Ottawa Citizen
May 4, 2011
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Vatican+pledges+action+against+Canadian+bishop/4726496/story.html
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| A file picture of Raymond Lahey. |
The Vatican said Wednesday it would take action against a Canadian ex-bishop who confessed to child pornography charges and who is being prosecuted for sexual abuse.
"The Catholic Church condemns sexual exploitation of all kind, in particular when minors are targeted," said a statement released by the Vatican's press service.
It said it was considering "appropriate disciplinary or penal" action against Raymond Lahey, 70, who resigned in September 2009 as bishop of the diocese of Antigonish, Nova Scotia.
He was charged with possessing and importing child pornography following an investigation after a search at the Ottawa airport of his laptop computer uncovered graphic photographs of males who authorities suspected could be as young as eight years old. Sentencing will be announced later.
Lahey also faces accusations in a civil suit of sexually abusing an orphanage resident in the early 1980s.
The Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland was closed in 1990 after it was revealed that staff had systematically abused some 300 residents over several decades.
Pope Benedict XVI has met with victims of child-molesting priests three times since 2008, in Australia, the United States and most recently in Malta last year, when he expressed his "shame and sorrow" over the scourge.
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