Front Burner - Inuit ask Pope for justice over accused priest
Episode Date: August 2, 2022Last week, Canada asked France to extradite a Catholic priest accused of crimes against Inuit children in Nunavut decades ago. RCMP have said Rev. Johannes Rivoire is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant... related to a sexual assault charge laid in February. Rivoire had previously been charged with sexually abusing children in Nunavut, but those charges were stayed in 2017. In Iqaluit on Friday, as part of the Pope's final stop in his "penitential pilgrimage" in Canada, a delegation once again called on the pontiff to personally intervene. Today, we're talking to investigative journalist Kathleen Martens about the long fight to put Rivoire on trial. This episode will also feature clips from Martens's exclusive interview with Rivoire for APTN.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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.
Hi, I'm Angela Starrett in for Jamie Poisson.
On Friday, late afternoon, Pope Francis arrived in Nunavut's capital, Iqaluit. It was the last brief stop of a so-called penitential tour of Canada.
I want to tell you how very sorry I am and to ask for forgiveness for the evil perpetrated
by not a few Catholics who in these schools contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation and enfranchisement.
A group of survivors met the Pope in a private meeting to talk about one specific case,
the case of French oblate priest Johannes Rivoire,
accused of abusing Inuit children back in the 60s and 70s.
Rivoire, now 92, lives in France, and survivors have been calling for his extradition so he
can be tried in court.
Today, we're talking to Kathleen Martins, an investigative journalist with APTN, about
the long fight to hold Revoir accountable.
She also recently went to France to speak to him about the allegations.
Hi Kathleen.
Hi Angela.
So I'm hoping you could give me a bit of a summary of the charges that Rivoire is facing.
For sure. I know it's confusing. So he left Nunavut in 1993. And after he left, the RCMP charged him.
The warrant was issued for his arrest in 1998. And that was for charges related to four accusers, three boys and a girl. And those charges His daughter, Tanya, and his childhood best friend,
the former commissioner of Nunavut, Pita Ernik, have been seeking justice for Marius ever since.
And on Friday, they met privately with the Pope to talk about this.
What do we know about that meeting and what they hope the Pope will do here?
Well, this is the second time the Pope has been asked to intervene.
The Indigenous delegations went to Rome in the spring, and at that time, the national Inuit lobby group
that represents all Inuit in Canada, ITK,
asked the Pope either to get a hold of Revoir
and tell him to turn himself in to the authorities
or to ask France to try him in that country.
An Inuit delegation of seven was on its way to the Vatican
to make their own appeal for justice.
They also asked the Pope to personally intervene
in bringing alleged abusers to justice,
in particular a former priest now in France.
It is such a heartbreaking reality that some people who should have been brought to justice decades ago have not seen justice.
So this would be the second time the Pope's been asked to do something.
So, so many people know and love Marius and want justice for him
and the other victims, including the woman who is the most recent to come forward and whose
complaint against him led to the sexual assault charge, which is the only one he's facing now.
But that is enough for Canada to, you know, request his extradition, which it revealed that it did last week. It's all about
getting him to face these accusers, either in Canada or in France or potentially in Rome.
That's a possibility. I don't know how great of one, but that he could maybe be tried by the
Vatican courts. So like you mentioned, in 2022, a new charge against Revoir was laid, this time because
of allegations brought forward by an Enoch woman. And I understand she shared her story with you,
and she's comfortable with you sharing that here today. And for the sake of survivors,
we don't need to hear, of course, every detail, but briefly, can you tell me what happened?
survivors. We don't need to hear, of course, every detail, but briefly, can you tell me what happened?
Yes, of course. She was six, she says, when the abuse started. She was fairly readily available to him every Sunday because her dad worked for the Catholic Church, and she and an older sister were always in the church building.
So he found ways, she says, to keep her busy in church and thereafter church would conclude.
And then she said this went on for five years.
So when she's from the age of six to when she turned 11 and she never told anyone.
And she said it mostly took place,
there's often a change room outside the main, you know, where the congregation is. And she said
things would go would happen in there. And she talked about physical and sexual abuse that
occurred, and has had such an incredible impact on her that even today she can't stand Sundays because it occurred every Sunday, she says.
