Lahey

A Bishop’s Spiritual Reading

in clergy sex abuse scandal 13 Comments Tags: , ,

Edelson and Lahey

Bishop Lahey was NOT a pedophile, his lawyer Edelson and his psychiatrist Bradford have emphasized.

Lahey, who has been involved in a 10-year romantic relationship after a number of one-night stands, imagines himself in a “submissive role” in his sado-masochistic sex fantasies, Bradford said. (Ottawa Citizen)

However, Bradford acknowledged he gave little consideration to the fact Lahey was carrying a bag of sex toys when he was stopped by border agents or had travelled to countries known for the child sex-trade, such as Thailand.

A Newfoundland man has filed a civil suit against Lahey for allegedly fondling him repeatedly at the Mount Cashel orphanage, but the unproven allegations contained in the lawsuit were not considered in criminal court Monday.

Bradford said Lahey explained he was indiscriminately downloading what he believed to be gay adult pornography from the Internet and must have downloaded the child pornography there. Edelson argued many of the websites have provisos saying the models depicted are over the age of 18. (Ottawa Citizen)

Lahey is merely interested in this type of improving literature and imagery:

They included 588 pornographic pictures of adolescents and boys as young as eight. Some were engaged in explicit sex acts, including intercourse. Lahey also possessed several pornographic stories, including one featuring a character named Father Raymond. (Ottawa Citizen)

Lahey likes to mix sex and religion. The images

included young boys and teens engaged in sex acts including bondage and torture. A Crown prosecutor said Tuesday some of the 588 images that were later discovered on Lahey’s laptop computer included graphic images of nude boys wearing rosary beads and crucifixes.

Police also located 63 child pornography videos and several stories with themes of slavery. (Ottawa Citizen)

The  Crown prosecutor Elhadad noticed the peculiarities of Lahey’s tastes:

Elhadad however pointed to images of torture in the collections seized from Lahey in 2009 at the Ottawa International Airport and noted a number of the images included victims wearing rosaries and in one case a man dressed as a monk paddling a young male. Elhadad said the religious and torture imagery relates directly to stories that were also discovered on Lahey’s laptop computer. (Metro News)

This is all too reminiscent of Huysman and the Catholic Decadents of the nineteenth century. It also makes the highly unreliable Malachi Martin’s stories of black masses in the Vatican altogether too believable. The mixture of perverted sexual torture and religion gives the ultimate frisson.

Leave a Comment

The Fault Is Not in the Structures but in Ourselves

in clergy sex abuse scandal, clericalism, Moral Theology 3 Comments Tags:

The fully justified anger about Bishop Lahey should not blind us to the failings in other forms of Christianity. There have been crimes and cover-ups in other denominations. 

Abuse in independent churches is almost impossible to track. Even denominations like the Southern Baptists have a polity that makes it impossible to screen out abusers. 

When hierarchical churches have cases of abuse, people look wistfully at independent congregationalist churches; when independent churches have cases of abuse, people look to episcopal churches in which someone outside the immediate church has responsibility and authority. 

The failure is not in governing structures but in human nature, in its lust and cowardice. 

The failure in the Catholic Church is however made worse by a form of clericalism. 

In the Middle Ages, as Tom Doyle has shown, Catholics were very open about denouncing the crimes of clerics. After the Reformation, Catholics drew the wagons in a circle and became reluctant to admit problems that Protestants could use as ammunition against the Catholic Church. 

The hierarchy had a fear of massive defections to Protestantism, and adopted a strategy of convincing the laity that the sacraments were the best way to salvation, and that the clergy were the members of the Church most intimate with the sacraments and who also controlled access to the sacraments. 

By controlling access to the sacraments clerics also controlled access to salvation, and therefore cleric could control laity – for their own good, of course. A legalism grew up the church, and the hierarchical church became an enforcer of law rather than a guide to growing in virtue.

 

Leave a Comment

The Lack of Anger against Evil

in anger, clergy sex abuse scandal, Moral Theology, sexual abuse 4 Comments Tags: , ,

As I noted in my book, Catholic bishops uniformly failed to get angry when they heard that a priest had defiled a child, often in the church itself. I examined this failure at length in my book Sacrilege, especially on pp. 465-471. 

The bishops have failed to heed the warning of St. John Chrysostom: “He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong.” 

Dan Leger of the Chronicle Herald is also deeply troubled by Mancini’s response to the allegations about Bishop Lahey and child pornography.

But why wasn’t he angry? Why didn’t he rage at the idea that Lahey might have been another priestly exploiter of children? Why didn’t he pound his fist on the table and demand hard justice for every offender hiding in the folds of the Church’s holy vestments?

