A notorious former Anglican minister and scout leader convicted of sexually abusing dozens of indigenous boys over a 12-year period is among those named in a lawsuit seeking more than $100 million in damages for lifetimes worth of suffering.
Lawyers filed the class action suit on Thursday against Ralph Rowe, the disgraced former cleric who courts found used remote First Nations communities in northwestern Ontario and Manitoba as hunting grounds for young boys to sate his sexual appetites.
The suit also names the Anglican Synod of the Diocese of Keewatin in northwestern Ontario and Scouts Canada.
Rowe, who was ordained as an Anglican minister in 1975, spent the next dozen years flying himself in and out of isolated communities where he ran youth activities ranging from hockey games to overnight camping trips, usually in his capacity as either a priest or a registered leader with the organization now known as Scouts Canada.
Numerous criminal trials have heard that Rowe would groom young boys under the guise of playing games before ultimately sexually abusing them, sometimes for years. (more...)
For almost twenty years Ralph Rowe held a unique esteem in the isolated First Nation Reserves of Northern Ontario. As an Anglican minister and a Boy Scout leader, Rowe was revered and trusted by community elders and cultivated adoration from all the children he worked with. He had the perfect cover for a pedophile. Rowe abused an estimated 500 native boys throughout the 1970s and 80s.
“Survivors Rowe” documents the harrowing and tragic stories of three men who as boys were victims of Rowe. Joshua Frog, John Fox and Ralph Winter open their hearts to recount the abuse they experienced as children, and how their lives disintegrated because of it. A melody of pain, anguish, forgiveness and love, these three brave men embody the sacred truth that it’s only when one confronts their past, that they are able to face their future.
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