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	11 Sex Abuse Victims Sue Retired Ontario Priest CBC News April 7, 2008 http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2008/04/07/ot-prince-080407.html A retired priest and Vatican official sentenced to prison time for sexually abusing 13 boys decades ago is being sued by 11 victims for more than $20 million. The civil suits filed in Pembroke, Ont., on Monday named both former priest Bernard Prince and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pembroke. The lawsuits, which each seek $2 million in damages, are on top of two filed against Prince earlier. Prince was sentenced in January to four years in prison after being convicted of one charge and pleading guilty to 12 others related to sexually abusing boys between 1964 and 1984. One of the victims told reporters at a news conference Monday that the lawsuit will help him get on with his life. "I had to live with the pain of remembering the nightmares, dealing with the anguish, my guilt, because for a long period of time I thought it was my fault, and now this just kind of puts a bit of a closure to it," the man said. The victims are being represented by lawyers from the firm Ledroit Beckett, which has handled hundreds of similar suits against 10 local dioceses, most of which have been settled out of court. They said they expect each of the victims to get a few hundred thousand dollars in compensation. Prince abused the boys when they were mainly between ages 12 and 15. The incidents took place at his cottage and Ottawa apartment, and at the victims' homes. Many of the victims were altar boys he had met in the small Polish community of Wilno, southwest of Pembroke, outside the east end of Algonquin Park. Before retiring, Prince, who is Canadian, became secretary general of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith. He moved to Rome after his retirement, but came back to Canada to face charges.
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