CANADA
Sault Star
Carol Mulligan, QMI Agency
Saturday, January 4, 2014
SUDBURY, ONT. – A man who wrote Pope Francis asking him to defrock the Roman Catholic priest convicted of sexually assaulting him is not sure what to make of the reply he received from the Vatican.
Jerome Myre doubts the Pontiff read the missive he sent in October in which he asked that Bernard Cloutier be stripped of his rights as a priest.
Cloutier, 71, was convicted in July 2009 of four counts of indecent assault against a male, four acts of gross indecency and four counts of sexual assault against four boys aged 13-16 between 1974 and 1983. He appealed those convictions, but they were upheld in July 2011.
One of Cloutier’s victims was Myre, who is now 43.
In October, Myre addressed the Parole Board of Canada, which denied the priest parole partly because he has never accepted responsibility or showed remorse.
Myre then appealed to the Pope. He received a reply dated Dec. 10 from Msgr. Peter B. Wells, a top official in the Vatican Secretariat of State, similar to a deputy chief of staff.
In it, Wells acknowledged Myre’s letter to the Holy Father and told him it had been “transmitted” to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “which has competence in such matters.
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