Why did it take until now for the RCMP to hear her out?
Yeah, that's a really interesting part of her story. Why did it take until now for the RCMP to hear her out? Nunavut, she said that the individual Mounties would tell her that they could not, they didn't,
she didn't have any evidence, which I think all of us know in a historical case like this,
there isn't any evidence. It's often the accuser's word against the accused's word.
And these Mounties, the shifts or the rotation of them, she said, turns over every three years or so. So she would keep trying and she went 10 times and she'd, you know, look at
the calendar and say, hey, maybe I should go up to the detachment, see if there's somebody new there.
And she did. So she went in the fall, September 2021. And there was someone there that she, a young man,
she said that she'd seen in her community and they said hi and waved and she felt comfortable with him.
She went in and she told him what had happened.
Now, part of the problem, she says, was her because she didn't know Revoir's English name.
She only knew his name in Inuktitut, which was like a single, you know, one name, like a Madonna or
in Inuktitut. And he didn't know who that was, but they managed to figure it out. And he also was
far more enlightened. That's my word for it, because he understood it was a historical sexual
assault and said right away to her, yeah, we can take your complaint. And she said
she almost fell over. It was such good news. And she had actually a pretty good night's
sleep that night. So that's what happened. Now, of course, trying to get an explanation from,
you know, the RCMP about that wasn't forthcoming, so I don't know. But he took her complaint,
forwarded it to prosecutors in the capital,
and the charge was authorized
and laid one count of sexual assault.
And you recently flew to France to have a face-to-face meeting with Revoir for an exclusive interview for APTN.
He has never spoken to North American media, but agreed to sit down with APTN National News.
news. When we arrived to his retirement home in Lyon, France, the now-retired priest refused to go on camera, but allowed us to record him. Can you describe that meeting for me? What was it like?
Well, he lives on the third floor of an oblique- run retirement home, end of a quiet street in Lyon, overlooking this
beautiful skyline below of Lyon. And Lyon has two major rivers and numerous bridges. So it's
quite a stunning view. He has two of those floor to ceiling French windows that open onto two small balconies
where pigeons come and he feeds them.
So, yeah, he received us.
We went into the lobby and no one there knew who we were or why we were there.
He walks with a cane.
He's slightly stooped.
He's 92 years old now.
And he told us that he hadn't been out of his room in six months except to go down for meals. He was, you know, a young man. He was 28 when he left
France to go to Nunavut in the first place. And he lived there for 30 years. He left when
he was 58.
What did he tell you about his time in Chesterfield Inlet?
You know, he let his eyes lit up.
He really, you can tell heuit were being moved off the land and communities were being created.
When he arrived there, there were only the fur trade buildings, the single buildings, and then he said his mission building would be built.
And he liked very much that the, you know, the Inuit would come into the community, sell their furs.
He would chat with them.
He would offer them a coffee.
He would explain who he was, talked to them about their religion.
He also offered untrained medical help, he said.
He helped deliver a baby. He said when, you know, people were sick,
they came in and saw him from young children to adult men.
And he would examine them and then get a doctor down south.
I communicated with a doctor who was 100 kilometers south.
But he would explain what he was seeing, the symptoms,
and then they would tell him what to do.
So it was a very kind of rudimentary system.
But he said he served as this, also this medical person in between.
He said he had no problem picking up a Noctitude because he spoke French.
And he also learned English just before being posted to Nunavut.
He said the Oblates sent him to a place in Ontario where he quickly picked up, you know, working English.
So when he was up north, he said he would study, try to put all of his catechisms, his mass, his teachings into their language.
And he did everything from baptize babies to bury elders.
He was a church priest. It sounds like he was afforded a lot of power in that community.
When you asked him about the allegations, what was his response to that?
Well, it wasn't the usual kind of grilling interview that we want to do when it gets to difficult questions like that.
Because of the language, I don't speak French.
So I would ask the question, it would be translated to him in French.
Then he would answer in French and the answer would be translated to me in English.
