By Alisha Morrissey
National Post
October 5, 2009
http://www.nationalpost.com/rss/story.html?id=2069365
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| Bishop Raymond Lahey arrives at a police station in Ottawa on Oct. 1, 2009. Lahey, a former Canadian bishop, is facing child pornography charges, police said. |
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Catholic priest Kevin Molloy says he was shocked to hear that retired Bishop Raymond Lahey has been charged in a child pornography case, despite cautioning him about the consequences of having pornography more than 20 years ago.
"I figure if I gave him a warning over 20 years ago, how come he did nothing about it? I'm just appalled at the whole thing," Father Molloy said in a telephone interview from Florida where he is now a priest. "It was 20 years ago, over 20 years ago, that I had spoke to him on the very topic of pornography and I was appalled to realize obviously my message didn't get through to him."
Bishop Lahey turned himself into authorities last week, after resigning as the bishop for the archdiocese of Antigonish, N.S. He was charged in Ottawa with possessing and importing child pornography after a search of his laptop at Ottawa's airport.
Father Molloy said he learned about Bishop Lahey's pornography in the late 1980s when sexual abuse survivor Shane Earle came to see him after speaking to police about ongoing abuse by an order of lay brothers at Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's.
"He told me that Father Lahey, at the time, used to take some boys from Mount Cashel into his home in Mount Pearl on weekends and Shane was one of those boys and he was really appalled by what he saw there, namely pornography," Father Molloy said, adding that he never knew what type of pornography Mr. Earle saw.
Father Molloy said the moment Mr. Earle left his home that day, he called then-Archbishop Alphonsus Penney and told him what Mr. Earle had said.
By this time Bishop Lahey had moved to Newfoundland's west coast as bishop of the diocese of St. George's.
"And then I called Bishop Lahey in Corner Brook and I told him that I was shocked that Shane would find pornographic literature in [his] house," Father Molloy said.
The archdiocese of St. John's released a statement Monday in response to the allegations, saying that current Archbishop Martin Currie has asked for a review of what officials in the archdiocese might have known.
Meanwhile, the RNC has reopened its files and is reviewing the allegations that Bishop Lahey possessed child pornography more than 20 years ago.
Father Molloy said he never called police because Mr. Earle had come to him after speaking to police. As well, possessing pornography wasn't then illegal and he wasn't aware that it was child pornography, he said.
"It's only since 1990 that child pornography is a criminal offence. I'm not covering up for him now, I'm just giving the facts to you," Father Molloy said.
Mr. Earle's brother, Billy, said last week that Shane Earle saw child pornography in Bishop Lahey's home in 1985.
Both Earle brothers were victims of sexual abuse at the orphanage.
As of last week, police here hadn't found any evidence to support the allegations made by Shane Earle.
Meanwhile, Bishop Lahey has not asked the church in Nova Scotia to help pay his legal bills - nor would the church provide such help if asked, a Catholic official said Monday.
"If that request were made, it would be declined by the diocese," said Archbishop Anthony Mancini, the most senior Catholic clergyman in Nova Scotia, in a statement Monday.
Bishop Lahey, who is living at a monastery in rural New Brunswick while awaiting his trial, is no longer a diocesan bishop. It's not clear if he remains an employee of the church.
At the time he was charged, Bishop Lahey was in the midst of overseeing a historic, $15-million, out-of-court settlement with victims who were sexually abused as children by a former priest of the diocese of Antigonish.
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