Maurice Albert Bonneville
Priest, Archdiocese of St. Boniface, Manitoba, Ordained 25 January 1948.
May 1991 guilty to two counts of indecent assault and one charge of gross indecency related to abuse of three teenage boys between 1962 and 1965. Sentenced to one year in jail.
Bonneville introduced one of his victims to Father Joseph Azaire Edmond Gauthier who in turn sexually abused the boy. Bonneville told Gauthier: “He’s better in bed than he is in his books.” (Gauthier was later charged and convicted).
Bonneville seems to have either left the priesthood voluntarily or been laicized in the late 60s.
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The following information is drawn from Canadian Catholic Directories of that date which I have on hand
85-86: not listed
1971-72, 1973-74: not listed
1968-69: index lists him as pastor at Sainte Famille, St. Boniface, Manitoba. Elsewhere in the directory the pastor as Sainte Famille is listed as Father Rodrigue Bouchard
1967: Pastor, Sainte Famille RC Church, St. Boniface, Manitoba (Archbishop Maurice Baudoux. Auxiliary Bishop Antoine Hacault)
1959: Chaplain, St. Boniface Hospital (Archbishop Maurice Baudoux.)
25 January 1948: ORDAINED
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Canadian Press
26 July 1991
WINNIPEG (CP)
A retired Roman Catholic priest was given a two-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to a charge of gross indecency arising from a relationship with an 18-year-old altar boy more than two decades ago.
Provincial court Judge Winston Norton said Friday he agreed with a Crown recommendation that Joseph Azaire Edmond Gauthier, 64, should not be jailed for the offence.
“While he was a member of the Roman Catholic clergy at the time, it (the offence) did not arise out of his duties as a priest,” said Norton.
“The offence did not arise out of any position of trust he had with the complainant.”
The former priest was also ordered to complete 150 hours of community service by next June.
The offence took place after Gauthier was introduced to the 18- year-old male by his priest, Maurice Albert Bonneville.
Bonneville was sentenced to one year in jail earlier this year for sexually abusing the same complainant and two other teenaged boys.
Gauthier was sexually involved with the complainant three times over a three-year period ending in early 1968.
The allegations didn’t come to light until 1989 when the victim, after a number of failed relationships, sought counseling for emotional problems.
The charge of gross indecency, which prohibited homosexual contact with a male between the ages of 18 and 21, has since been removed from the Criminal Code.
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Canadian Press
23 July 1991
WINNIPEG (CP)
A retired Roman Catholic priest pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of gross indecency for pursuing a sexual relationship with a teenaged alter boy almost 30 years ago.
Joseph Azarie Edmond Gauthier, 64, was sexually involved with the young man between 1965 and 1968.
Gauthier will be sentenced today. The Crown is recommending probation.
During Tuesday’s hearing, both Crown and defence urged the court not to jail Gauthier, saying the case differed greatly from others in Manitoba and the rest of Canada involving priests.
The victim, who had also been abused by another priest, agreed Gauthier shouldn’t necessarily be jailed for the offence, but added someone must pay for his years of suffering.
“I’m very angry and I’m very bitter,” he said in an interview from his home in British Columbia, adding he will now turn his attention to a civil suit against the church or Gauthier to help pay his mounting legal and counselling bills.
Crown attorney Lynn Stannard told court Gauthier was initially introduced to the victim, then aged 18, by Maurice Albert Bonneville, a former Winnipeg priest.
Court heard Bonneville was also involved in a sexual relationship with the complainant and told Gauthier: “He’s better in bed than he is in his books.”
In May, Bonneville, who pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault and one charge of gross indecency, was sentenced to one year in jail for sexually abusing three teenaged boys between 1962 and 1965.
The allegations against Gauthier didn’t come to light until 1989 when the victim, after a number of failed relationships, sought counselling for emotional problems, Stannard said.
She also said there wasn’t the same breach of trust as in Bonneville’s case, in which court heard tales of younger boys being plied with alcohol and lured into sexual promiscuity, because Gauthier was not the victim’s parish priest at the time.