Canadian bishop pleads guilty over child porn
Source: Agencies |
May 5, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A CANADIAN Roman Catholic bishop has pleaded guilty to importing child pornography.
Bishop Raymond Lahey, 70, appeared in an Ottawa courtroom yesterday - a rare case of high ranking Canadian Church official facing charges over sexual misconduct.
Lahey was charged in 2009 with possessing and importing child pornography after border agents examined his laptop at an Ontario airport. He resigned as head of the Catholic diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia just before the charges became public and has been living in a residence for retired priests since his October 2009 arrest.
The case was more shocking to Canadians because Lahey had overseen a multimillion dollar settlement for clerical sexual abuse victims in his diocese only a month earlier.
Victims of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy and their advocates have welcomed the trial.
Victims advocates say the case is significant because law enforcement agencies have long looked the other way in prosecuting sex-related offenses where high-ranking church officials were concerned.
"We hope that the Lahey case is a sign that the era of deference by civil authorities toward bishops may be coming to an end," said Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org, a group that collects and posts online data and documents related to the child sexual abuse crisis.
Irene Deschenes, a survivor of sexual abuse by a priest in London, Ontario, said that although the structure of the church still allows the abuse of children to continue, she hopes Lahey gets a fair trial to provide a case that can be used as a precedent internationally.
Last year, the Vatican revised its sex abuse norms to include acquiring, possessing and distributing pornography of children under 14 years of age as a serious canonical crime, it also enabled the Congregation to prosecute bishops and cardinals, not just priests. In the past, the pope would delegate the cases of bishops who committed canonical crimes to Vatican offices or a Vatican court.
Bishop Raymond Lahey, 70, appeared in an Ottawa courtroom yesterday - a rare case of high ranking Canadian Church official facing charges over sexual misconduct.
Lahey was charged in 2009 with possessing and importing child pornography after border agents examined his laptop at an Ontario airport. He resigned as head of the Catholic diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia just before the charges became public and has been living in a residence for retired priests since his October 2009 arrest.
The case was more shocking to Canadians because Lahey had overseen a multimillion dollar settlement for clerical sexual abuse victims in his diocese only a month earlier.
Victims of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy and their advocates have welcomed the trial.
Victims advocates say the case is significant because law enforcement agencies have long looked the other way in prosecuting sex-related offenses where high-ranking church officials were concerned.
"We hope that the Lahey case is a sign that the era of deference by civil authorities toward bishops may be coming to an end," said Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org, a group that collects and posts online data and documents related to the child sexual abuse crisis.
Irene Deschenes, a survivor of sexual abuse by a priest in London, Ontario, said that although the structure of the church still allows the abuse of children to continue, she hopes Lahey gets a fair trial to provide a case that can be used as a precedent internationally.
Last year, the Vatican revised its sex abuse norms to include acquiring, possessing and distributing pornography of children under 14 years of age as a serious canonical crime, it also enabled the Congregation to prosecute bishops and cardinals, not just priests. In the past, the pope would delegate the cases of bishops who committed canonical crimes to Vatican offices or a Vatican court.
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