressed that borders must be protected. At that time he also spoke strongly against equality parades of the LGBT+ community in the region and said homosexuality was a “sin.”

Observers do not expect Wojda to change the Church’s strongly defensive course in the face of revealed cases of abuse of minors by priests.

A number of Poland’s archbishops and bishops have retired or stepped down, with the Vatican’s approval, for ignoring or trying to cover up abuses cases and for downplaying the trauma of the victims.

In some of the cases, the perpetrators have been indicted in court cases and ordered to pay damages to the victims. In a recent case, the diocese of Kalisz paid 300,000 zlotys ( $76,000) to the victim of a pedophile priest, in September.

The previous right-wing government forged close ties with the Church and supported some of its institutions financially, winning the gratitude of many believers. That government was also of similar mind with the Church on condemning abortion and promoting traditional family values.

The current pro-European Union government is seeking to cut the Church’s links to politics and also to limit its privileged financial position that exempts the church from taxation.

Historically, the Catholic Church has been held in high esteem by Poles, having been close to the nation and supporting its culture and freedom drives during the country’s division in the 19th century, during World War II and during more than 40 years of Moscow-controlled communist rule, until 1989.

Complete Article HERE!

Pope Francis laicizes North Dakota priest after sexual assault guilty plea

By Daniel Payne

Pope Francis has ordered the laicization of a North Dakota priest who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a woman in that state.

Diocese of Fargo Bishop John Folda said in a statement this month that former priest Neil Pfeifer “received a dispensation from the clerical state (laicization) from Pope Francis” effective March 8.

Pfeifer himself “sought the dispensation after adult women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct,” Folda said in his statement.

“Mr. Pfeifer pleaded guilty on July 13, 2023, to a misdemeanor charge of sexual assault in Stutsman County,” the bishop said.

Laicization is the term for when a priest has been dismissed from the clerical state. An individual who is confirmed as a priest will always remain one, but laicization takes away his ability to licitly execute the functions of the priesthood, except in the extreme situation of encountering someone who is in immediate danger of death.

Someone who has lost the clerical state also no longer has the canonical right to be financially supported by the Church.

Often, a man who is laicized is also dispensed from the obligation of celibacy and permitted to marry, though this is not always the case, especially when someone has been involuntarily removed from the clerical state.

Folda in his statement noted that the decision to laicize a priest “is not made by the local diocese or bishop but is determined by the Holy See.”

“Laicization means that Mr. Pfeifer has been returned to the lay state and may no longer exercise priestly ministry,” the bishop said. “As a result, in accord with canon law, he may no longer celebrate Mass, hear confessions, or administer other sacraments.”

“Laicization does not invalidate sacraments that he previously administered,” the prelate added.

“When members of the clergy or others representing the Church abuse someone, they violate a sacred trust,” Folda said in his statement.

The diocese announced in 2021 that Pfiefer had been appointed the pastor of St. James Basilica in Jamestown, St. Margaret Mary in Buchanan, and St. Mathias in Windsor.

Pfeifer’s term at those parishes was to last for six years, until 2027.

Complete Article HERE!

Vatican investigating historic child sex abuse claims against New Zealand Cardinal John Dew

Cardinal John Dew

By Michael Morrah

Newshub can reveal the Vatican is investigating New Zealand’s highest ranked Catholic over child sex allegations.

Cardinal John Dew, who delivered the church’s public apology to victims of clergy abuse at the Abuse in Care Royal Commission in 2021, is alleged to have sexually abused a boy who attended St Joseph’s Orphanage in Upper Hutt in 1977.

Wellington police spent months investigating, but recently closed the file and have not pressed charges saying they were unable to locate enough evidence.

Newshub has learned a church investigation, overseen by the Vatican, is now underway.

54-year-old Steve Carvell alleges Cardinal Dew sexually abused him when he was seven years old.

Cardinal Dew says it’s a “false allegation” and took Newshub all the way to the Supreme Court to prevent the reporting of the allegation. The court has allowed us to tell the story.

“That’s a shocking allegation and it did not happen” Dew told Newshub.

“I do not know Steven Carvell,” he said.

Carvell told Newshub he was 100 percent sure Dew abused him.

“The abuse still continues today because those memories and those obscene occasions, those things in life that I never, ever want to feel, I still today feel those intense feelings,” he said.

Steve Carvell has taken the step of asking a district court judge to waive his automatic right to name suppression so Newshub can tell his story.

Carvell also alleges that he was raped by the late Father Noel Donoghue, another priest who was at the Upper Hutt parish in 1977, and that he was sexually assaulted by a nun who visited the orphanage.

He took his complaint to police, the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care and the Catholic Church’s National Office of Professional Standards (NOPS).

Cardinal Dew, who retired as the leader of the Catholic church in New Zealand in May last year, cooperated with the police investigation.

He was interviewed for more than an hour by a detective at Lower Hutt Police station in December.

Speaking to Newshub, Dew said he was “absolutely certain” what Carvell has alleged did not happen

“I can honestly say with every ounce of my being that I have never abused anyone in my life. Ever.

“I would hope that people would believe someone who’s now had 48 years of experiences as a priest and has never had an allegation made against me,” said Dew.

“This has come totally out of the blue 46, 47 years later and I’m telling my truth.”

Police spoke to other people who were at the orphanage at the time but told Newshub they have exhausted all available lines of enquiry.

