An Ontario woman who was repeatedly raped by a Roman Catholic priest while she was a girl has received what is believed to be the largest individual settlement in a sexual abuse case in Canada — $2 million. The victim, Lou Ann Soontiens, was in grade school when the abuse began at the hands of Rev. Charles Sylvestre. It continued for seven years.
CBC's The Fifth Estate investigated the case of Charles Sylvestre. Given the scale of the abuse, harm and damage he inflicted to the daughters of devout Catholic parishioners, how is it that he was allowed to continue his campaign of sexual terror against little girls?
Only the continued complicity of his superiors in the arch-diocese can explain how, in spite of evidence such as sworn police statements, Sylvestre committed acts of physically, emotionally and spiritually violence against at least 70 female children for over 50 years.
Cardinal G. Emmett Carter, for example. A ferocious, even vicious abortion-criminalizer, the Catholic Cardinal seemingly considered attacks upon the physical, emotional and spiritual integrity of female children a lesser evil, or perhaps no evil at all if perpetrated by a priest in his diocese? Callous indifference to the lives of women, unless they are fulfilling their purpose as human incubators - or refusing to do so, appears to be a professional requirement for the clerics of the Catholic Church, especially the very ambitious ones.
2 comments:
Did you catch the bit about the priest impregnating her at age 14 and arranging for an abortion that was 'botched'? Abortion's okey-dokey when it's needed to cover up a priestly crime, eh?
Indeed, fern hill. If you look over The Fifth Estate's time line, there is ample evidence that a number of catholic clergy in his diocese were aware of what Sylvestre was doing, and turned their heads away. He was apparently sent away several times for rehabilitation; when he returned, they would direct him back to the parishes, a wolf among lambs.
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