Even decades later, the memory of these abuses is still alive.
“You see, two years ago I returned to the premises where the first attack took place. When I walked into the parish office I got goosebumps. It’s like the place is full of ghosts. »
Louise is one of the victims registered in the Arsenault Dufresne Wee class action lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of Saint-Hyacinthe. The same one who is leading the legal proceedings against the Archdiocese of Sherbrooke (which currently has 75 complainants).
So far, around thirty complainants appear in the document of sexual assaults that have taken place since the 1940s in places as diverse as the Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe, the basement of Farnham Church, so-and-so’s cottage, or in someone else’s car .
Around twenty church men are named among the suspected attackers. Some names come up more than once, like Jean Lalonde, Léon Boivin, Raphaël Martin… and Georges-Henri Cournoyer (1925-1995), whom Louise was afraid of for a long time.
She agreed to tell me part of her story: “For it must stop, it must change.” There are priests who preached all their lives that we must be sincere in our actions, and they were not sincere . »
They were part of a system that protected them by placing itself above the law and believing itself unreachable. A system that turned a blind eye to the suffering felt and named by the victims, a system that even denied it. Louise knows. She noticed.
“I went to a nuns’ school near the rectory,” she confided. The priest came to us every week. At 12, I was old enough to make my formal communion. For this it was necessary to submit to a private confession. The priest forced us to do it. It didn’t take place in the usual confessional, where we are separated from the priest by a partition, but directly in his office. »
There, alone with Father Cournoyer, Louise did what was expected, she confessed her little “sins” from childhood.
“Then the priest took me in penance and hugged me. And then he touched my breasts. »
Then he took her hand and placed it over the cassock on his penis.
Louise broke away from the hug and left, shaken by what had just happened.
“I was very confused. I was young and innocent, but I still knew it wasn’t right. I told my mother, she didn’t believe me. “Let’s see, he did this to do the right thing,” that’s pretty much what she told me. It was the time when all priests were powerful. Their authority could not be questioned. And the priest, as you can imagine, was someone important. »
Louise never wanted to be alone with the monk again. She sat in the back pews at mass, which her mother forced her to attend every day. As far away from the priest as possible. She wanted to disappear, so to speak.
She recently posted the seventh grade photo where she is posing with her classmates. The young schoolgirls all wear the same little uniform. And they all stayed away from Priest Cournoyer.
“We didn’t really talk about it among ourselves, it was a shameful topic, but we saw ourselves acting, we all had the same discomfort. »
Sixteen years later, in 1975, Louise returned to her home community with her two young children.
“I was divorced and my mother informed Father Cournoyer, who rang my doorbell to do the right thing. I opened the door, I saw him there. He came in, he wanted to hug me, he insisted. He lifted his cassock and showed me his erect penis. I told him to leave immediately. He didn’t understand why I kicked him out, he said he just came to comfort me. »
“You know, we need priests so badly! »
Some time later he knocked on her house again.
“I blocked the door, I didn’t let him in. I told him that I would file a complaint with the church. »
When he left, Louise called the diocese.
“I asked to speak to the bishop, but I don’t know who my call was forwarded to. I told the man who answered what had happened. »
He ventured a disturbing answer. Also shocking: “You know, we need priests so badly! »
“I was surprised. I replied: So you let him do it? He told me: If we have too many complaints, we will send him to another parish. »
Working as an actor for the archdiocese, that’s it. Move the problem elsewhere. Possibly. Without regard for those who had to endure it in the meantime or later.
Louise’s call did not slow the persistent abbot, who returned to their house a third time.
“It was winter, I remember. I saw him coming through the window. I told him through the door that I would call the police if he didn’t leave or come back. »
After that he no longer dared to come any closer.
But Louise was on alert. Constant.
“I lived alone with my two small children, aged one and three. I was really scared. I wondered if he wouldn’t come back to my house. »
Fear in my gut. The whole time. And the diocese’s response is inexcusable: “If we have too many complaints, we will send them somewhere else.” »
Elsewhere it was a different community.
