CANADA
Sudbury Star
By Carol Mulligan, Sudbury Star
Saturday, October 20, 2012
A Sudbury woman ordained a bishop with Roman Catholic Women Priests of Canada has her own take on how the church in which she is fighting for reform should handle cases of sexual abuse by priests.
Marie Evans Bouclin, who once worked for the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie and Bishop Jean-Louise Plouffe, agrees with Rev. Bob Bourgon that allowing offending priests to remain on the church’s radar helps track them and ensure they don’t offend again. Bouclin suggests priests convicted of sexual assault should undergo assessment and, if they are determined to be so psychologically damaged they never should have been ordained in the first place, they be defrocked.
If it’s deemed they are “unfit for ministry, then there should be some kind of an action to annul their ordination just like you annul a marriage,” said Bouclin.
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