Robert J. C. McMahon: Victim Impact Statement

VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT OF ROBERT J.C. McMAHON

Your Honour,

I am Robert McMahon, the husband of Beverly McMahon, a woman whom I love dearly and with whom I shall celebrate 50 glorious years of marriage on October 7^th of this year. I am the father of four sons, one of whom, Patrick, is the reason for my being here.

I am here today to tell this Honourable Court just what impact the defendant Hodgson Marshall has had upon me as a result of his heinous attacks upon my son Patrick.

I first met the defendant in the spring of 1954. The following September the defendant was transferred (one of many transfers) to Assumption High School in Windsor and began teaching me Algebra in Grade 12. Our relationship continued over many years, despite the brief stint in Windsor of a mere two years, one summer of which he spent in residence at St. John the Baptist Church in Amherstburg, Ontario, giving as his reasons “fatigue and exhaustion” despite his being under 30 years of age.

The defendant has known my wife since the late 1950’s before we were engaged and we asked him to celebrate our marriage in October of 1961 but he was denied permission by his superior, having just arrived in Sudbury from a brief two year posting in Houston, Texas and a one year posting at St. Thomas More High School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

My wife and I continued an extremely close relationship with the defendant despite his residences being in Sudbury, Sault St. Marie and the island of St. Lucia. Over the years our sons were born, the defendant became what I would describe as a close uncle and in keeping with our traditional beliefs, we explained to them that he was an ordained priest, another Christ, who in the Holy sacrifice of the Mass, could consecrate the water and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Over these many years we visited him during summer and winter vacations.

I remember very clearly many events in our family to which the defendant was invited and which have impacted upon me over the recent years. Remembering the occasion of our moving into our new home is one I will never forget even though it hurts so much. I asked him to please say Mass for us in our new home and to bless our new home. At the consecration of the Mass the defendant took the consecrated host and I, my wife and four sons processed throughout our new home. The defendant blessed each room including my son Patrick’s bedroom. I am hurt and my faith devastated when I now know what harm the defendant did to my son in that bedroom — when my son told me many years later that he dreaded to hear the defendant’s footsteps coming to his bedroom so that the defendant could say goodnight to him

My faith in the priesthood has been shattered by what he has done to Patrick. I can no longer attend mass because I no longer can believe in the sacrament of Holy Orders — I can no longer believe that an ordained priest could have such disrespect for our family that he could feign a religiosity towards us — how he could witness in our home

the renewal of our 25^th wedding anniversary vows — how he could, in our house, witness my parents 50^th wedding anniversary vows. Oh yes, the crème de la creme was when we asked him to administer to Beverly’s dying mother the Sacrament of The Sick, give her communion and to hear her last confession; how do I explain my loss of faith which meant so very much to me?

How could this defendant, ordained into Holy Orders (a sacrament so profound and so intimate to Christ, that not even a female as saintly as Mother Teresa could ever hope to receive such a sacrament) perpetrate a crime in my house at night and say Mass for us the next morning. That is called a sacrilege, the most hideous of sins in the Holy Roman Catholic Church. This is the same church which provides by Canon Law sanctions and punishment for priests who deign to desecrate sacred vessels; yet these same priests commit sexual crimes on children.

I am impacted and my faith in the Holy Roman Catholic Church is destroyed because this church, in accordance with Canon Law, has not begun an investigation into the defendant’s conduct.

I am impacted and my faith destroyed because of the scandalous actions of the defendant, which goes against the holy words of Jesus Christ as found in the Gospel of St. Matthew, Ch. 18:5 “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith in me would be better drowned in the depth of the sea with a great millstone around his neck.”

ROBERT J.C. McMAHON