Ottawa Sun
First posted: Saturday, May 7, 2011 2:38:48 EDT PM
Sylvia and Michael MacEachern left Saturday morning service early after nobody from the Diocese of Ottawa was available to speak to parishioners about how a convicted sex offender had been saying mass at their church. DOUG HEMPSTEAD/Ottawa Sun
Faithful left an east-end church in disgust Saturday after no explanation was given why a convicted sex offender had been allowed to say mass.
“I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was expecting more than that,” said Sylvia MacEachern, offended that Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish priest Father Stephen Liang didn’t appear in person to explain how Jack McCann had been allowed to perform pastoral services.
“That’s disgusting,” she said “He’s so ruddy busy he can’t do one Saturday service.”
Instead, a message from Liang was read by Deacon Norm Levesque to the 30 to 40 people who attended.
“Due to a long-standing commitment I cannot be with you this weekend,” began the message, which told how the diocese of Ottawa decided April 29 to suspend the Father Jack McCann from performing pastoral services after it was brought to their attention that he served time for molesting two teenage girls.
McCann pleaded guilty in 1992 to sexually assaulting the girls in two B.C. Roman Catholic congregations while he was head of the flock in the 1970s. He was handed a 10-month sentence.
No explanation of how his criminal past went unnoticed was given Saturday.
Instead, Levesque read, “I regret to inform you that after this weekend there will no longer be any Saturday morning services. Please note that St. Patrick’s Basilica has Saturday morning masses at 7 and 8 a.m.”
That was it, and enough to send MacEachern, her husband Michael and about eight others immediately for the door.
“I can’t believe they cancelled the mass. This is like an absolute slap in their face. How dare you,” she said.
MacEachern, who used to attend Our Lady of Mount Carmel regularly, said the diocese should have sent someone to explain how McCann “fell through the cracks.”
“These poor souls have been subjected to him for four years.”
To her knowledge, there’s always been a Saturday mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Her husband agrees and was shocked that the deacon was the sole clergy putting on the communion service.
“We might as well be a Protestant church,” Michael said. “This is a massive slap in the face to these parishioners. They’re saying — OK, McCann has been uncovered now we’re going to punish you.”
Liang told the Sun Friday that Saturday’s service was meant to be an information session. After the service, Levesque acknowledged the situation was “difficult.”
“But with the Lord, we’re going to come through this.”
Asked if he was shocked at the revelations, Levesque raised his upturned hands.
“Put it this way — as long as I put my trust in the Lord and Saviour — no,” he said. “I can overcome this. I don’t place my trust in men, I place my trust in God.”
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Comments
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Aaron Guimond
“We might as well be a protestant church”…
He wishes.
They may not have Sat. mass but the various protestant churches don’t seem to spawn and tolerate pedophiles like the Catholic Church. Seems like it would be a good trade.
An external link to an Ottawa Sun video: http://www.ottawasun.com/2011/05/07/churchs-sexcrime-response-a-slap-in-the-face
This to me has an air of “déjà vu”…”You don’t want this priest, so you won’t have any..”
Are you being punished? …right you are! …and they have the gall to pretend this is not directed from above, and I don’t mean beyond Rome! The same pattern over and over again…They were not aware that he was convicted previously in B.C.!! These tactics may have worked 80-100 years ago, but unfortunately for them, SOME people are now more informed. As soon as the light comes on they go in hiding: just like thieves, rats and cockroaches… no offense to the latter!
JG
Has a central registry of all priests, nuns and church workers been considered – internet and current technology makes this readily available. CCCB could maybe take the lead role (i.e. have the ‘registrar role’). Each diocese could have access to the data base ( it would be edit protected) Would this not help prevent the recycling of pedophile priests. I am sure this has been considered and I would like to know why it has not happened yet.
Just wondering…
Infortunatley 1yellowknife I think we are a long way from the day the CCCB compiles a registery to prevent recycling. The first step in that direction on the part of the CCCB would be ackowledgement by all our bishops that clerical predators should not be ‘reintegrated’ into ministry. From what I can see there are just far too many bishops who have no problem with quietly slipping a known predator into a diocese. Perhaps things are a little better than the early 2000s when Calgary’s Archbishop Fred Henry quietly recyled Father James Kneale and subjected unwitting Catholics to this convicted molester. Those poor souls had to fight to get rid of Kneale.
But then we’ve had recent cases such as Fathers Michael Walsh. Archbishop Martin Currie saw no problem there. Neither it seems did Archbishop Prendergast while he was Bishop of Halifax and Walsh was serving there – as a convicted molester.
Much as I hate to say it I do believe that, as things stand, the CCCB could not be trusted to operate a registry for the purposes of preventing recycling.
Alright – setting up an independent registry could be costly but maybe that needs to be considered. Has any country or jurisdiction done so… Just a thought
When nurses, teachers, doctors, social workers, police, or any other position of trust breaches the criminal code and hurts children and are convicted they usually are never to work in their field again….as should be for priests… if your on the catholic registry as a convicted pedophile you should not be serving in any function as a priest anywhere to anyone.
I don’t think that they can work as priests. It is clear that the Church’s insurers wouldn’t cover such an individual coming back to work as they would not be able to pass the police check needed to be involved in ANY MINISTRY within the RC Church. As a pastor, I have had to deal with a case when someone’s ‘extra-curricular activities’ (not involving any minors) resulted in his inability to renew such a police check when I requested he supply an up-dated version. I asked him to step aside and resign from any ministry as he would not be covered by our liability insurance. It shouldn’t be any different for a priest who has been convicted. I cannot understand how such a priest could be permitted to ever serve in public again.
