By Richard Foot
Vancouver Sun
September 30, 2009
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/bishop+facing+child+porn+charges/2051473/story.html
HALIFAX — A recently retired Roman Catholic bishop from Nova Scotia has been charged with possessing and importing child pornography.
Raymond Lahey, 69, who stunned his diocese by resigning suddenly as the bishop of Antigonish on Saturday, was charged Sept. 25 by the Ottawa police after images "of concern" were found on his laptop computer.
The police have issued a warrant for his arrest. A police spokesman told Canwest News Service that "if we knew where he was, a warrant wouldn't have been issued."
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| A file picture of Raymond Lahey, who stunned his diocese by resigning suddenly as the bishop of Antigonish on Saturday, was charged last week by the Ottawa Police after images of child pornography were found on his laptop computer, according to news reports. |
Lahey is well-known in Nova Scotia for overseeing the historic, $15-million settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by survivors of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Antigonish.
The settlement is believed to have been the first time anywhere that a senior Roman Catholic official voluntarily apologized and admitted the church's legal responsibility to survivors of sex abuse, without first litigating such claims in the courts.
Lahey was returning to Canada from the U.S. at the Ottawa airport on Sept. 15 when security officers seized his laptop after a routine inspection. Lahey was released at the time.
Lahey was in the midst of raising funds from parishes in his diocese — which includes all of Cape Breton and parts of northern Nova Scotia — when his resignation letter, accepted by the Pope, was announced to priests and parishioners on the weekend.
In the letter, Lahey said he was stepping down for "personal reasons," and for "some much-needed time for personal renewal.
"I simply ask for your prayers, as I assure you of my continued prayers for all of you."
Senior Canadian Catholic officials, including Archbishop Anthony Mancini, the highest-ranking Catholic in Nova Scotia, said they knew nothing about the charges facing Lahey until they were reported in news media on Wednesday.
"I am shocked and saddened by this devastating news. For the priests and people of Antigonish Diocese, this is a terrible moment," said Mancini in a statement. "We will face this matter together. I trust that we will find the courage and the capacity to move forward."
"We just found out," said Francine Garneau, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops in Ottawa.
Rev. Paul Abbass, a parish priest and spokesman for the diocese, said he also heard about the charges through the media.
"We now understand what the personal reasons for his resignation are," Abbass told Canwest News Service. "There was a ton of speculation, and we now know. If (the charge) is true, and I have no reason not to believe it's true, then it's an extraordinarily serious charge.
"This will impact us on every possible level."
Abbass said Lahey, the Bishop of Antigonish since 2003, was a well-respected pastoral-care worker.
"He was engaging, and warm and very pastoral," he said.
He said Lahey would not have had any particular dealings, as bishop, with children.
The settlement Lahey negotiated earlier this year was prompted by a class-action lawsuit brought against the diocese by Ronald Martin, a Cape Breton hair stylist, who claims he was abused as a child by a Catholic priest.
Martin's brother made similar allegations in a note he left behind before killing himself in 2002. Those allegations led to criminal charges of sexual abuse against one of the diocese's priests, who has since died.
Ronald Martin's lawyer, John McKiggan, said he hoped news of these charges will not overshadow the importance of the multimillion-dollar settlement.
"I have no doubt that members of the diocese, parishioners . . . will be distressed and upset. That's understandable," McKiggan said from Halifax. "The unfortunate fact is that the landmark apology to sex-abuse survivors may be now overshadowed because of these charges. The acknowledgment of the obligation that the church has to survivors of priest sex abuse, and the apology that the survivors received, I wouldn't want that to be discounted because of what has happened."
The abuse settlement has been approved by the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, he added.
The $15-million settlement — criticized by some in the diocese as being an unfair financial burden on current parishioners — is designed to compensate victims of alleged abuse cases dating back to 1950.
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