The person accused of sexual abuse is also deceased

OTTAWA (CCN)



The Archdiocese of Ottawa has no comment about a $2 million lawsuit launched by the estate of a man who told his wife on his death bed he was sexually abused by a priest in the 1960s.

The case of the man identified by the Ottawa Citizen as “John Doe” was filed in August by Robert Talach, a lawyer who has represented many sexual abuse claimants against the Catholic Church.

According to a report by Andrew Duffy, “John Doe,” told his wife he was abused by Father Jean Gravel, who was a priest at Ottawa’s Saint-Remi Parish. “Doe” died in 2014.

Father Gravel pleaded guilty in 1967 to gross indecency charges involving two teenage boys. In a rare move for that time, Archbishop Joseph-Aurele Plourde appealed to the Vatican to have the priest removed from the clerical state in 1970. He committed suicide in 1980. Archbishop Plourde died in 2013.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, the court documents say “John Doe” was one of the priest’s teenage victims involved in the 1967 criminal case but his wife told the Citizen she had never known of the abuse until her husband told her about it before he died.

Duffy wrote Doe’s widow “launched the lawsuit on his behalf to gain recognition for his suffering.”

“I think it gives a sense of meaning for what he went through,” she told Duffy in an interview. “I think he told me for a reason: because he wanted, at some point, for the Church to be responsible.”

Talach told the Citizen this lawsuit by someone’s estate is the first of its kind.

This lawsuit is the fourth launched since The Ottawa Citizen did a series on historical sexual abuse cases involving the archdiocese earlier this year.

While the archdiocese remained silent, the Catholic Civil Rights League responded with a statement.

“The Catholic Civil Rights League abhors the abuse of children,” said president Phil Horgan. “Sex abuse committed against children by anybody, and especially those who hold a position of trust, needs to be addressed vigorously, whether via the criminal or civil legal standards. The league stands with the victims.”

“At the same time, those accused of such offences are entitled to a defence,” Horgan said. “That is particularly true of older claims such as the variety now put forward in this case. The legal process will address the claims as they are advanced.”

“The prospect of a dead person’s family seeking recovery from another dead person may well stretch the process beyond what it can reasonably accommodate, in the absence of available evidence,” he said.