Attacked 20 times, 50 times, 100 times
I have reviewed the statement of claim regarding Saint-Hyacinthe. As with the case against the Archdiocese of Sherbrooke, the allegations have not yet been examined by the courts. In both cases it is a summary of the disgusting, recurring gestures often committed by religious people who benefited from a strong influence among the young people they abused.
The first victim is a 73-year-old man. When he was 12 or 13 years old and an altar boy, he was attacked about twenty times.
And it was at the hands of a man he trusted, a man who was a significant male figure to him, who no longer had a father.
In the playroom in the church basement and in the hut where he was allowed to take the teenager, Father Jean Lalonde increased the fellatio and touching.
A few months later, the young man finally spoke to his mother about what he had suffered. They went to the police station together. File a complaint against the pedophile.
The police chief had several denunciations against Jean Lalonde and another abbot, Bernard Pépin. He went to see the priest and threatened to take criminal action.
What do you think happened after that? You’ll never be Gess. The two abbots have disappeared from the Farnham landscape. However, the Montreal Church Directory states that they officiated in the Archdiocese of Montreal from 1966 to 1967. They were “sent elsewhere.”
It is still so confusing and outrageous to see what was committed and what went unpunished. Even though we know with what negligence the clergy treated sexual assaults within their organization, be it in Sherbrooke, Longueuil, Quebec or Saint-Hyacinthe. Stories overlap everywhere.
One of the victims, D., was attacked more than a hundred times between the ages of 9 and 12. You read that right. More than 100 times. There were blowjobs, touching and attempts at sodomy. Monsignor Eucher Martel, who was later informed of the incidents, expressed his disbelief before ruling that it was the teenager’s fault. You read that correctly. He said that. The police were involved. She didn’t do anything. But strangely enough, two weeks later the abbot was no longer in the parish.
Another victim was attacked about fifty times by Father Charles-Anatole Saint-Jean in Cowansville in the late 1960s. The description of the abuse includes fellatio, touching and anal penetration that left physical marks. Repeated attacks on a young teenager who “was never able to denounce to anyone the attacks he suffered because he felt guilty because his mother had spoken of him as a saint.” »
This makes the case even worse, because the abuses were often committed by men who were fully trusted by the victims’ families, by men of powerful influence who were put on a pedestal.
As it was back then, 40, 50 or 60 years ago, sexuality was a big taboo. Young people often didn’t know much about the sexual sphere. The attackers from religious communities took advantage of this ignorance as well as their status to give free rein to their impulses. With the complicity of their organization, which turned a blind eye and let it happen.
And it is the victims who had to live with the aftermath that put a strain on their existence. Sometimes for a long time, sometimes for a lifetime.
Louise clearly identified the shame, the fear, the guilt. Common effects, which include about thirty possible harms, include a feeling of depression, intrusive thoughts, the use of alcohol or drugs, relationship difficulties, suicide attempts, a feeling of helplessness and humiliation, anger, enuresis, panic attacks, criminal behavior. And many more.
That’s a lot for many victims. At least hundreds and hundreds.
A public inquiry?
The law firm of Arsenault Dufresne Wee handles more than fifteen class actions against religious congregations or dioceses. “In total, there are more than 2,000 registered victims,” notes Me Wee, the lawyer leading the case who has met more than 600 of them.
“Quebec has been under the influence of religion in education for decades and what we see is that everything is in place to conduct a public inquiry,” he said.
Everything is there, but nothing happens. For what? It makes you wonder which skeletons we are afraid to dig up.
The law firm is pursuing multiple class action lawsuits simultaneously and hopes to obtain maximum compensation for each victim. With a few exceptions (this has only happened once since 2010), class actions are settled out of court through negotiations. The victims’ identities and anonymity are protected at all times by a court order, and not all of them would be required to testify if the case ends up in court, Mr Wee points out.
This is an important clarification that may influence the decision to speak or not. It is also the full range of collective action to feel that we are no longer alone in our pain and suffering. Knowing that perhaps there is a path to possible reparation, some justice. To feel that in certain cases, for the first time and thanks to the collective, we can make our voices heard. Finally.
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Victims who identify with this collective action are asked To for free and confidentially by calling 514 527-8903 or writing to [email protected].
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A story to tell or a testimony to share? Write to me: [email protected]
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