And so it took a lot of the steam out of the interview, so to speak. Now,
I had been going in that he was fluent in English, fluent in any noctitude. But when I arrived there,
he said, no, all French. So I asked several times during the interview, if he was aware of
the allegations in general against priests in the Catholic Church. Yes, he was.
I said, was he one of those abusers? No, he wasn't. I said, you know, you were alone with
people in this sort of quasi-medical role. Did anything happen? Oh, I mean, he touched penises,
he said. But it was strictly in a medical way.
And so that, okay, I can only report what he tells me.
But he didn't work in the residential school that was up there or in the hostel that was up there in Chesterfield Inlet.
He was a church priest.
inlet. He was a church priest. When he was in where Marius Tungeluk, for example, is from,
he, Revoir, opened the co-op store, the grocery store there. And children, you know, and tweens like Marius worked there. And that is where he came into contact with Marius and other youngsters
outside of the church. So it wasn't strictly at church from this, you know, there was also the store.
He had a lot of access to children unsupervised. 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.
Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about
money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share
with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household
income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast,
Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen
to this podcast, just search for Money for Couops. Why hasn't he been sent back to Canada to face charges?
Well, France does not extradite its citizens to stand trial elsewhere.
So France is open to trying its citizens on a foreign charge.
When he's charged with sexual assault, France has a statute of limitations on that charge, and it has expired. So if it was something that France didn't have a statute of limitations on, the country could with prosecutors in France, but the lawyer I've spoken to seemed very up on this,
and she said it's expired.
Lawmakers are always being lobbied to either extend
or maybe even eliminate these statutes,
particularly for these kinds of historical sex charges,
but that's not the case right now.
Now, he won't be extradited to Canada,
and he can't be tried on the charge in France at this time, at least under French law. So that's
why now I'm looking at these Vatican courts, because they have held other trials there.
Now, I haven't seen one for a priest. I've seen like a bishop,
an archbishop. That might be, you know, another possibility. I have all kinds of feelers out on
that. But I saw that even an MP was tweeting saying, hey, it's so great that Canada applied
for extradition. Well, that's all Canada can do. And then Canada can say, we've done everything we can do. It can only apply
for extradition. And then it can say, hey, France isn't going to extradite him. There isn't really
anything else we can do. Unless he leaves France, there's a Canada wide warrant out for him. So
he's not planning to come to Canada. There's an international warrant that they're busy applying
for now. It's called a red notice.
It's like an Interpol warrant.
They don't have it yet.
But if that is in place and he's outside of, let's say he's, and this is just me, you know, blue skying.
Let's say he's summoned to Italy.
And then somebody and someone knows he's on his way there.
I'm going to guess perhaps someone could pick him up outside France on that red notice.
He is also, Angela, he revealed to me in the interview, he's a Canadian citizen, dual Canadian and French.
I'm still trying to find out if that has any bearing on whether he could be extradited.
But the two or three lawyers I've talked to said no.
He is a French citizen, and so France won't extradite him.
So that's also why people are asking the Pope to intervene.
And you mentioned the original warrant for Revoir's arrest was issued back in 1998. But recently, in 2017, those charges were stayed.
Can you clarify that? There's no prospect of a conviction, right?
a conviction, right? Those are the original charges from 1968 to 1970 against Revoir from Marius Tunguluk and two other boys and a girl. But Revoir had already left the country.
So these five charges were laid and then they were just on the books until they were stayed in 2017, which means, you know, you can't act on them.
And we, when that occurred, I spoke to the federal justice minister, David Lamedi, and he said that evidence can't be reused for new charges under that, like to recharge him on those allegations.
He said alleged victims have to come forward again and tell their stories.
And this is why there is not only a great deal of unhappiness in Nunavut about this,
but a feeling that, you know, there's just so much red tape
and nothing's getting done on this case. And he just keeps getting older. But the alleged victims are like, how many times do we have to
tell our stories in order to get this guy into a courtroom? But he told me several times he didn't
do it. He told me that he is not planning to come back to Canada. I asked him if he had heard from the RCMP in Nunavut. He
said no. I asked him, why not call the RCMP yourself? And he said, why should I call them?
