Windsor Star
”Allegations from the case recently came to light so it has been resurrected as a cold case,” OPP spokeswoman Shawna Coulter said Thursday. “We are looking at any information we can get.”
A Canadawide warrant for Rev. Godwin Scerri remains valid, and Coulter said the OPP would still like to extradite him to face sex-abuse charges here.
Vatican spokesmen, meanwhile, say the Pope is considering meeting this weekend in Malta with victims of sexual assault at the hands of three priests, including Scerri.
The OPP charged Scerri in June 1993 with sexual assault and gross indecency, stemming from complaints by a 22-year-old man. The complainant alleged the abuse occurred between 1983 and 1987 — starting when the victim was 12 years old — on Pelee Island and in Emeryville, where Scerri worked as a priest at St. William’s Church.
Scerri never faced those allegations in court, however, since he had returned to his native Malta — where he was named spiritual director of a girls’ secondary school in the city of Rabat, according to the Malta Today newspaper.
In October 2003, Scerri and two other members of the Missionary Society of St. Paul — Rev. Charles Pulis and Brother Joseph Bonnett — were charged with abusing and raping children at the St. Joseph Home in Santa Venera in Malta.
Ten men who claim to have been sexually abused by members of the clergy are following a court proceeding in Malta concerning Scerri, Pulis and Bonnet. The tribunal, which has gone on intermittently since 2003, is closed to the public and few details have emerged.
Maltese reporters can’t even say whether Scerri, Pulis and Bonnet are in custody or remain free. The Malta diocese has said none of the accused priests remain in positions of authority.
The Malta diocese told the Windsor Star it will not comment on the situation.
The only alleged victim to publicly speak on the topic is angered that Scerri faced charges in Canada and simply moved to Malta where he allegedly continued his ways.
”The problem is he escaped from Canada but the bishop in Malta put him at an orphanage,” Lawrence Grech, 37, said by telephone Thursday from Malta.
Grech said he remembers Scerri as a kind man. “He was friendly with kids. He had a nice character.”
But Grech claims Scerri also had a dark side. Grech said he was abused by three priests at the St. Joseph orphanage, starting when he was 11 years old. He said Scerri was not one of his abusers, though his best friend alleges he was abused by Scerri.
“The abuse was normal. It was common for us,” said Grech, who spoke at a news conference in Malta this week, calling the seven-year court case against his alleged abusers too long and asking to meet with the Pope over the incidents. “In fact, we used to dress as women.”
Grech said the abuse caused lasting pain.
“It hurt me,” he said. “It hurt me spiritually, and inside my heart. I was an innocent boy, but my innocence ended early.”
The case is receiving heightened attention since Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit Malta on the weekend in a whirlwind 26-hour trip. Vatican spokesmen have been quoted as saying that the Pope has a “very tight schedule” in Malta and may not be able to meet the alleged victims, who argue that they would receive some closure by receiving an audience with the Pope.
Some 40,000 to 50,000 people are expected to flock to the Pope’s Sunday mass in Malta, a Mediterranean country of 400,000 on an archipelago off the coast of southern Italy.
The visit comes as a worldwide scandal intensifies on the Roman Catholic Church, and in particular the Vatican, for allegedly covering up abuse by priests — and in some cases, reassigning offending clergy to positions of power over minors and other vulnerable people.
Curia Knew about Priest’s Alleged Sex Abuse History since 1993
Fr Godwin Scerri’s Paedophilia Charges in Canada Relate to 1983
By Karl Schembri
The Malta Independent [Malta]
Downlaoded October 17, 2003 (AbuseTracker)
A priest who is now facing charges of rape and sexual abuse of a child at St Joseph’s Home in Santa Venera had already faced charges of child sexual abuse that he allegedly committed while in Canada between 1983 and 1987, before he allegedly abused children in Malta.
According to a Canadian paper, the Maltese Curia was informed about the charges by Canadian authorities.
Fr Godwin Scerri, 67, a member of the Missionary Society of St Paul, was reported by Canadian newspaper The Windsor Star on 24 June 1993 as facing “sexual assault charges if he ever returns to Canada” following a warrant of arrest issued by the Ontario Provincial Police.
The report carrying the title, “Accused priest remains in Malta”, had said that Fr Scerri was wanted by the Canadian authorities in connection with charges of sexual abuse filed by a 22-year-old man. The man had alleged that he was sexually abused by Fr Scerri while the priest was in Emeryville and on Pelee Island between 1983 and 1987. Fr Scerri was a priest at St William’s Church in Emeryville at that time.
