Front Burner - Former Catholic priest alleges superiors covered up his sex crimes

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

In 2015, former Catholic priest Paul-André Harvey pled guilty to 39 counts of sexual assault and gross indecency against young girls. Before he died in 2018, he did something that sent shockwaves through his former Quebec diocese: he wrote a confession in which he alleged his superiors both enabled and covered up his crimes. Mark Kelley of CBC’s The Fifth Estate tells us about the role this confession is now playing in a class-action lawsuit, brought by Harvey’s alleged victims, against the church.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Hello. In 2018, a former Catholic priest by the name of Paul-Andre Harvey died while in prison in Laval, Quebec. Just a few years earlier, he had pled guilty to 39 charges of sexual assault and gross indecency against young girls all over a 20-year period while he was serving in the diocese of Jakutomy. Sentenced to six years in prison. The people of this province and the people of this particular diocese wants to know

what went on, wants to know how deep the rot was or is. On his deathbed, he did something that sent shockwaves through the church and beyond. He swore a confession again to his crimes, and this time he alleged his direct supervisors were not only aware, but covered it up for him. You see people getting away with it. Say, well, there is no justice. We don't get it when it comes to the sex offenders. We're just clearing the street-level offenders, the priests.

We're not going higher. Today, the story of one priest's abuses and what it says about accountability, or lack thereof, inside the Catholic Church in parts of Quebec. This is Frontburner. My colleague Mark Kelly investigated this case for the Fifth Estate, and he is here with me now. Mark, thank you so much for joining me. Hi, Jamie. Thank you. It's a pleasure to have you here. So in 2015, Paul Andre Harvey pleaded guilty to 39 acts of sexual assault and gross indecency between 1963 and 1983, and he's sentenced to six years in prison. And what does he plead guilty to exactly?

Well, he was pleading guilty to these decades of sexual abuse involving girls. As we mentioned, it was between the ages of 8 10, that he would look for these young children. He pled guilty to these acts, which were really abhorrent. And it was a time where he was admitting that he had this problem that he was struggling with. And the first victim came forward in 2012 in Shikudomi. And after that victim came forward and spoke to the police, it opened a floodgate. And so many people started coming forward saying

they too had been abused by this priest over the decades in this area of Lac-Saint-Jean. And after all these decades, it finally came to bear that he would pay the price for his crimes. So he's sentenced in 2015. But then I understand in the intervening years, he gives this confession, which goes even further. And in 2018, he's on his deathbed in Laval in a prison.

And he swears to this extraordinary confession. What does he say about his crimes? Why he did them? He talks about his crimes in ways that are quite unsettling, that this was somebody who was always seeking love and affection, who didn't choose himself to go into the priesthood. It was his parents who pushed him into the priesthood, and this wasn't something he was looking for. And then he started to find attention. And the attention started coming from

these young girls. This was his fascination. And this is where he said he felt alive and he felt empowered when he would get the attention of these young girls. And that's how it started with these girls. And as a priest, he obviously got more attention because of his position. Absolutely. And especially when we look back to being a priest in the 60s and 70s in the Lac-Saint-Jean area. I mean, he talked about it himself, that it was almost as if he was like a star everywhere he walked, and their children would run up to him. run up to him. And that's what was giving him some sort of fulfillment. But it was also really revealing his problem that he had, that he was a pedophile. Hmm. I want to talk to you today about what he says in his confession, first about what the church knew, and then about the police and their role in this. But let's focus on the diocese. And specifically, what does he say about his first defense, which was less than a year into his posting, I understand,

and how his superiors reacted? So he starts in 1962. By 1963, less than a year in, already there's been a complaint from a parent that he's been abusing their child. He's then summoned into the bishop's office. That was a bishop by the name of Marius Par child. He's then summoned into the bishop's office. That was a bishop by the name of Marius Parry. He goes into his office and according to his confession, these again are the words of Father Harvey, my bishop called me into his office after a complaint had been filed. I told him about my problem and admitted to him I need to get help. But he only recommended that I be more careful around children and to pray more. Wow. And that ends up being the core of the issue. Because here, remember, we're talking

about 1963. The complaints, the charges he would plead guilty to went all the way to 1983. So what we're looking at here is if there were one or two victims at this point, and he was not stopped, there are now more than 100 people who are alleged to be victimized by Father Harvey. So this, if true, this is the core of the issue, that he raised his own red flag, that there was a problem there, and he needed to be stopped. But he wasn't. Instead, he would be sent to another parish. And just before we move on, I want to pick up on something that you mentioned when you say, if true, these allegations that he's making in this confession, while he swore an affidavit,

