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	N.S. Man Kept Abuse Secret for Decades By Oliver Moore The Globe and Mail October 9, 2009 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ns-man-kept-abuse-secret-for-decades/article1318552/ Philip Latimer says he didn't tell family about sexual abuse he allegedly suffered at hands of town priest until launching $2-million lawsuit this week The sense of shame was so immense that Philip Latimer buried it deep. He hinted at his pain to his wife but didn’t explain it to anyone else. Not his friends, not his parents. Not his little brother, Warren. Only in the past week, as he prepared to go public with allegations that he’d been sexually abused by a parish priest while an altar boy in the 1970s, did Mr. Latimer screw up the courage to tell his whole family. On Monday, he called his brother. And Warren shocked him with a secret of his own. “He told me that he was touched, inappropriately touched,” Philip Latimer said in an interview. “And as time goes on, even today, more comes out.” The brothers, now in their mid-40s, say they were both abused as children by Father Allan MacDonald. The long-time priest in tiny Havre Boucher, N.S., has since died. “I always suspected there were other victims but I could never walk up and ask,” Mr. Latimer said after a press conference detailing a lawsuit against the church. “I thought maybe [Warren] was somehow under my wing. I was the oldest boy.” The extraordinary allegation of their shared history came out only because Raymond Lahey, the former bishop of Antigonish, was arrested on child-porn charges. The church the boys attended was part of that diocese and Mr. Latimer was angry to see the arrest of Father Lahey, who had been instrumental in negotiating a historic settlement for sexual abuse alleged to go back decades in the diocese. “That triggered something in me. … that did it, that did it for me,” he said. Mr. Latimer, who has left the Catholic church, was once a devout believer. A close friend had died when he was young, he explained Thursday, and he was desperate that they be reunited in heaven. “I wanted to obtain eternal life,” he said. “That was part of my motivating factor, to be a good person and to see this boy again.” Mr. Latimer approached the priest to be an altar boy, he said. He got the position but said that he soon found himself in a nightmarish situation. The influential local cleric, he alleges, plied him with treats and alcohol and molested him for four years. On Wednesday, Mr. Latimer filed a suit in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. It names both the Antigonish diocese and the archdiocese of Halifax, which “exercises substantial authority” over its dioceses and is “thereby responsible and liable.” The suit is seeking a maximum of $2-million in various forms of damages. None of the allegations has been proven in court. “He has lost his faith and trust in the process of the church,” said Paul Ledroit, one of Mr. Latimer’s lawyers. “It’s not a question about money it’s a question of being able to speak out.” Filing the suit removes Mr. Latimer from the broader settlement negotiated by Father Lahey. He said he could not stick with that process because it would not go far enough in revealing what church leaders knew. Warren Latimer has not filed his own suit but would not rule it out. He appeared with his brother Thursday to offer his support. “I had to be involved and back him up,” he said. “They’re creating pedophiles [among the clergy]. Things have to change.”
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