Dick Nadeau Letter to Len Hooper at Cornwall Standard Freeholder

09 February 20000 

To Len Hooper,

Several weeks ago, one of your writers maligned Project Truth by calling it an overblown investigation and went on to praise Dr. Peachey with not a thought for his victims. Dr. Peachey needs no apologist or revisionist of his conduct. He did abuse and was charged as a result. If the writer had wanted to mitigate his actions, he could have found out if Dr. Peachey had been sexually abused as a child for it is a common occurence for abusers to have been abused in their childhood. However, this writer is probably of the opinion, like many others I might add, that our macho culture provides no room for a man as a victim. Men are simply not supposed to be victimized. A real man is expected to be able to protect himself in any situation. He is also supposed to be able to solve any problem and recover from any setback and deal with it like a man. Maybe your writer has read too much Nietzche and is enamored with his concept of superman. But unfortunately too many people share this view for little is spoken or printed about the life-long damage and devastating after-effects that childhood sexual abuse has on males.

I could not have written this article last year or last week for that matter. It springs from the fact of meeting men these past few days, men like myself who had been abused as boys growing up in Cornwall. It is no surprise to me that priests have been arrested. More should be. Fathers Dube, Martin and Lapierre are only the tip of the iceberg. This is my version of events, my own personal experience of growing up in Cornwall's East End as a French-Canadian boy attending Catholic schools. It is my humble wish that what I have to say will give courage to the generations of men who have not yet dared to face their memories of painful and lost childhoods, and give hope to those who have begun to break their silence.

Sexual touching by a member of the clergy first began in grade five while a student at Nativity Boys School (which I attended most of my elementary school life), when as a class we were introduced to our first male teacher, Brother Nicholas. I was eight years old. In those days, practically everyone wore short pants in warm weather. Brother Nicholas would come behind you, lean over as if he was inspecting your work, put his left arm around your shoulder and his right hand up your right thigh, fingers touching your scrotum while massaging your thigh. This happened to just about everyone in class that wore short pants and it happened every day. I guess we knew that his behaviour was wrong but no one seemed to have told their parents as we still all came to school in short pants.

Initially, I interpreted his behaviour as a demonstration of his affection for us until one day his fingers reached in too deeply and I removed his hand. Shortly after that I was made captain of our class softball team which I thought was some sort of apology at the time.

However the touching never did stop. For obvious reasons, what I feared most was being kept after school and left alone with him. This fear was not unreasonable for I had already been sexually abused at the age of six by the General Hospital's stationary engineer. We used to play often on the hospital's front lawn, rolling down its hills until one day I was invited into the hospital through a ground floor door to see the boiler room. There had been fondling and other acts of sexual touching. That experience which is still so vivid in my mind today, made me very wary of Brother Nicholas and his intentions especially so since he had tried to get into my shorts. It also made me avoid any relationships with other Brothers especially those who through school gossip and rumour had gained a reputation for sexually abusing boys. Brother Nicholas taught class at Nativity for many,many years and who knows how many boys were violated during his tenure. It would certainly have to be in the hundreds.

At the age of nine, I became an altar boy, the pinnacle of a young Catholic boy's life. There was nothing I could imagine at the time that was more important than serving God and His priests. You felt a newfound respect among your peers and in the community at your being an altar boy. The first and second years were uneventful in my relationships with the priests. I had nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for them. However, while in grade seven and eleven years old, I quit being an altar boy largely due to the constant harassment by two priests whose names I cannot recall. They forever wanted me to go to Monsignor Brodeur's cottage in Lancaster for a swim or a party or come to the presbytery to play pool with them. Even other altar boys were sent to coax me into coming. However, there was one time when the approach became sexually direct. Altar boys dressed in those days in a dimly lit back portion of the church basement made all the more eerie by the graves of church founders in the other section of the church basement. Sometimes older altar boys would tell you of noises and apparitions as a result of these graves, which made your hair stand on end. Thus, the church basement was a place to get in and get out of in a hurry.

One morning, I was to serve mass alone since the other altar boy had not shown up. One of these two priests came down before the mass in full church attire to presumably check, or so I thought at the time, on the status of the missing altar boy. He came over to me, helped straighten my surplice and suddenly pushed his body onto mine, pinning me against a locker door and attempted to kiss me. It was an absolutely disgusting experience. I struggled and pushed him away and dejectedly served my last mass. There was no apology and not a word came between us except for the Latin of the mass and his stare that said my days were numbered as an altar boy. So I quit for all those reasons. These were priests after all and how could you not want to be with them. I certainly wanted to. However, I had an advantage over many of my peers who welcomed their attention.