So you can see from, you know, the victim's point of view, how this just sounds like a big game of
tic-tac-toe on this international board,
and nothing's really happening.
So when you get the pontiff there on Inuit land, you want to ask him,
look, dude, do something about this. You have all this power.
This former student planned to raise Revar's case with the Pope directly during their private meeting.
This monster cannot, cannot be allowed
to get away for what he did. The Pope's visit to a Calvary... Last week, the federal justice
minister confirmed Ottawa has asked France to extradite Revoir. What do we know about that
request? Yeah, it's interesting that they revealed it, Angela, because state-to-state business is always confidential.
You know, that's secret.
So for them to release this, I think that was because there was so much media attention on that.
There is so much media attention on the Revoir case.
Pope has been asked about it.
The Vatican spokesperson has been asked about it.
it, the Vatican spokesperson's been asked about it. The Inuit, I think, have done a masterful job in connecting Revoir to the Pope in terms of getting some action, right? Like, they've gone
past the federal government, they've gone past the French government, and Revoir did confirm that he
had heard from his, the Oblate Superior in Rome. As I said, are you aware that the Pope is aware of you, your case, these charges against you?
It's not a secret.
The Pope knows.
And he's like, yes.
And I said, and the Pope was asked to intervene.
Have you heard?
Did the Pope call you?
And he's like, well, the Pope doesn't call you.
He says the Pope looks at someone and tells them to do it.
And they tell someone else and someone else.
And so that someone else got a hold of the Oblates superior in Rome,
and that guy wrote me a letter and said,
you were charged as a result of these allegations.
What do you say?
And I responded to him.
So, of course, well, what did you say?
And he wouldn't tell me.
And I said, well, can I see the letter from this guy in Rome?
No.
So to me, it was confirming that the Pope did do what ITK
asked it to do in the spring, which was to personally intervene. And I guess like on top
of that public pressure, as well as from the Pope, we know that ahead of the Pope's visit to
Iqaluit, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the organization that Revoir is part of,
has now said that he should turn himself in. Is there anything compelling him to do that?
That was interesting to me. It was like, hey, your Oblate brothers are turning against you.
Like it's, you know, they're all male missionaries. It's a male order. And they said, yeah, we have urged him repeatedly to face these accusers in court, turn himself in, deal with this, resolve it.
He's not going to act on it.
He didn't respond the first time.
He's told me he has a Canadian passport.
He claims the Oblates took it.
I said, why would they take it?
He said, I don't know. They want to renew it or something. I said, why would they take it? He said, I don't
know. They want to renew it or something. I said, well, is something afoot? Are they putting you on
a plane? Which I don't think they can legally do. But I said, where's your passport? And he said,
well, I don't know. They took it. I think they're renewing it. I've asked the Oblate several times
to confirm if they did take his passport and they haven't responded to that.
And I asked, are you renewing it? Again, no answer.
What more needs to happen here to get him to Canada and bring some semblance of peace or justice to the survivors?
You know, I understand a trip is being planned that will include the alleged victim has been asked to go. It's a
trip in the fall, potentially, that Inuit organization is organizing to go over to
France and lobby politicians, the media, Catholics over there, and just raise the temperature on this
case. Like we, what we know about it here,
they want them to know about it there.
And I've been in the story now for a good year.
I don't see where else it can go.
You know, the victim, I talked to her last night.
She said, I just want to see him.
I want to see if he recognizes me.
I want to ask him why he did this to me. I want to say he's
sorry. I said, well, would you go? Would you go over there and see him? And should you do that?
Is that healthy for you? I don't know. You know, I showed him photos of her when she was the age
when she says he abused her. I showed him photos of Marius and he just said he didn't know who
those people were. I gave him their names. He looked at me and said, I don't know those names.
And so it was interesting to me that some things he recalled so clearly from where he lived,
but he didn't recognize these. Thank you so much, Kathleen, for this.
I really appreciate chatting with you today and all your work on this story.
Oh, it's my absolute pleasure.
Thanks for the opportunity.
That's all for today.
I'm Angela Starrett. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner.
For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.