The Ontario Provincial Police had said back then that they issued a warrant for the arrest of Fr Scerri after London diocese officials said they couldn’t force Fr Scerri to return to Canada from Malta. The Windsor Star report said that the Maltese Curia had been informed of the charges, including sexual assault and gross indecency, adding that Fr Scerri had refused to return to Canada.
Only three months after The Windsor Star’s report, KullHadd picked up the story and published the charges against Fr Scerri in a front-page report on 5 September 1993.
KullHadd had followed Fr Scerri’s steps back here in Malta and reported that he was working at the San Domenico Savio oratory in Birkirkara with adolescents and youth. He was also working at St Joseph’s Home in Santa Venera.
The Archbishop’s Curia had confirmed to KullHadd that it knew about the allegations “but only through foreign newspaper reports” while former MSSP Superior General Fr James Bonello had told the media that “MSSP carried its preliminary investigations and it resulted that the priest in question always denied the allegations against him both in Canada and in Malta”.
Fr Scerri is now facing paedophilia charges together with Fr Charles Pulis and Br Joseph Bonnett in a child abuse scandal that rocked the Maltese church over the last weeks. Fr Scerri is the only one who is also facing charges of rape with violence. The three religious members are expected to appear in Court on 28 October in front of Magistrate Saviour Demicoli behind close doors.
Some cases of child abuse reported to the Maltese police go back to around 1983 and have been allegedly ongoing until this year with other children, until the priests involved were reportedly removed from contact with children.
At least 11 children were allegedly sexually abused by the priests at the institute for children in Santa Venera, at the MSSP’s summer residence in Marfa and at St Agatha’s convent in Rabat. The reports carried by The Windsor Star and KullHadd in 1993 state that both the Curia and the MSSP knew about the allegations in Canada but they still allowed Fr Scerri to work with children at the institute upon his return, at the society’s youth oratory in Birkirkara and elsewhere.
When contacted yesterday, the Director of St Joseph’s Home, Fr Silvio Bezzina, said he could not answer questions about Fr Scerri in 1993 as he was not in a position of authority back then.
“I don’t know what happened at that time,” Fr Bezzina said.
He added that the Superior General of that time is now on a mission in the Philippines.
The MSSP’s new Superior General, Fr Bernard Mangion, could not be reached by the time we went to print yesterday.
The Malta Independent sent the following questions by e-mail and fax to the Curia’s Public Relations Officer, Charles Buttigieg, on Wednesday evening.
1. What did the Curia do in relation to Fr Scerri upon his return to Malta from Canada?
2. Did the Curia investigate the alleged abuse committed by the said priest in Canada?
3. Why didn’t the Curia prevent Fr Scerri from coming into contact with children upon his return?
4. The Malta Independent has a report that Fr Scerri worked at a government school in Rabat with young children until this year. Why didn’t the Curia inform Education Division about his dubious past?
5. By withholding this information wasn’t the Maltese Curia permitting the possibility of abuse with Maltese schoolchildren?
6. How could the Curia allow a priest with such an allegation work with young children?
7. What did the Curia do about this case since 1993, when the case was made public?
8. Given that the Response Team was not yet established in 1993, what did Archbishop Joseph Mercieca do about this case?
9. Doesn’t this case prompt the Curia to revise its policy of secrecy in such cases and adopt a similar policy to that of the Diocese of Portsmouth – which adopts a policy of transparency in such cases?
9. Why should the Archbishop’s request for a pardon be taken seriously when (or rather, if) nothing was done for 10 whole years about clerical paedophilia?
Mr Buttigieg replied later yesterday: “The person you mention in your questions is now being charged in court and so his case is sub iudice. In view of this, I cannot answer your questions.”
Girl molestation case
Call for ban on publication of name dismissed
Times of Malta
27 July 2002
A magistrate yesterday dismissed a request by lawyers appearing for a priest charged with molesting young girls to ban the publication of his name.
Magistrate Abigail Lofaro ruled that the request made by Fr Luigi Scerri and his brother Godfrey Scerri, who is facing similar charges, did not fall within the parameters laid down by law for bans on the publication of names.
Fr Scerri, 65, of Sta Venera and his brother, 64, of Zabbar, are pleading not guilty to regularly defiling three girls aged under 12 before 1998. Fr Scerri is also charged with offending public morals.
The compilation of evidence, which started earlier this month is, however, still being heard behind closed doors.
Police Inspector Louise Vella is prosecuting.
Dr Giannella Caruana Curran and Dr Emmanuel Mallia are appearing for the defendants. Dr Nicole Vella De Fremeaux is appearing in parte civile.