By the age of ten, I had already been seriously sexually abused by an acquaintance of the family who had invited me to his apartment for dinner as my Mother was working late. I remember what we ate that night. We had salmon steaks. I had never heard the word steak applied to fish before. I was not hurt physically and never mentioned it to anyone. My Mother would have been so hurt. I therefore regarded all overtures by men with great suspicion and distrust. That attack in the church basement confirmed all of my suspicions. Brothers and priests alike were never to be trusted. Men were never to be trusted.

At the age of twelve, I was recruited by the Clercs St. Viateur to attend Cornwall Classical College. The brightest students in Cornwall's Catholic elementary schools were invited to participate in a day of testing and those that passed were given admission. I skipped grade eight; two other students skipped grades seven and eight. We were in high school at the age of twelve. Initially the College consisted of three houses on Lawrence Street prior to moving to Windmill Point in 1954 to its newly-built facilities. By then, we had gone from some seventy students to several hundred largely due to the dorm capacity which allowed students from all over to attend and stay in residence. The Clercs St. Viateur was a learned teaching order of priests dedicated to their task of making young honourable men of us and possibly future priests which almost all Catholic boys aspired of becoming at one time or another.

One of the directives that students had to follow was the selection every year of a priest to be your spiritual director. I chose Father Côté, my English professor. That brought me to his room at least once a month for a compulsory closed-door meeting. His task was that of confessor of my sins, be a mentor when I needed help and someone that I could confide in with any problem I might have. He was a role model, a teacher and my closest confidante. Because of Confession, I told him things that no one knew, not even my parents or closest friends. With his help and direction, I excelled at school being first in my class most of the time. Our relationship developed into one of caring and mutual respect. He knew all about my family, that my father was an alcoholic and a drunk who seldom lived at home, about his violent behaviour towards me on occasion and the history of my sexual abuse which he made me recount in detail with the aim, or so I thought at the time, of giving me counseling and understanding.

In the Summer between grades ten and eleven. he invited me to have dinner with him at the presbytery of the St. Francis de Sales church on Second Street. College priests often ministered in different parishes throughout the city. The evening led to much conversation which I did not want to end. He suggested that I sleep over and serve mass with him in the morning adding that there were several bedrooms that I could sleep in. I called home and asked permission to sleep over which was granted. When it came time for bed, the beds available to me were supposedly now unavailable due to having been made fresh that day and therefore would I consider sleeping with him so as to not disturb them. I acquiesced for I had complete trust in him and did not even think about any nefarious intentions on his part. We both went to bed in our shorts and I soon fell asleep. At some point during the night, I woke up with his hand on my genitals. I turned over on my stomach, wide awake, while he tried to pass his hand underneath and between my legs. At one point he really became aggressive and laid on top of my back and tried to remove my shorts which I resisted by grabbing the front of my waistband. Eventually he quit the struggle, put his leg over mine, masturbated himself on my leg and came all over my legs, shorts and the small of my back. Throughout this episode which must have lasted for at least half an hour, I feigned sleep and not a word was said by either of us. I was totally traumatized and in a state of shock.

It was a set-up and I had fallen for it. He who knew me so well, knew what buttons to push. The man I trusted most had turned out to be a pedophile. He left the bed and went to the bathroom to clean himself off. I took this opportunity to gather my clothes and shoes which were on the floor next to the bed and went out the door. I dressed outside and ran all the way home in the middle of the night. On arrival I rushed into the shower and remembered thinking this was what women did when they were raped. My thinking was scattered. I was angry for having put myself in that position once more and deeply hurt at being so betrayed. I felt lost in the shame and guilt, thinking that I was responsible for what took place. In my search for a father image, I had become naive and stupid and let my guard down. Would all men that I got close to sexually abuse me. Perhaps I attracted men of a different sort for it seemed that every time I had gotten close to one, I was sexually abused. My sexuality was in question and I thought I might be a homosexual. The tension manifested itself through migraine headaches that only heavy nosebleeds would give me relief. One doctor thought I might have polio.

