Priest ordered out

Parishioners were shocked to learn that a priest who performed pastoral services for years at Our Lady of Mount Carmel church had served prison time for sex crimes against underage girls.

Even the parish priest was in the dark about Father John “Jack” McCann’s criminal past, which included a 1992 conviction for sexually assaulting teenage girls in two B.C. Roman Catholic congregations while McCann was head of the flock in the 1970s.

When first contacted by reporters last week, the Archdiocese of Ottawa maintained that McCann, now 82, had no pastoral appointment and had been enjoying his retirement in the sanctity and relative obscurity of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) residence at St. Paul University.

But after new revelations surfaced that McCann was indeed performing mass and other ministerial duties, occasionally in the absence of parish priest Rev. Stephen Liang, the Archdiocese revoked his permission on April 29, the same day officials told the Ottawa Sun, via e-mail, that McCann “is not in active ministry.”

“He’s enjoying retirement,” OMI chief administrative officer Rob Meilleur said at the time. “His penance has been served, as they say. When people start rekindling all this old stuff, I often wonder why.”

‘Disastrous situation’

Liang said an information session Saturday will help Mount Carmel parishioners deal with the stress of the “disastrous situation.”

“It’s very stressful for parishioners,” said Liang. “They’re all in shock.”

Liang said McCann came to Mount Carmel about five years ago, and also provided pastoral services at St. Brigid’s until the historic Lowertown church closed in 2007.

McCann, who was ordained in 1955, pleaded guilty in 1992 to sexually assaulting two girls under age 16 while he was serving as priest in two separate parishes in Vancouver and New Westminster, B.C., between 1972 and 1979.

One of his victims recounted near-daily sexual trysts in a Vancouver media report.

The latest revelation that McCann was active and serving in Ottawa parishes came to light when a former victim, now an adult and living on Canada’s west coast, alerted the U.S.-based advocacy group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

According to SNAP president Barbara Blaine, the victim was horrified to recently discover pictures of her tormentor on the website Journey of a Bishop, the personal blog of Archbishop Terrence Prendergast.

All references to McCann — including a photograph from a Dec. 2010 pro-life mass at Mount Carmel and a description of a June 6, 2010, mass at Westboro’s Soeurs de la Visitation church that McCann concelebrated — were hastily removed from the blog last week.

A St. Paul professor who welcomed McCann’s help on setting up the school’s Internet network when he arrived in Ottawa from B.C. 10 years ago, was also shocked to learn of McCann’s history, saying it is possible McCann would have been left alone with female students.

“Sure he would be,” he said. “He was available to anybody who wanted help with our computers … he was very knowledgeable, very talented.”

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Michael Jones