The Archdiocese of Vancouver made confirmations of 3 more Roman Catholic priests are involved in the abuse settlements.
Those priests who served in the Vancouver parishes are in the process of the settlements related to sexual abuse. 13 more people came forward to issue the reports on the Roman Catholic Church. In CBC’s The Fifth Estate, the Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver knew of 36 cases of abuse.
All 36 abuse cases were under the jurisdiction of the clergy there. 26 out of the 36 involved children. At the time, the Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver noted nine clergymen had lawsuit settlements or criminal convictions, which went back to the 1950s.
This is in the backyard of British Columbia happening, at least, for half of a century or more, probably. With an update to the report, Armand Frechette, John Edward Kilty, and Johannes Holzapfel, were involved in settlements. Each served in parishes in Vancouver; now, each is dead.
If this happens for decades in Vancouver, and comes out more forcefully now, then this raises some interesting questions about the national state of Roman Catholicism, not only in British Columbia or per province or territory.
Because more cases continue to flood forward of sexual abuse, as a core form of the abuse, and coming out of the Roman Catholic Church as the identifiable organization in the country. The allegations came from the 1940s and the 1960s, mainly, in the Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver cases.
The report from the Archdiocese of Vancouver (2020) stated, “We understand that some people think that we should speak less about this issue because it may seem that it feeds into an ‘antifaith’ narrative… We believe that greater transparency allows us to reach and care for more victims/survivors while increasing vigilance and safe environments within our parishes.”
Since the 1920s, there are ongoing cases. In August of 2020, one woman came out claiming assault as a child at a Catholic elementary school in Vancouver. She claimed to be suing the local archdiocese for “perpetuating and covering up decades of alleged systemic abuse by priests, bishops and other members of its clergy.”
The class-action lawsuit claimed the Archdiocese of Vancouver knew about the allegations of abuse and engendered a culture of said misconduct while hiding complaints against clergy – keeping them safe.
With files from CBC News.