I do appreciate that some religious orders (whose priests are not responsible to diocesan bishops) evidently continue to try to recycle convicted priests, so perhaps they are insured differently than we diocesan priests… or else they are really, really, really stupid. Aside from these reasons, I cannot comprehend what mental gymnastics their superiors go through by permitting these predators to have access to anyone outside of a monastic or religious community. B16 points to the fact that this would have been the minimal ecclesiastical punishment demanded and exercised prior to the 1960′s. Because these religious orders lost a proper understanding of their commitment to ‘love’ fellow community members, confusing excessive charity and forgiveness in denial that truth that love is also present in discipline, they seem to be the last (PLEASE! GOD) refuge where the lessons of these scandals have yet to be implemented.
Fr. Tim
I suggested a registry as PREVENTION, not as a tool for recycling. Sorry if I was not clear
Father Tim, my understanding is that an ordered priest can not or should not be serving in a dicoese without receiving faculties from the bishop.
I know there’s endless dancing on the heads of pins over the authority which diocesan and bishops have or do not have over ‘ordered’ (i.e., Oblate, Jesuit, Francisan) priests. In this instance however all of that can be set aside because Father McCann was NOT serving in an Oblate parish. Both Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Brigid’s are diocesan parishes. The Oblates are in no position to and could not assign Father McCann to either of those parishes.
Father McCann had to have faculites to serve over the last ten years in the Ottawa Archdiocese. Faculties come from the bishop. Who gave Father McCann those faculties?
How did Father McCann wind up serving in the Ottawa Archdiocese in the first place? Who asked him to assist at St. Brigid’s? and then at Our Lady of Mount Carmel?
Did Father McCann go door knocking and offer his services? or did someone at the diocesan centre tell the priests at both parishes that Father McCann was available to assist?
Either way, a bishop had to give him faculties to allow him to serve here for the past ten years.
Is it possible that not one single soul at the diocesan centre knew of Father McCann’s conviction? In this day and age is it really possible?
We just had the case of Father Ed McNeil. Another recylced Oblate.. Same thing. No one knew.
If no one then some one should be fired. There is no excuse for not knowing. None. But, I suppose for insurance purposes it might be imperative or best that they not know?
Is that the way it goes?
Sylvia, maybe we should ask the Bishops if they have to go through an annual review to see if they have completed their duties? The old question of who audits the auditor.
For more than 40 years this Archdiocese has been unserved by a succession of Bishops who have collaberated in the transferring of their problem Priests to other jurisdictions, and accepting the same kind to work in this Archdiocese. They can not deny it- the proof is a matter of record.
When caught they make use of theirCanon Lawyers- they have to prove they are needed!. Then the bait-and-switch routines start , the tap dancing begins, and the first casualty is the TRUTH. There is NO accountability at the Diocesan level on these matters.
Records on these switches disappear if they are even made.
Or they make the offender a Monsignour, give him a job with a new title, and he is home free. Just look at what they did with Renken. One minute the Diocese is proud to have Saint Paul’s U, but, when trouble surfaces, even tho the AB is Chancellor of the institution, he can do nothing. Straw man in a burning Church
It reminds me of the remedy for removing blood-suckers from your body. You apply a lit cigarette, or some other heat source to their butt and they withdraw. I have noticed similar reactions with ABs.
1 abandoned sheep
Sylvia: You are both right and wrong. A religious priests’ faculties actually come from his superior – but a Diocesan bishop can prohibit him from exercising his faculties within his diocese if he has good reason. So it is very likely that a religious order priest could function under the circumstances that this case puts forward.
Why is this? Because religious order priests do not normally work in parish settings and are thus under the obedience of his religious community, not the local bishop. We are dealing here with that gray area where the two spheres of ministry occasionally over-lap.
Fr. Tim
I took a quick look through the Code Father but not enough time to find what I was looking for. There is perhaps a gray area when it comes to a priest who shows up in a diocese and assists at Mass during a visit, but a priest who serves in diocese should have faculties from the bishop – that is in addition to faculties he has from his diocese of incardination. Father Ed MacNeil omi for example has faculties in the Peterborough Diocese, but he also had faculties in the Archdiocese of Ottawa which were recently revoked. With the approval of his Oblate superiors Father MacNeil’s faculties from Peterborough would allow him to say Mass IN Springhurst (an Oblate residence) and hear confessions IN Springhurst – but not elsewhere in the Archdiocese of Ottawa. Without the Archbishop’s approval the Oblates can not give Father MacNeil permission to say Mass in a parish in the archdiocese. Since Father MacNeil’s faculties in Ottawa have been revoked he can not say Mass or hear confessions in the Archdiocese of Ottawa, barring houses which are Oblate residences. Finally, if his faculties from Peterborough were revoked (as I believe they should be) he would be without faculties and unable to say a public Mass even at the Springhurst residence, or, as he wishes, hear confessions of those who seek him as a confessor within Springhurst.
Father Lorne Whalen, as a diocesan priest, had faculties from the Diocese of Pembroke, his diocese of incardination. When Father Whalen joined the military he had faculties with the military vicariate. When he got into trouble his faculties in the military were revoked, but he still had faculites with the Pembroke Diocese – the latter were not revoked. Whalen then served in the Archdiocese of Ottawa. I never did find out but assume he was given faculties to assist at St. Brigid’s. When he later tried to take a hospital chaplaincy course in Toronto Whalen needed faculties from the Archbishop of Toronto to say Mass and hear confessions. His faculties from Pembroke were not suffice for him to serve in the Archdiocese of Toronto. The Archbishop of Toronto refused to give him faculties, and that was the the end of Father Whalen’s studies – he could not say Mass and hear confessions in Toronto with faculties from Pembroke but without faculties from Toronto, therefore he could not pursue the chaplaincy course which required that have the ability to say Mass and hear confessions IN the Archdiocese of Toronto.