“Police were unable to locate sufficient evidence to meet the evidential test – which requires sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction.

“As such the case has now been closed, however Police will always consider new information that may come to light in relation to an investigation,” they said in a statement.

Dew’s successor as Archbishop of Wellington, Paul Martin, said the Cardinal “has not been involved in public ministry since he became aware of the complaint.”

This is standard practice while allegations against priests are investigated.

Steve Carvell’s story

Steve Carvell is deeply affected by memories of alleged sexual abuse which have surfaced in recent years.

“The reason I’ve decided to share my story and come forward today is in the hope that other victims out there draw some strength from what I’m doing.”

He claimed the sexual abuse happened during a stay at St Joseph’s Orphanage in Upper Hutt when he was a little boy.

His admission records confirm he was there for 12 days – from the 1st to the 12th of November 1977.

“I saw that I was seven years old and it was at that point in time that I really broke down. I thought I might have been a bit older than that,” said Steve.

“It was the saddest moment of my life.”

Carvell said on his first night at the orphanage, he was woken by then ‘Father’ John Dew.

“He said: you’ve been a naughty boy, you’ve woken everybody up in the room. But I’m going to let you off. How would you like to play a game of catch me if you can,'”

Carvell claims the game swiftly became sexual in nature.

“Things got a bit weird, so instead of tagging it became touching.”

Carvell’s complaint alleges it was not only Father Dew involved in the game, but also a nun he says spent time at the orphanage. A nun he says he liked and trusted.

Clergy directory records cited by Newshub confirm that Dew was one of four priests at the Upper Hutt diocese in 1977

He rose through the church ranks over the following decades and in 2015 Pope Francis made him a Cardinal

As the head of the church here, Dew went before the Royal Commission in 2021 to make a public apology to victims abused by Catholic clergymen.

“I apologise to you on behalf of the bishops and congregational leaders of the Catholic church,” he said at the time.

“We offer no excuses for their actions, or for ours, that have caused you harm.”

Dew told Newshub that his apology still stands, despite the allegations that have been made against him.

“Absolutely, I stand by every word I said and that apology. Every word I said.”

“I couldn’t have stood up at the Royal Commission and said all the things that I had if this was part of my background. I couldn’t have stood up if I was covering things up”, said Dew

Carvell alleged Father Noel Donoghue – another priest at St Joseph’s at the time – also harmed him.

Again, his memories are that the abuse occurred during a game of tag in the middle of the night.

When Donoghue couldn’t catch Carvell, the priest became angry and Steve alleges he was raped.

“It was the most painful thing that I’ve ever felt in my life.”

When asked if he understood what was going on at the time, given his age, Carvell said he just knew his parents didn’t hurt him like that.

He said he felt isolated and tormented and that Father John Dew made him feel what happened was his fault, telling him he’d been “naughty”.

“So, it was a feeling of just begging for help from an adult and it never came.”

Dew doubts the allegations against Donoghue are true.

“I find that very hard to believe. Very hard to believe,” he said.

When asked by Newshub’s Michael Morrah why he believed that he said “oh, just unexpected of a person, the person, that I came to know.”

What Carvell said he endured and witnessed hadn’t always been clear in his mind.

His flashbacks started in 2019. The memories have become increasingly detailed and, at times, overwhelming.

“That tends to be interestingly enough the primary way these memories come back. They tend to come back initially as fragments,” said Professor Martin Dorahy, a clinical psychologist at Canterbury University.

“And then over time these tend to be pieced together and then remembered.”

Steve Carvell has suffered from complex Post-traumatic stress disorder for many years – which he attributes to the trauma of the alleged abuse.

Prof Dorahy says it’s uncommon for people to fabricate memories of sexual abuse, but they may misremember certain details.

“The majority of cases, it would seem, appear to reflect something that is more accurate, rather than something that is made up in a wholesale fashion.”

In his legal bid to stop Newshub reporting the allegations, Dew’s lawyer attacked Carvell’s credibility saying “the source of the allegations, one person’s memories of events some 46 years ago, is not reliable.”

Dew also said he had no idea why Carvell was making these claims

“I do not remember him. I do not remember any of the children from the orphanage, because we didn’t go to the orphanage.”

He has stood down from priestly duties while the police investigation took place and said that was very difficult.

“It meant two very good friends who died in that time, I had to tell their widows ‘I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to do this because an allegation has been made against me’,” he said.

Newshub has chosen not to name the nun accused as it was unable to independently verify her presence at the orphanage at the time.

The Sisters of Mercy – who ran the orphanage – refused Newshub’s request to access their records, but through their lawyers said Steve’s allegations were “demonstrably untrue”

In evidence provided to the court, Congregation Leader Sue France said the nun Carvell named was living and working full time in Palmerston North in the year the abuse was alleged to have occurred.

Further evidence provided on behalf of the Sisters of Mercy suggested it would have difficult for a nun to travel between Palmerston North and Upper Hutt.

One former nun also said in an affidavit that the abuse could not have occurred in the way Steve has described, without others hearing or being aware of it.

Noel Donoghue died in 2005.

Steve Carvell’s complaint was sent to the royal commission after the conclusion of its public hearings.

The commission told Newshub that accounts and experiences received would still inform its deliberations.

Now that the Police has closed its investigation, the Vatican is carrying out its own investigation into the allegations against Cardinal Dew.

The Vatican is expected to conclude its investigation later this year.

Where to find help and support:

Complete Article HERE!