Every right-thinking Catholic should be furious at what’s happened to the institution that guides and nourishes their faith. And not just because they, not the Vatican or the institutional Church, are being asked to pay for the sins of the fathers.

Beyond who pays for the abuse settlements, a lot of people have cause to be angry at what’s happened to the Church over the past 50 years, and not only the Catholics. While all this was going on, people of many faiths and no faith at all were being hectored by priests, bishops and popes about morality and ethics.

Catholic authorities have constantly railed against abortion rights, against same-sex marriage, birth control, stem cell research and fertility treatments. They cite the word of God as their authority. By definition, anyone who disagrees with them is not only wrong, but immoral and a sinner.

Yet there is strong evidence, including at least one massive U.S. study commissioned by the Church itself, that those same clerical authorities were aware of abuse allegations against priests and clerics. Rather than cleaning up the mess, they covered it up.

That meant many offenders were moved around and protected by senior Church authorities, often to repeat their abuses in other parishes. That the Church evidently knew that and did so little to stop it suggests hypocrisy on a global scale.

Leave a Comment

The Failure to Repent

in clergy sex abuse scandal, repentance No Comments Tags: , ,

Bishop Lahey, formerly bishop of Antigonish, will have his day in court. On the face of it, he is guilty of importation and possession of child pornography. Nor is his behavior that of an innocent man who has been framed. 

Archbishop Mancini of Halifax, in whose province Antigonish lies, was surprised and shocked by the news. He responded with letter to the Catholics of Nova Scotia. In it he says 

Like you, my heart is broken, my mind is confused, my body hurts and I have moved in and out of a variety of feelings especially shame and frustration, fear and disappointment, along with a sense of vulnerability, and a tremendous poverty of spirit. 

He adds 

At this time when so many hearts have been broken, we need to know again or for the first time, the healing grace of God’s love. Such healing grace can only come from all of us sharing together our faith and convictions that, in spite of sin in all its forms, mercy is stronger than anger, forgiveness is more powerful than rejection and reconciliation is more transformative of spiritual devastation into new life possibilities.

But Mancini leaves out the word that comes before forgiveness and reconciliation: repentance. Lahey has shown no repentance, nor have the officials of the Church who failed to root out abuse. I know Mancini, and I know how he handled allegations of abuse in a Catholic institution in Montréal, an institution I was supporting financially. When told about suspicions about a priest, he said “Not again,” the priest was sent to Rome and then reassigned to a parish. I think Mancini should reflect on how he may have enabled abuse and whether he needs to repent.

 

 

Repentance, full confession of sins and desire to make amendment, has been lacking, both on the  part of the criminals and of the bishops who enabled them.

Leave a Comment

The Heart of Man is Desperately Wicked

in Canada, clergy sex abuse scandal, sexual abuse 3 Comments Tags:

We shall see whether Canadian police have any record that confirms that in 1989 Earle told them about Lahey’s possession of child pornography. At that time, the possession of child pornography was not a crime in Canada, and the police may therefore not have made any record, even if Earle in fact told them.

 

Lahey’s testimony in the Burton case is however a matter of record, and it should have raised suspicions. Why would anyone give a character reference to a confessed child molester? Why would anyone claim that boy flourished during the time of the abuse?

 

An even deeper mystery is how a man otherwise apparently humane and a good Christian would have use child pornography. Even the victims of child abuse in his diocese said that Lahey treated them fairly, generously, and humanely.

 

Men who have been very wicked in their sexual behavior have done much good both in society and the Church: Polanski – child rapist but a great director; Maciel – a seducer of boys and women, but a builder of schools for the neglected Mexican poor; Bruce Ritter – who liked blond boys in his bed but who helped thousands of black and Latino throw-away children through Covenant House, and so on.

 

I have no easy answer to this mystery. Society is built upon trust, and we assume that people who do many good things are in fact good people and can be trusted. The mystery is even deeper in the Church. If any ordinary sinner tried to found a religious order, he would get nowhere. But Maciel attracted thousands of followers.

 

But total cynicism about human nature, inside and outside the Church, is also not a proper response. Ordinary people and ordinary Christians have to develop a great spirit of discernment so that they can distinguish between those who are truly doing the Lord’s work from those who are disguising themselves as angels of light.

Leave a Comment

Lahey Testified Against Child Abuse Victim

in Canada, clergy sex abuse scandal 3 Comments Tags: , ,

The Christian Brothers of Ireland ran the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. Some of the brothers physically and sexually abused children. The boys complained to police and social services, and both authorities covered up as much as they could for the Church. On a radio call-in talk how, Shane Earle broke the story of the abuse.