I did not see Father Côté the rest of that Summer nor did he call. That whole Summer was filled with anxious thoughts. I was outraged. My whole belief system as well as my support system had completely collapsed. I would no longer believe in my religion and its teachings. I did not know who or what to believe anymore. Returning to College and having to face him every day in class could prove to be too painful and traumatic so I opted for St. Lawrence High School for my grade eleven and spent a month or so there. But I missed my friends and was uncomfortable in a coed environment. I was shy and withdrawn having never gone to school with girls before. I was also very afraid that somehow someone would find me out and the whole school would know. I reenroled at the College and took my chances. I told one of my best friends what had occurred at St. Francis de Sales. He then surprised me by telling me of his encounter with Father Côte while a Boy Scout at Nativity church. Father côté had been the Nativity Scout and Cubs chaplain for several years while at the college. He too had been sexually abused by him. I was no longer alone in my abuse. I was not crazy. Although we never mentioned it to each other again, I felt so thankful for his trust in me (which I later betrayed) and felt genuine solace for the very first time.

For that whole year, I avoided Father Côté completely. He did ask me to come to his room early on but I refused. My classmate had told me that Father Côté would try to explain it away by saying that he had been caught in a dream, like sleepwalking. That year I chose not to have a spiritual director much to the displeasure of Dean Father Brazeau who strapped me on several occasions for defying his orders. I had started to resist their authority over me. The following year, Father Côté was no longer with us. He had been transferred to Manitoba.

Grade twelve presented its own set of new problems. My relationships with my teachers had changed in subtle ways. I often felt stared at and my grades began to fall apart. I was no longer first in my class. I started to feel responsible for his departure and I felt that every priest knew what had happened. I quit going to confession although I had a new spiritual director in Father Hamel who turned out to be okay. However I never discussed anything real personal with him. Father Claude, our French teacher, took a special interest in me all of a dudden, and called me to his room on many occasions. He accused me of cheating, of speaking too much English with my friends, forbade me to see a girl for whatever his reasons and that I had failed in my duty to convert to Catholicism a close friend who had always attended Catholic schools with me but who was a Protestant. And so it went, on and on. Eventually I was told not to return to the college for my first year of University as I was no longer University material. I did not return the following year. I did try to return the year after that but was expelled in the first month. I later found out that this was the norm for those who had been abused.

Father Primeau was also an abuser. Two students who had been abused by him were eventually expelled in much the same manner. In both cases he was their spiritual director. One boy was attacked during his confession to him while on his knees in his room. He was assaulted from behind, thrown on the bed and raped. The other student suffered more than three years of sexual abuse in more than one hundred assaults. Both boys were severely strapped on numerous occasions and eventually expelled. Everyone who attended Catholic schools in those days was strapped but never to the sadistic level that Father Brazeau and Father Bérubé aspired to. Father Berube an ex-boxer and the Dean of Discipline was noted for taking your pants and shorts down, locking your body between his hip and arm while whipping your bare buttocks with his right hand wielding a long piece of rubber tile. In one case that I know of, one student was beaten so badly that he was cut and bloodied. His family took him out of the College and threatened to sue.

Another character who befriended and partied with both parish and College priests was the infamous Killer Gagnon. He was a referee in our junior hockey leagues and some kind of official representing the Ottawa and District Hockey Association. Any thing that had to do with junior hockey, had to go through him. As a junior hockey player, you had to join the Association and sign a card authorizing you to play and belong to a certain team. Any change in your status required that you inform Killer and sign a new card. To that end, you had to go to his apartment on Alice Street. In my opinion, everyone that had to visit Killer had to overcome his sexual demands. He either grabbed at you or tried to con you into performing sexual acts. Those of us who were older were able to resist because we knew about him. I don't know how the younger ones fared. But what was most deplorable and terribly sad was the fact that Father Berube supplied him with young College boarders for Sunday afternoon outings. No one dared say no to Bérubé. If he said you went, you went. These boys of course trusted Father Bérubé. They were plied with alcohol by Killer and sexually abused by Killer. The number of children who were abused by him and his circle of friends are probably countless. It is in this time period that I believe a pedophile ring was active in Cornwall.