they haven't yet been tested in a court. Yeah, and it's a very important point, because even when he, this confession would actually become public, the diocese reaction would be to say that this is a tall tale, a solitary tale from a convicted pedophile. And the only sad thing is that we'll never have the opportunity to cross examine him about his claims. So they immediately dismiss this all to be pure fabrication. So they immediately dismiss this all to be pure fabrication. So after this first complaint, after the bishop allegedly tells him to pray more, what happens to him? Well, he gets sent to another parish. And, you know, we've talked to two experts who've looked into this, and one of them, Rob Talek, who's a lawyer, who's taken up, sued the Catholic Church about 400 times. It's that silent shuffle, as I call it. And this is the classic case where you have a problem with a priest. What do you do? You send

them 50 miles down the road to a new parish. Right. This is spotlight. This is the Boston. It's always been done. And, you know, as Rob Talek, the lawyer, liked to say that this is like bishop training school this is what they do this is their mo this is the way they deal with this complaint comes in either directly from the victim or usually their parents the bishop or a senior ranking official speaks to the family says trust us we'll take care of it now if we look at it and there has been work that's that's gone out to look at what would be the average stay of a priest in a parish in that period of time, and it's usually around six years. But when we looked at Father Harvey, he'd been transferred 12 times to different parishes over two decades.

In some parishes, he was there for a matter of months, maybe a year, less than two years. So while that in itself is not an indictment of the church, it certainly makes you wonder, why was it that he was being transferred over and over again? While he himself would later admit, I had this problem. Shortly after I would be sent to a new parish, I would re-offend. And you're not hearing this just from Father Harvey, right? And his confession. from Father Harvey, right, and his confession, you also heard from victims of Father Harvey, and they also told you that they told higher-ups. And can you tell me a little bit about Suzanne Tremblay? Yeah, you know, it's a chilling story because you understand what happens with these people in power. And of course, Father Harvey was a person in power as the parish priest. And his approach would be twofold, which would be one, to groom the parents,

and then to groom the victim. So what he would do as the parish priest is he would go to homes and go for a coffee or a tea to get to know the parents. And this was standard practice in the parish of the day. But when he would do that, he would also start looking for victims. And in the case of Suzanne Tremblay, she was just four years old when he first turned up at the house and got to know his parents. Her parents

would then start to trust him, welcome him to the house. And then he would turn around and ask, well, could she, your daughter, could she bring over a loaf of bread? Could she come by and do me a favor? Whatever it was. And the parents had no qualms about sending their child over to the church. And that was what happened to Suzanne when she was just seven years old. The first time she remembers being alone with Father Harvey. And that was the first time, and not the last, that he would sexually abuse her.

I looked at the cross and I said, if it's true you exist today, I want you to come get me. I want to die. Horrible. What did she tell you about what she told other people? Well, and that's where we see the more and more layers, the lack of accountability, because she goes and tells her parents what had happened.

There were cushions on the floor. I found myself on the cushions. I don't remember how it happened, but he was on top of me. Her father first didn't believe her, said there's no way a priest would do something like this. Her mother, however, did believe her and thought there was a problem, and they discussed it. So this was then brought to the attention of the diocese. Suzanne Tremblay says when she was just a young child in elementary school,

two priests show up at school, and they pull her out of class, and they scold her. They chastise her. They said, how dare you say something like this, making up stories like this. And then they bring her to the diocese. They bring her to meet Bishop Paré, the same man that Father Harvey had already reportedly said that he had a problem to. He called me by my name and told me to get on my knees, Mar's Paré. But I said no. And finally I got on my knees. That's when he started to talk and said, why are you telling lies? And then after that,

her mother said, okay, now she was mad. Now she wanted to fight for accountability. So she arranged her own meeting at the diocese where she would meet another priest. He didn't say a word. He took out a big black notebook with a hard cover.