 

The Royal Commission discovered what the Brothers had done to the boys: “forced mutual fellatio, buggery, forced mutual masturbation, fondling of the students’ genital, ‘inappropriate’ kissing, and insertion of fingers into rectum.” (Sacrilege, p. 73)

 

Some of the abuse was so horrendous it could not be covered up, and in November 1982 Brother David Burton was tried for sexual abuse of a victim, W.N. Burton admitted having sex with this boy at least fifty times. 

The defense then called the first of two character witnesses for Brother Burton – Raymond Lahey, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of St. John’s. The future Roman Catholic bishop praised Brother Burton as an indefatigable worker in the cause of children entrusted to him, a man who “had a tremendous talent for handling children who were tremendously disadvantaged.” The Vicar General was less enthusiastic about Burton’s victim, W.N.

 

“I think anyone who even visited there [Mount Cashel] for a short time would take note of him. He was a child who constant demanded attention. He constantly demanded attention of someone and in particular of the accused. He would go to any lengths to gain attention. He was very aggressive in that…. He would demand attention by even interrupting conversation, shouting, pulling at people’s arms or punching them in the arm. I even saw him bounce a ball against a wall consistently to gain attention….”

 

Lahey didn’t come right out and say that W.N. had instigated the relationship with Brother Burton, but the implication of his testimony is clear; the fifteen-year-old was a problem child who relentlessly pursued the accused to satisfy his insatiable craving for affection – however that might be defined. When asked by counsel for the defence if he had noticed any change in W.N. over the past year, Lahey testified that he had. “I think that he matured over that year, very definitely, I think you could see a [visible] progress. He gained, I think, a self-esteem and self-confidence which he didn’t seem to have at the beginning of my period of visiting there. He gained a certain amount of academic confidence too. He was a very slow learner academically, but he showed a very marked improvement in that respect.”

 

Sexual abuse apparently agreed with W.N. The year in which the Vicar General noted such an improvement in the young boy was the same period of time in which he was being sexually molested by Brother Burton.

 

The pattern of the Vicar General’s testimony – eulogizing Brother Burton and casting W.N. in a bad light – was repeated in the evidence given by the next defence witness, Brother Henry Bucher. 

(from Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel (Viking, 1990) by Michael Harris, pp. 237-238)

 

Lahey and Burton are spouting classic pederastic propaganda: that the adolescent boy wants sex,  that his sexual relationship with a mature man helps the boy mature sexually and emotionally, that pederasty is an authentic form of love and is highly educational.

 

Not everyone who uses child pornography goes on to have sex with children,, but all child abusers began with child pornography. Whether Lahey confined his sexual interests to pornography is not know, but his testimony in the Burton case shows what he thought of man-boy love.

 

Leave a Comment

Bishop Lahey’s History of Child Porn Known to Police

in Canada, clergy sex abuse scandal, Vatican 13 Comments Tags: , , ,

I have a section in my book (Sacrilege, pp. 71-80) on the abuse of boys at the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland. The boys had complained to the police for years, but the police and the newspapers covered up for the Church. Shane Earle finally was able to go public and there was a public investigation. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Earle had told the police about Father Raymond Lahey:

Twenty years ago, Earle and his brother Shane Earle testified at Newfoundland and Labrador’s Hughes inquiry into the Mount Cashel orphanage, where they suffered abuse as children.

Shane Earle says he told police back then that Lahey befriended him when Lahey was a priest in Mount Pearl, but the friendship ended when Earle and another boy found pornographic videos and photos in Lahey’s home.

Billy and Shane Earle said the news that Lahey is facing child pornography charges now has turned their minds back to that horrible time and that they’ve been talking and reliving their experiences with Lahey.

In an email sent to his brother Billy, Shane Earle says he told police 20 years ago the pornography he saw at Lahey’s home was child pornography.

“During the investigation in 1989 I did reveal to police that during a visit to Father Raymond Lahey’s house in Mount Pearl, I found catalogues of child pornography addressed to Ray Lahey. The pictures were of teen boys sexually aroused,” wrote Shane Earle, in an email that Billy Earle showed to CBC News.

Possession of child pornography only became a crime in the 1990s.

Shane Earle’s allegations to a St. John’s newspaper in the 1980s launched the investigation into what happened at Mount Cashel.

The police failed; the Vatican failed. 

The police covered up for the Church and respected the Church’s lust for secrecy. Everything is a secret at the Vatican: what did the Pope have for lunch? – It’s a pontifical secret.  

Perhaps it is best that the Vatican appoint bishops; but the Vatican should do a thorough and public investigation of the men it is considering as the successors of the apostles.

