The Kingston Whig-Standard
31 January 2012
By Elliot Ferguson/The Whig-Standard
A Roman Catholic priest who worked as a school chaplain at Holy Cross Secondary School in Kingston has stepped down from his parish because of alleged involvement in inappropriate activity.
Members of the congregation at St. Barnaby Catholic Church on Hwy. 15 near Brewers Mills were told Sunday their parish priest, Father Rene Labelle, had voluntarily stepped down from his position.
Brendan Michael O’Brien, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Kingston, made a short statement informing the church’s congregation of Labelle’s removal.
“There has been an allegation of misconduct involving Father Rene Labelle,” O’Brien said.
“Father Labelle has voluntarily withdrawn from ministry while the allegation is being investigated and until the matter is resolved.
“I ask for your prayers for all concerned.
“The Archdiocese will be looking for ways to continue providing pastoral ministry at St. Barnaby’s.”
According to a biography on the Holy Cross website, Labelle was ordained for the Archdiocese of Kingston in 1977.
He worked as a priest chaplain at Holy Cross from Wednesday to Friday, providing priestly ministry to the school community including confession, spiritual counselling and daily mass in the school chapel.
“Because of the allegation, and while the allegation is being investigated, he has been withdrawn from that role,” said Jody DiRocco, director of Education for the Algonquin and Lakeshore Catholic District School Board.
DiRocco said there were no Holy Cross pupils involved in the alleged incident.
“No,” DiRocco said. “I am not aware of that.”
Kay Weerasooriya, a canon lawyer for the archdiocese, said Monday the allegations against Labelle came to the archdiocese’s attention in the middle of last week.
“It is a recent allegation,” said Weerasooriya, adding that the archdiocese’s protocol is to contact police immediately of allegations against priests.
Weerasooriya said she did not know if there were any other priests involved in the investigation, nor did she say what was the nature of the allegation against Labelle.
“Until we hear back from the police there is nothing more we can say,” she said.
“We’re kind of waiting.”
Police were tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding Labelle’s removal from the parish.
“I can confirm there is an ongoing police investigation,” OPP Sgt. Kristine Rae said Monday afternoon.
Rae would reveal no additional details about the nature of the investigation.
eferguson@thewhig.com
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Comments on this Article.
Innocent until proven guilty. Hope the truth comes out. But Kudos for acting immediately and not covering up
If he is guilty then he needs to be held accountable, however, wait and see. This would not be there first time an individual is wrongly accused and his/her life torn upside down.
I hope “inappropriate activity” and “misconduct” don’t equate to sexual assault against a minor. If you have done nothing wrong you would probably not step down voluntarily. The Catholic Church and Pope Ratburger’s record on dealing with matters of “inappropriate activity” have been shameful to say the least. With that being said Father Rene Labelle is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty as Annie F. points out.
No doubt the catholic church is tired of paying off their victims so they decided to err on the side of caution
Let’s all wait to find out the truth on this before passing judgment, this story is wide open and could go in a number of directions. I hope there is nothing to it and that his stepping down is just to protect everyone till the truth comes out.
If guilty of a crime, he will pay, let’s not ruin his life until the whole truth comes out.
Wow! The front page after only 2 days. The Parish Priest from Amherstview was placed on “Administrative Leave” aprox. 3 monthes ago with no explanation until a Radio news report on Jan. 17 from a Belleville station, informed (or should I say blind-sided) the already distraught parishoners of the actual “alleged reason” for the Priest’s unexplained departure. Props to your coverage of the current allegations and a big ? to the lack of coverage in the Amherstview situation!!
flames1: The usual protection of favoured individuals, just like with Sandusky. But no less than EIGHT stories yesterday about the Shafia trial, and no comments allowed. The Whig is dreaming if they think this site will encourage people to buy subscriptions.
The Real Voice: If he’s stepping down, you can rest assured there is “something to it”. The head sheep-herder MADE him step down, I’m sure it wasn’t voluntary.
koli, I didn’t say he was innocent, I said wait for guilty verdict to destroy this man, there have been to many people painted with that brush, his life destroyed and then a little blurb to announce that there was no wrong doing… again, I am not saying this is going to happen here, just let him be found guilty before you ruin this man which at that time it will be well deserved but until then, let the courts do their thing.
Agreed. But you have to admit that the “stepping down” is usually damage control by the church; take the suspect out of the spotlight and hope everyone forgets about him. And the way the Weak Standard operates, we may never hear whether he was innocent or guilty.
