By Kim Covert
The Vancouver Sun
July 27, 2007
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=b633f9b2-304d-4ec0-8f5c-b8d401d2115d&k=27479
Former Roman Catholic bishop Hubert O'Connor, convicted in 1996 of raping one native teenage girl and indecently assaulting another, has died of a heart attack. He was 79.
O'Connor died in Toronto on Tuesday, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a news release.
O'Connor resigned as bishop of the diocese of Prince George, B.C., when he first faced sex charges in 1991. When he was convicted in 1996 he was then the highest-ranking Catholic in the world to be found guilty of sex offences.
Both incidents took place in the 1960s, while O'Connor was a priest and principal of the Cariboo Indian Residential School near Williams Lake, B.C.
Members of the four native bands in the area — Williams Lake, Akali Lake, Soda Creek and Canim bands — had accused O'Connor and other members of his order of physical, sexual and mental abuse.
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| Hubert O'Connor Photo by Ward Perrin |
Sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison, O'Connor applied for day parole in 1997, and was turned down. The parole board called him "an unmanageable risk" who viewed his victims with contempt.
In its findings the parole board said O'Connor maintained that the indecent assault never took place, while the rape "did not take place as described by the victim but rather that it was a consentual (sic) sexual relationship."
He had, however, already been released pending an appeal of his sentence. The B.C. Court of Appeal said that by the time the cleric's case could be heard he would have already completed his sentence.
At his trial, O'Connor's only public regret was that he had failed to keep his vow of celibacy. But in 1998 he participated in a seven-hour native healing circle, during which he apologized to his former students for what he called "my breach as a priest and my unacceptable behaviour, which was totally wrong. I took a vow of chastity and I broke it."
The case had dragged through the courts for more than seven years, with two trials and numerous appeals, including one to the Supreme Court of Canada. But after the healing circle, and with his victims' consent, the Crown decided not to pursue its prosecution of the then-71-year-old disgraced cleric and he ended up free of criminal charges.
A funeral service will be held on Aug. 7 in Vancouver.
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