Leave a Comment

The Secretiveness of the Vatican

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Vatican 4 Comments Tags: ,

Statement by the President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop V. James Weisgerber

 

01 October 2009

 

“I have learned from media reports of the charges brought against Most Reverend Raymond Lahey, former Bishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia.  While shocked and saddened by the accusations, as President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, I am not in a position to comment on them. At the same time, I share with all Canadians, and particularly my Catholic brothers and sisters, a profound understanding of the importance of such serious charges being fully and carefully investigated by the appropriate legal authorities.” 

 

Notice that Weisgerber says that he learned of the charges from the media, not from the Vatican. Pope Benedict must have been informed by Lahey of what happened, because the pope accepted the resignation immediately. But Benedict did not inform the Canadian bishops of what was happening, but let them hear of if from the media. I detect a certain failing of collegiality here.

Leave a Comment

The Repentance of Polanski

in Responsibility, sexual abuse No Comments Tags: ,

Michael Deacon unearthed Polanski comments about the crime he committed: 

Polanski told Martin Amis: 

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

When the controversy dies down, the Swiss will probably let him go quietly. And Polanski will make the circle of fashionable dinner parties in Europe, and probably get invited to the Élysée. He and his hosts will exchange reminiscences of the pleasures they had with young teenagers, and lament how barbaric and vengeful Americans are. Perhaps Bishop Lahey can be invited to say grace.

Leave a Comment

An Episcopal Fugitive from Justice

in Canada, clergy sex abuse scandal, clericalism, law enforcement, Responsibility, Vatican 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

The merde has hit the fan in the Canadian Church: 

An arrest warrant has been issued for a former Roman Catholic bishop from Nova Scotia charged with possession and importation of child pornography. The Chronicle Hearld reports:

The Ottawa Police Service Internet child exploitation unit charged Raymond Lahey, 69, on Sept. 25, 10 days after he was pulled over at Macdonald-Cartier International Airport in Ottawa by Canada Border Services Agency officers.

Mr. Lahey, who recently helped broker a landmark $15-million settlement to a class-action sexual abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Antigonish, was returning from the U.S. on Sept. 15 through the Ottawa airport when border officials pulled him aside for a secondary examination, according to a news release from Ottawa police.

Border services officers found images on his laptop computer “that were of concern”, according to the release.

Officials seized his computer and other media devices. Mr. Lahey was released “pending further investigation”, the release said. 

When I have crossed the border into Canada, security officers sometimes turn on my computer to verify it is a computer and not a bomb. They did more than that to Lahey. I doubt he had child pornography as his screen saver. The Canadian police must have suspected him of downloading child pornography. They didn’t want to get a warrant to seize his computer, because they would alert him to erase the evidence. They must have noticed Immigration to watch for Lahey when he crossed back into Canada and to turn on his computer. When they searched his computer, they must have known which files to look for. 

It gets worse. The Chronicle Herald spoke to Archbishop Mancini of Halifax:

Bishop Lahey resigned last weekend as bishop of the Antigonish diocese. The archbishop said Pope Benedict would had to have known the circumstances surrounding the resignation, as Bishop Lahey would have been required to cite his reasons for leaving his post.

“The Pope would have to know what the grave cause is,” Archbishop Mancini said in an interview with CTV. “And I have to assume, since he responded and accepted Bishop Lahey’s resignation, that the Pope knew the gravity of the matter.”

But the archbishop said he didn’t know the bishop was in trouble with the law when he received word of his resignation, and he doesn’t think anyone in the bishop’s diocese knew either. They only heard he was leaving for personal reasons.

“That is the only thing we knew . . . on Saturday, when the message was put out.”

This is the timeline: 

On September 15 Lahey was stopped at the Canadian border where officials discovered that he had child pornography on his computer. They let him go pending investigation. 

On September 25 Lahey was charged with importation and possession of child pornography. 

On September 26 Pope Benedict, having been informed of what happened, accepted Lahey’s resignation. 

On September 30 Canadian police issued a warrant for the arrest of Lahey. 

But the Pope did not contact any of his fellow bishops in Canada or any diocesan officials in Antigonish to warn them what was coming. They learned it on the news or when reporters called for comments. This is a grave failure of collegiality. 

What will Lahey do? Surrender and face trial, humiliation, and imprisonment? What kind of secret life has he led, and what will come out? Flee the country and take refuge in the Vatican? That would be catastrophic for the already-damaged reputation of the Church. Or like the officer who has been discovered to be treasonous, will he take a pistol into a room and end the disgrace?

Leave a Comment