After serving 2/3 of his one year sentence convicted clerical fraudster Father Joseph LeClair was released from jail on good behaviour nine days ago, – nine days before his scheduled 18 November 2014 release:
18 November 2014: “Father Joe LeClair released from jail for good behaviour” & related article
LeClair was released nine days earlier than his scheduled release date of 18 November 2014. I get the impression that part of the nine days was committed to being assessed at Southdown or by Southdown staff (“LeClair was also granted a temporary absence so that he could attend an assessment prior to further treatment at the same institution he went to before he was sentenced to a year in jail on March 1” – that institution was Southdown.)
Where Father LeClair is now and whether or not he will return to serve as a priest in the Ottawa Archdiocese is unknown. What is known is that a spokesperson for the archdiocese has indicated that it stands behind its statement of 20 January of this year (“Aware of his many talents and of his 25 years of effective pastoral ministry, we will work with Fr. LeClair in his desire to return to the exercise of his priestly ministry.”)
Father LeClair should be started on his one year probation now.
Enough for now,
Sylvia
I hope he makes the most of this opportunity. I worry about some of his adulators who’ve grown perhaps too fond of him – they were in many ways his primary enablers before. I hope he is wise and avoids their company for a while. He needs, for his own well being, to learn to be Father Joe again, and not simply resume being Rock Star Joe, even if there are others who really want that.
“For the first will come last and the last will be first.” If he heeds this, he can be a good priest again.