Most if not all of the junior hockey players of the 50s and 60s and most of the populace of Cornwall's East End knew of Killer and his sexual perversion. To the best of my knowledge, he was caught and worked out some deal that allowed him to leave town unscathed. But no one has gone public until now. I have met the men who were abused by Father Primeau and Killer Gagnon and listened to their stories. What was done to them and what they suffered through at the College and in the years that followed is absolutely gut-wrenching to listen to. But for the first time, I understood what had happened to me in grade twelve. There had been a plan of sorts to expel potential trouble and we had become dispensable. We were simply pawns in their game. All of our priestly abusers are now dead, having all died within the past two years with Father Primeau being the last to die but a few months ago, when he learned that he was going to be charged by Project Truth. They are not dead to us. We live with them every day of our lives and with the wreckage they have left behind. There are many other stories and other priests I could have named but without corroboration, I dare not.

My Mother found out about all this for the first time when I told her just a few months ago. It took me months to work up to telling her. I did not want her to feel guilty at her age (she is 83) but rather to help explain and have her understand the whys and wherefores of some of my more bizarre past behaviours. She had been totally unaware and was dumbstruck as to why I had never told her before. Men who have been sexually abused as boys come to their own truths later in life. Mine came through a cathartic experience. I underwent a heart bypass operation and for months afterwards, I lived in a state of rage. I blamed the operation and its complications. While in rehab, the doctors and psychiatrists at the Heart Institute told me that the rage I was expressing was repressed anger, the result no doubt of childhood sexual abuse and furthermore, that I had been depressed all of my life. I would not believe them for more than a year. I was in complete denial. How could incidents that occurred such a long time ago begin to manifest themselves now. I could not understand the linkages. The anger did not go away and I fell into a deep clinical depression. It made me seek out the books on sexual abuse and that led to seven months of therapy. I finally began to understand the complexities that shame and guilt create when they integrate into your psyche.

The following list is not exhaustive; one could add to it ad infinitum. But it does include many of the issues most commonly reported.

Not every male survivor experiences all of the following. I have experienced most of these throughout my life. This list is taken from a book titled Victims No Longer by Mike Lew, a psychotherapist and group therapy leader in the field of childhood sexual abuse.

• Anxiety and/or confusion; panic attacks; fears and phobias
• Depression - often including suicidal thoughts or attempts
• Low self esteem - a feeling of being flawed or bad  
• Shame and guilt - over acts of commission and/or omission
• Inability to trust themselves or others
• Fear of feelings - a need to control feelings and behavior (their own and others'); complusive caretaking
• Nightmares and flashbacks - intensely arousing recollections
• Insomnia - and other sleep disorders
• Amnesia - memory loss, forgetting pieces of childhood
• Violence - or fear of violence
• Discomfort with being touched
• Compulsive sexual activity
• Sexual dysfunction
• Hypervigilance - extreme startle response
• Social alienation - feeling isolated and alone
• Inability to sustain intimacy in relationships and/or entering abusive relationships in which they are victimized
• Overachievement and/or underachievement/underemployment feeling like an imposter professionally
• As adults, becoming abusers and/or protectors                   
• As adults, becoming victims of other abuse
• Having split or multiple personalities - or feeling as though they do
• Substance abuse - drugs, alcohol, and so on
• Eating disorders
• Unrealistic and negative body image -feeling distant from their own bodies
• Feeling like a frightened child
• Hyperconsciousness of body and appearance 

I am now sixty years old and on the road to recovery I hope. At least I know where my anger came from and what I must now deal with. As part of that recovery, it will be important to return to my childhood as I have now done -- not to make it right, but to understand what really happened and what my actual role was in it. I will in essence be getting to know and befriend a little boy-myself as a child. I owe that child my life. If it wasn't for his courage and survival skills, I might not be still here today. I am the living proof of his survival. He deserves all the love, understanding, respect and compassion I can muster in healing myself through him. It is difficult to unlearn misinformation we were taught as children and to remove all the masks that we wore throughout life.

You men who have been abused and who saw themselves in my stories, please call Project Truth and begin your healing process. The officers there are doing a great job and probably have listened to the worst of it by now. Or write letters to the Editor. Ifs never too late to get involved and help cleanse the community of a dark stain on its soul and on yours and become whole again. It is only our abusers who value our silence and isolation.

With warmest regards,

Dick Nadeau

Casselman, On.

XXX XXXX

February 9, 2000