I still remember. He opened it and wrote down everything we said. He didn't look surprised at all. I don't think it was the first time he heard about this. That book was closed, and with it, it seemed the case was closed. Shortly thereafter, Father Harvey was moved once again. Okay, so he was moved yet again. And what else did you glean from Father Harvey's confession

about how he was dealt with by these higher-ups over the years? Is it fair for me to say that this is quite rare, this kind of information coming from a priest about the system? Absolutely. I mean, and this is what drew our attention, our investigation, both the Fifth Estate and our Rajo Canada sister show, Enquete. What really fascinated about it is that he was shining the light on the higher ups there. And that was the new twist to this, is what did they know and when did they know it? Now, according to him, and again, this is from his confession, he said, and I quote, whenever he would receive another complaint, he being the bishop,

he would reassign me to another parish, thinking that would resolve my emotional problems. That's what Harvey wrote. But it was to no avail. After a few days, I would reoffend. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. So let's talk about the role of the police here as well.

Were they ever informed about this alleged behavior? According to Father Harvey, and again, in his confession, he says on four different occasions he was pulled into a police station and questioned by police who were acting on complaints from parents four different times. And in each time, he said that the police didn't charge me. These are his words. The police didn't charge me. They simply told me not to re-offend. For all those years, I benefited from their generosity. So he was let go. Now, why would that be? Because the feeling was in the day that this was not a police

matter if you had a problem priest. This was a matter for the bishop. So now we could find no written record that any of these police departments had written down the complaints, opened a file on Bishop Paré, shared that information between police departments, or shared it with the diocese itself. But it is hard to believe that anyone in the diocese knew nothing about their problem priest as they claim to be the case. Have the police said anything to you today about how they've looked at this historically? I spoke with somebody from the Saguenay police. They wouldn't let me talk to the lead investigator on the case. And that really put a bit of a compromise on our investigation because I spoke to somebody with the police department. And I said, were there any written records? She says, well, there's none that we could find,

which doesn't necessarily mean there weren't any, but they said they couldn't find any. that we could find, which doesn't necessarily mean there weren't any, but they said they couldn't find any. And so they also said, but did you know? Was this brought to the bishop's attention, the fact that there was these police investigations of all these complaints? We don't know. We can't find any records about that. And as far as they're concerned, everything was handled properly. And it wasn't until, as I mentioned before, 2012, when somebody finally came forward and pointed the finger at Father Harvey and said that he was

abuser, that they really opened a serious investigation on him. But as far as they're concerned, there were no other files that they could reference. I understand there are also these secret archives that one of the lawyers at least thinks could be very important. And can you tell me a little bit more about that? Well, secret archives are fascinating. And according to canon law, and canon law is the church law, this is the law that comes from the Vatican. Every diocese, according to canon law, must keep secret archives. So every church should have secret archives. Every diocese that oversees these churches should have these secret archives. So every church should have secret archives. Every diocese that oversees these churches

should have these secret archives. So when the opportunity came in the class action suit to cross-examine Bishop Kutsura, who had been there for two decades, he said, if there were complaints against Father Harvey, would they be in the secret archives? He said, I think they would be. Okay, well, there's one person in the diocese who has the key to those secret archives,

and it's you, the bishop. He says, yes, that's correct. So we asked him, there are secret archives, are there not? And he says, yes, there are. I asked him, so what is in them? And he said, I don't know, I never looked. He has the key, he says they exist, but he never looked at them. That's what he says.

Okay. And I asked the lawyer, Bruce Johnson, about that. Do you believe him? No, I never looked. He has the key. He says they exist, but he never looked at them. That's what he says. Okay. And I asked the lawyer, Bruce Johnson, about that. Do you believe him? No, I don't. No, I'm quite certain that's not true. And so do we know if these secret archives were ever handed over to the police as part of their investigation? The diocese in their comment to us says that we handed over all our information, all pertinent files, anything that we could be, would be relevant to the police investigation into Father Harvey. Now, they didn't say specifically, was it the secret archives?

Did they hand those over? So this again, when I called the Saginaw police, I said, did you see the secret archives? And the officer I dealt with says, well, that would be the kind of thing we would see. I said, but that's not answering my question. Did you see them? He says, I can't confirm whether we've seen them or not. But I can tell you that the lawyer, Bruce Johnson, heading up the class action suit,

he says he will make it his job and his goal to make sure that he sees those secret archives to find out if there's any kind of written record about the problems with Father Harvey. The authority of the church at the time extended even to the police, because the police felt that if a priest was involved, it's not a matter for the police, it's a matter for the bishop. When you have an institution which is organizing a cover-up. It's very important that that be known. And you see this as a cover-up?

Absolutely. And this class action lawsuit that you mentioned, what do the people involved in it, you mentioned up to 100 victims now, what are they hoping to achieve? Well, it's interesting because we spoke to a few of the victims. I spoke to a woman named Ellen Ash. She was abused by the priest in 1978.

