By the time Rev. William Hodgson Marshall was sexually abusing Rod MacLeod at a Sudbury high school, he’d already been shuttled away from three previous complaints.
That was the solution to the Marshall problem by the Basilian Fathers of Toronto, who moved the priest from place to place and away from the young people he victimized.
Those decisions helped shape what is believed to be the largest civil award in Canada given to a victim of priest abuse.
Included in the $2.57-million judgment decided on by a Toronto jury this week is $500,000 in punitive damages against the Roman Catholic church, an amount that has far exceeded any previous amount in Canada.
“This changes everything,” said London-based lawyer Robert Talach, of Beckett Personal Injury Lawyers, who represented MacLeod at the trial. “Victims are not going to walk out with little pieces of silver anymore from settlements. This changes everything for people who have been hurt by the church.”
Talach, who specializes in church-related sexual abuse cases, said that to this point the church had “only been required to pay for the damage they caused victims but have never been fined or punished for their institutional conduct and complicity.” (more...)
It would appear that this abuser is actually an ephebohile, not a pedophile. In 80-85% of the sex abuse cases of minors the victims are male adolescents. The abusers are men. Sexual attraction for pubescent and post-pubescent boys is not pedophilia which is that attractions for pre-pubescent children. Bishops contrary to church law/tradition have ordained numerous homosexuals, of whom, many are active, and some who hunger for adolescent boys. The bishops are reaping what they have sowed. I do wish that journalists would start using the proper terminology when reporting on these sex abuse cases. But that might mean recognizing the real elephant in the room: homosexuals in the priesthood. Think parishoners are ever going to get a pastoral letter from their bishops admitting this fact? Not a chance.
ReplyDeleteThe individual offence aside, we see an entire institution of the church acting as a mafia in cassocks. This has been profoundly corrupting to the community in which they are embedded. Parishes, schools, colleges, lay organizations, media... all have been compromised by these Judases. It has become a secret society in which sodomy is the initiation rite.
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