I was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith, but I am just plain fed up and sick to think of all the abuses that have been coming to light, and the years that they have not when priests would be shuffled off to other parishes with their dirty little secrets kept by the hierarchy. For years, nuns abused the poor Indian children who were taken from their homes, and punished if they spoke their native tongue in the native schools. For years now the abuse by priests all over the world has come to our attention. It is extremely hard to continue to put your collection envelope in the basket each Sunday and continue to support the church monetarily. It is hard to contribute to the priests retirement fund when so many abuses have led to huge lawsuits being paid by the church. If these abusive priests were true to the teachings of Christ, there would not be abuses and lawsuits to pay, and the church would have money for their priests retirement. How many good men have decided not to become priests because of all these abuses? The people that have been the subject of the abuses have been scarred for life by these predators. As a Catholic, I am really angry because it takes strength to be a good Christian in the Catholic Church today.
Pretty sad that I knew exactly WHY he stepped down just from the headline. If it had said “chairman steps down” or “hospital administrator steps down”, I would have had no idea why. What is it about RC priests that makes them so attracted to kids?
I do agree that is usually what stepping down means, unfortunalty, from the bang up job they did writing this story (not) we have no clue what he is alleged to have done, there is no indication saying it was sexual, although that is always the first thing to come to mind in these cases, and the only thing mentioned about him being close to kids was the fact he worked at a school, he may have been having an affair with a women in his congregation, that is not allowed either, he may have been involved with drugs, anything… again, the wrote this piece to make it wound like sex abuse against kids and it very well may be that, I don’t know, neither do any of you,if it is not, I hope the weak standard does a big story on what happened, it is best for everyones sake
Post #15 By THE REAL VOICE,
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Commenting on this article is now closed.
This article was already posted on the Father Rene Labelle page – I have re-posted it with comments added. I think it is always interesting to see what people are thinking and saying.
Rene is a gay priest. He was removed a few years back on allegations from the school and he took sabatical . I think it was known to the church officials. This rumour I have heard at that time from reliable sources . I am not surprised to hear it again. I thought he never came back to work again. What a shame to put him again in another parish .
Helena, the Church will keep on making the same mistakes until it hurts them in the bank account.
A movement, called My 2-cents Worth, has started to counteract this. The idea is to cut our weekly church donations to just 2 cents each. I started doing that weeks ago.
I simply put 2 cents in an envelope, and mark on the envelope- My 2-cents Worth, and put it in the collection. If enough people do this, the bishops wil feel it where it hurts them- in the bank account. This seems to be their only poin of vulnerability.
…money=power=control=abuse…
One step further, Sheep, I thought could be a “photocopy” of the 2 cents!!! with a message on the size of a dollar bill…
It could even be sent by mail to the bishops, to Rome…and still make it through the metal detectors…The stamps would cost more!! 10cents, one copy, 5 mailings…An actuary would have to do the math…
You are on the right track! No place to hide when you need the bread and butter…
Terrible isn’t it that we have to start thinking “deviously” to get the attention of this arrogant organization!!!..
…my two cents!
jg
Cheaper still a virtual picture of said 2 cents attached to an email sent to every cleric you can…
Good idea ! Anything that can get the message across !
JG, I like the idea. Now, if we could send them collect————
As I am sure you know Helena it is not illegal in Canada to be homosexual. The fact that a police investigation is under way means there must be allegations of criminal activity of some sort involving Father Labelle.
I noticed that in 2005 Labelle was on sabbatical during the first semester of the school year. Would that perhaps be the sabbatical you are referring to? Was he away from his parish during that spell as well? Does anyone know?
Sylvia, I’m glad you brought up that it’s not illegal in Canada to be homosexual.
Just because a priest’s orientation is gay/homosexual doesn’t mean he’s evil, bad or a criminal.
Are there some gay/homosexual priests that take part in evil criminal activities? Of course there are priests’ that do that evil stuff.
In the Roman Catholic Church it’s a big no no for a priest to admit he’s gay.
He can choose to be celibate, chaste and still for his self preservation he feels the need (for different and obvious reasons) to keep that part of himself hidden.
Many priests do not let that (gay) hidden part of themselves interfere in any way in ministering to their flock or their parishioners.
My heart does go out to all those good, hard working priests that happen to have that gay orientation.
Yes, I am talking about 2005. Suddenly he was out of the parish and school and was on sabatical. That time the talk was he had some allegations from the highschool where he was chaplain. I think he was pastor at Wolf Island parish at that time. I am not against gays. But I see more gay priests than others who have problem including Lahey.
I wasn’t for a moment saying or implying you are against homosexuals Helena. I just wanted to make sure people didn’t think you were saying he was under investigation because he is homosexual. I didn’t read it that way, but some people might so I wanted to be sure there was no misunderstanding.
And thanks for the info re the sabbatical. Interesting.