Retired priest faces new sex assault charge

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

19 January 2008

For the second time in four months, police have arrested a retired eastern Ontario Catholic priest in connection with alleged sexual assaults from five decades ago.

Father Lucien Lussier, 84, was charged Wednesday with one count of indecent assault on a male.

The assault allegedly happened sometime between 1955 and 1960 while the complainant, then a young teen boy, was visiting Lussier in Alexandria, police said.

He was previously charged last September for allegedly assaulting another young teen boy sometime between 1954 and 1960.

Lussier was released on an undertaking and is scheduled to appear in Alexandria court Feb. 6 to face the most recent charges. Lussier served in numerous parishes around eastern Ontario, including churches in Curry Hill, Glen Robertson, Martintown, Moose Creek, and Dalkeith. At the time of the alleged offences, he is believed to have been living and working at the Fatima Retreat House in Alexandria.