A request for collective action for any victims who would have been assaulted by a member or employee of the Joliette Diocese was approved a week ago, thanks in particular to support from survivors like Patrick Pichette.
The 55-year-old man says he has been touched almost daily by a priest since he was six years old while serving as a minister near Joliette.
“For me, I was small, I didn’t have an alarm to say it wasn’t right. Anyway, it was Monsieur le Curé, so it was all right, he said. It always started with wandering hands on thighs. And even less because it was summer, we were wearing shorts, well, the hands were found in the shorts.
The abuse stopped around the age of 11 when he confided in his mother.
Some forty years have passed, but the consequences are still very present.
“It’s a scar that stays with you for life,” he continues. From the moment you accept the scar, you cannot remove it. That’s one thing. Then you have to decide what you want to do with it. But it always goes up. As soon as I meet a new person, things go uphill. The whole time.”
When he learned that a class action lawsuit had been filed against the Diocese of Joliette covering the period 1940 to the present, he decided to speak out as well.
“I’ve managed to get along with pretty much all of my songs. “I’ve known people who were unfortunate enough to commit suicide,” says Mr. Pichette. I’ve known two people who committed suicide because of it. Unfortunately, there is someone who has fallen into the world of drugs; then the other person committed suicide. I don’t want that to happen to other people.
The Diocese of Joliette states that it does not want to grant an interview for the time being so as not to disrupt the ongoing negotiations.
Watch the full report in the video above.