I was always at the church every Sunday with him because I was helping him with the mass. And this is, again, another example of had he been stopped much earlier, there wouldn't have been cases like hers. This is like almost two decades on. That's right, yeah. And this, they're being part of the problem. By moving him from parish to parish, you're exposing him to new potential victims, and that would be Hélène Asch.

And she tells this story to me about how, again, Father Harvey had got to know her parents. Her parents were working late one night, and he says, I can mind your child. He asked me, do you want to sit on my lap? Okay, I'm 10, so I went on his lap. And then, okay, he hugged me. And I felt uncomfortable, but still.

But then I felt his mouth going through my neck. I remember it like it was yesterday. And I felt his hands going down. I said to myself, my gosh, what's happening? It was eternal for me. And then he starts fondling her when the phone rings, and it's her mother. And she tells her mother, get home right away.

And as soon as I hung up the phone, I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in. He would eventually flee the house. She walks to her school the next day because he's also not only the parish priest, but the priest for the school, and tells the school principal. And then the first thing I knew,

he was not working there anymore. So this is another example about people being told about the problems with him, and he would just be shuffled from position to position. But I asked her, I said, what do you want after all these years? She says, yes, the people are suing for money. She says, I don't even care about the money. She says, I want to support the victims. We're talking about the church, but that should stop everywhere.

Victims need to be heard and need to be believed. She says, I was victimized once. People like Suzanne Tremblay, who we spoke to, she was victimized for years by this priest. And for so long, these people were not believed. For so long, people in the community, Suzanne Trombley, when she came forward with her complaints, she said people spat at her, people threw stones at her. People said, shame on you for questioning the church like this,

for trying to tarnish the church like this. So for so many of these people, they just want to come forward to be heard and to be believed and to make sure that the church is held accountable after all these years. One thing that really struck me as quite astounding from your investigation was that you found that in Canada, there's never been a case in which a church official, a higher up, has ever been charged, let alone convicted, for enabling or covering up sexual crimes of priests in the past. There have been hundreds of cases that have come to light in Canada. Were you surprised by that fact?

I was sure that there would have been priests, would have been bishops or people in the church hierarchy who would have been charged with these crimes, convicted of these crimes. I was sure of that. But I said, well, let's find a case and then we can dig into it. So we started looking and looking and looking. And we couldn't find one. We said, well, how can that be? You know, our colleagues at the program Enquete have looked.

And they're currently, they're 25 either active or pending class action suits in Quebec alone that involve some 200 abusive clergy and 3,000 alleged victims. And that's just right now as we speak in one province in Quebec. charge against anyone in the church hierarchy for aiding and abetting, for criminal negligence, for covering up essentially these problem priests. And that's why it's really come to the victims themselves to take a stand. And they're doing this through class action suits. They're doing it through individuals who are suing for cases of abuse. But at the end of the day, Jamie, it's always the victims who are trying to hold the church accountable. Where are the crown attorneys?

Where are the police forces? Where are the justice ministers? Why aren't they taking a stand? They've left it to the victims. And after all these years of these people carrying around the burden of being victims, now this is the last stand. And this is their last stand.

If they don't hold the church stand, and this is their last stand. If they don't hold the church accountable, they feel nobody will. Okay, Mark Kelly, thank you so much. Thanks, Jamie. All right, so you can catch Mark's documentary on the Fifth Estate's website. It's also streaming on Gem. And some news before we go today. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cancelled a trip to Barbados,

where he was to meet with Caribbean leaders. Instead, he's choosing to focus with a group of his cabinet ministers on the cross-country protests in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs. The protests have crippled much of the country's rail network. On Sunday, CN announced hundreds of temporary layoffs of employees, as many as 6,000 people could be laid off over the coming days. The federal government and the RCMP are facing pressure to end the blockades by removing protesters, but so far, Trudeau says they're focusing on dialogue. Here's some of what he had to say on Sunday. A good meeting this

morning of the Incident Response Group, discussions with ministers. I made some phone calls to Indigenous leadership as well as to a number of premiers. I understand how worrisome this is for so many Canadians and difficult for many people and families across the country. We're going to continue to focus on resolving this situation quickly and peacefully, and that's what we're going to do. This is a mounting crisis for the Trudeau government. Stay tuned for more coverage from us this week.

That's all for today, though. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you all tomorrow.