Latest priest fled Igloolik after receiving threat
CBC News
Posted: Apr 13, 2011 10:50 AM CT
Last Updated: Apr 13, 2011 10:50 AM CT
The Roman Catholic Church’s bishop for Nunavut says he will soon visit the hamlet of Igloolik, which has been without a spiritual leader since the local priest left the community out of fear for his safety.
Bishop Reynald Rouleau of the Catholic Diocese of Churchill-Hudson Bay said he was disturbed to hear that one of his priests, Rev. Tony Krotki, received a verbal threat from somebody in Igloolik in March.
Krotki decided not to report the threat to the RCMP, but he felt he needed to leave the community, Rouleau said.
“It’s a heavy, heavy blow,” Rouleau told CBC News from his office in Winnipeg.
“For me, it’s been very heavy on my shoulders. It’s, like, disturbing to know that someone of your personnel could have been threatened.
Rouleau said Krotki is doing well and has taken some time off, but he has not decided if he will return to Igloolik.
The bishop said he plans to visit Igloolik in May to meet with residents, including the community’s large Catholic congregation, to discuss solutions.
“I will try to have advice from the parish council, from the leaders, and any other people who would like to give me some appraisal [of] what’s going on,” Rouleau said.
Emotions running high
Emotions have been running high in Igloolik, a remote hamlet of about 1,500 in the eastern Arctic, following the return of Eric Dejaeger, who is accused of sexually abusing children there in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
A number of individuals in Igloolik claim that Dejaeger, now 63, sexually abused them as children between 1978 and 1982, when he was serving as a Catholic missionary in the hamlet.
As of April 5, Dejaeger faces 24 criminal charges that include indecent assault and buggery. He remains in custody at the Baffin Correctional Centre in Iqaluit and is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday.
Dejaeger fled to Belgium, his country of birth, after he served a jail term in Canada for sex crimes against children in Baker Lake, another Nunavut community.
Dejaeger left Canada around the time the Igloolik charges were first filed in 1995, but he was brought back to Canada in January to face those charges.
Rouleau said he understands feelings may have boiled over in Igloolik after Dejaeger returned to Nunavut, but the bishop added that there was no reason for people to turn their anger on Krotki.
“I’m really surprised. Really, I’ve never had thought it would go that far regarding someone who is not responsible at all [for] what happened,” Rouleau said of Krotki.
“He’s not responsible for the abuses that’s been done.”
While Igloolik’s Catholic congregation wants and needs a priest, Rouleau said it may take months to find a replacement for Krotki.
And the people of Igloolik are without a priest for Easter. No Masses. No confessions. No Holy Thursday or Good Friday liturgies.
Nothing.
Father Quang Van from Hall Beach filled in in Igloolik for a week. He was not afraid. Why then can Bishop Rouleau not send Father Quang Van to Igloolik and send Father Tony Krotki to Hall Beach? It seems to me a flip flop would be a simple solution which would please everyone?
I used to work in northern health centres – panterritorially and in northern prarie provinces. I got a threat a day and often from people I hardly knew. Some very creative threats, let me tell you. Did I like it: No. Did it make me leave: No. The bishop’s comments sound a bit theatrical and over the top to me. Maybe a translation issue but I am shaking my head. Wondering if blaming the victims (entire community in this case) just goes on and on and on.
Maybe the bishop should step in for Easter…I agree with you Sylvia, the respite cleric could switch spots with the one who hightailed it out of the community. Hope the bisphop is not planning on taking this time to research and hide someone else in Igloolik as a suitable replacement.
As a provider of social benefits I was invited to go hunting once with a guy who was miffed I had denied a claim. I politely declined. Social workers, doctors, nurses, teachers and other service providers who sometimes have to pervay emotionally sensitive information, all live with the potential for threats day in day out. They have internal protocols to follow and if not, they have the right and duty to report it for inquiry and then deal with the issues. The RCMP are great mediators. Now if other issues are at play, then the reaction would be otherwise, as in this case.
It just doesn’t sit right, does it? It’s hard not to think that there must be more to it than we have heard.