The names of Fathers John O’Donnell and Joseph Murphy, with links to pages with further information, have been added to the Accused list. Both were priests with the Archdiocese of Toronto. Both are deceased.
The abuse by both priests occurred while the priests were serving at St. Ann Roman Catholic Church in Toronto.
For now, here are links to each:
I want to draw your attention here to something rather chilling.
Note that on the Father O’Donnell page that Father O’Donnell served as pastor at St. Thomas More in Scarborough, Ontario from 1980 to 1989.
Who was there from 1983-1989?
Father Angus McRae.
That’s right. Convicted child molester, former military chaplain and priest from the Archdiocese of Edmonton Father Angus McRae.
After serving ten months of a four year sentence and a stint in Southdown, McRae was graciously recycled into the Archdiocese of Toronto by the Cardinal Archbishop, Emmett Carter and quietly dispatched to minister to the unwitting souls at St. Thomas More.
Did the pastor know of McRae’s background? I have no idea. I do know that, according to a blogger, he did, and that, according to that blogger, McRae was put in charge of the the altar boys during his years at St. Thomas.
That would have been Father O’Donnell’s decision.
Anyway, in 1989 Father Angus McRae, the quietly recycled clerical molester, was caught again. He had been molesting young lads at St. Thomas More.
Father McRae was gone. He pleaded guilty. He was placed on probation for three years. That’s right: probation.
The fascinating thing here is that at or around the same time that McRae left the parish, Father O’Donnell was gone! I’m not sure if there was a few months between the departures of the pair, but – O’Donnell was gone!
And after his departure from St. Thomas More I can find nothing to indicate that Father O’Donnell was assigned to a parish again or served as a priest within the diocese again. His address from 1991 on was that of an apartment on Curzon St, in Toronto.
O’Donnell was in his late 50s – perhaps 59? – when he left St. Thomas More. Rather young for a priest to retire or whatever?
Does anyone know what happened? Does anyone know what explanation was given to parishioners when he left St. Thomas More?
Also, I knew and had made note of the fact on the Father Angus McRae page when I first posted that page that Father O’Donnell had been in charge of scouts in the mid 80s. I now know that he was involved with scouts for many years.
Now, one more disturbing note of interest. This may seem a bit convoluted, but I’ll do my best to explain…
Around the same time all of this was going on, parishioners at Blessed Trinity in Willowdale discovered that Father Barry Glendinning, their assistant pastor, was a recycled serial child molester. Prior to surfacing in Willowdale Glendinning had been recycled out of Southdown into Our Lady of Grace in Aurora. The pastor at Our Lady of Grace was one Father Paul McCarthy. Glendinning was presumably under McCarthy’s supervision. All that came to an end when allegations arose that McCarthy was perhaps abusing young lads from the parish. McCarthy was quietly pulled (“misconduct” according tot he archdiocese) and shipped off for treatment. For whatever reason around the same time Father McCarthy was pulled and shipped off Father Glendinning was plucked out of Aurora and unloaded on the poor unsuspecting souls in Willowdale.
And there it is. Father McCarthy was supposedly keeping an eye on Glendinning!
For years the Archdiocese insisted that the allegations against McCarthy were not related to children, False. Father McCarthy molested three teenage boys. He was never charged. After a little stint of “treatment” he was recycled.
In light of that nonsense when I see that Father Angus McRae was popped into St. Thomas More where Father O’Donnell was pastor I cringe.
This is what I call connecting the dots 🙂
Timothy, I commend you for speaking up. It is thanks to the courage of people like you that we can slowly connect the dots and find out what exactly who was doing what. Thank you. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
*****
A final note – this administrative. Right now the only way to manually access the pages for both Fathers Murphy and O’Donnell is by clicking on the Accused , button, opening the page, and then scrolling down. Usually I can set up the names to show up when the mouse hovers over the Accused. I can’t do it. It just will not work – I think the menu is seriously overloaded. I will contact my webhost to see where I go from here and if there is anything I can do to circumvent the problem. Ah my, frustration again 🙁
Enough for now,
Sylvia