A B.C. man who claims he was sexually assaulted when he was a high school seminarian plans to appear in B.C. Supreme Court on Thursday to ask the Vatican’s representative in Canada for information about the monk who he says abused him.
Mark O’Neill wants the court to order the official – known as the Apostolic Nuncio – to hand over investigation records and correspondence about allegations of sexual misconduct at Christ the King Seminary in Mission, B.C.
The request follows the surfacing in the O’Neill case of an anonymous letter allegedly sent decades ago to the former abbey director who runs the seminary, warning about the now-deceased Benedictine monk at the center of the lawsuit.
The letter from “former seminarians” stated that Harold Vincent Sander – known as Father Placidus – was “known to have engaged in homosexual activities” with high school students” and suggested that he “be removed from proximity to junior seminarians.”
‘A grave miscarriage of justice’
O’Neill is suing the seminary and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver, as well as Sander’s estate and one of the seminary’s former students, who O’Neill claims sexually assaulted him while supervising an overnight field trip in the late 1970s.
The fitness trainer is one of three former students who testified against Sander in a criminal case that saw the monk acquitted of sexual assault in December 1997.
The Apostolic Nuncio is considered a kind of ambassador of the Vatican.
In the court application, O’Neill’s lawyer claims that the anonymous letter that raised concerns about Sander was sent through the Apostolic Nuncio in May 1987, 10 years before Sander was tried.
The application says the warning was “presumably never disclosed to the police or the Crown” even though the former abbot and the “Apostolic Nunciature were fully aware of its existence and the possibility of other victims.”
“There is undoubtedly more beneath the surface of these letters,” the application said.
“A serious miscarriage of justice occurred.”
Diplomatic immunity
According to the Apostolic Nunciature website, an apostolic delegation to Canada was established in 1899 and a nuncio was first appointed in 1969.
The Apostolic Nuncio is described in O’Neill’s application as the official presence of the Pope in Canada, advising and working with Canadian bishops “in addition to serving as a diplomat on behalf of the Vatican.”
A letter sent to the court by Global Affairs Canada earlier this month says that the current Apostolic Nuncio, Ivan Jurkovic, enjoys diplomatic immunity, as do the files in his office.
In the application, O’Neill’s lawyer asserts that foreign immunity does not extend to legal proceedings relating “to death or personal or bodily injury.”
Allegations of systemic wrongdoing.
O’Neill’s trial is scheduled for September.
All defendants in the case have denied O’Neill’s allegations.
O’Neill recently amended his lawsuit against the seminary and the church to include allegations of systemic wrongdoing, citing a culture that allegedly “silenced witnesses, whistleblowers and the reported,” allowing the perpetrators of abuse to “continue to commit their serious crimes.”
In response, the seminary has denied “the existence of a culture of entrenched clericalism and distorted beliefs within the Roman Catholic Church.”
The seminary also claims that, apart from the anonymous warning, “there are no further communications…regarding the allegations against Sander” between the abbey and the apostolic nuncio.
‘Disorderly Thinking’
O’Neill is one of two former whistleblowers in the criminal case who have filed civil suits against the seminary, the archbishop and Sander’s estate.
In the run-up to the trial, hundreds of pages of documents have been filed with the court, including partial transcripts of a deposition of the ailing monk in the months before his death.
Sander was asked about his admission at trial of a “consensual genital act” with a 12th grader in the 1980s, when he was in his late 50s or early 60s.
He insisted that the former student was over 18 and said they were in a “state of undress,” but he could not recall whether they were both completely naked.
Sander claims that the seminarian masturbated him but said that “I have never masturbated any seminarian.”
“I figured I was a good friend of his and I said, okay, if this is all our friendship is about,” Sander is quoted as saying.
At a later point in the deposition, in response to a question from O’Neill’s attorney, he admitted to having “disordered thinking with respect to curiosity about male genitalia.”
“Burdened with frailties.
The court file also includes a copy of the reasons for judgment acquitting Sander of sexually assaulting O’Neill and the other two alleged victims in December 1997.
The judge questioned O’Neill’s credibility, in part because of unsubstantiated claims he made to the RCMP, accusing the other man who allegedly sexually assaulted him of murdering Father Damusus Payne, a seminary professor who died in a climbing accident in 1978.
The judge said the evidence against Sander relating to activities decades earlier was “riddled with weaknesses” and left “as many questions as answers.”
“All three complainants experienced some kind of trauma that needed to be resolved with the help of experts,” the judge wrote.
“However, the existence of therapy does not by itself lead to the conclusion that the events occurred as described.”
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Reference-www.cbc.ca