The Ottawa Citizen
March 1, 2013 1:25 PM
Andrew Seymour, Ottawa Citizen
Reverend Jacques Faucher, 76, leaves the Elgin Street Courthouse last week after being granted bail on a charge of sexually assaulting a seven-year-old boy in the early 1970s.
Photograph by: Julie Oliver , Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — An elderly Ottawa priest and former school board trustee is facing new sex crime charges.
Jacques Faucher, 76, stood with his hands in his pockets as he appeared on video from the courthouse cells accused of sexually abusing three men. The allegations date back to the 1970s.
Faucher was first arrested in February on sex allegations and released. He was arrested again Thursday and charged with the new offences.
Faucher, whose face was partially obscured on the courtroom video screen, was released on the same $6,000 bond and conditions following his earlier arrest.
Faucher had previously been charged with gross indecency and indecent assault on a male for a “series of inappropriate contacts” with a boy that are alleged to have occurred between 1971 and 1973.
The Crown consented to his release Thursday on a $6,000 bond and several conditions, including that he not communicate with his accuser and three others. Faucher was also ordered to reside at an Aylmer address and stay away from schools, parks, pools, playgrounds or any other places children may be present, including the children’s section of public libraries. He was not allowed to be with anyone under 16, except for family members, unless under the constant supervision of the child’s parent or guardian.
In a statement released following his earlier arrest, the Archbishop of Ottawa, Terrence Prendergast, announced Faucher’s suspension.
“On learning that Fr. Jacques Faucher has been charged with criminal misconduct in relation to a minor, I want to advise our Catholic faithful, and the wider community, that I have suspended him from all ministry and prohibited him from representing himself as a Catholic priest,” Prendergast said in a written statement.
Police said the investigation, which began in November 2012, is ongoing and detectives asked anyone with information to come forward.
Faucher, who grew up in Ottawa, was ordained in 1960 and served in a number of Ottawa parishes over the course of his career.
Highlights of that career were written up in the Spring & Summer 2010 issue of Catholic Ottawa, the newsletter of the Archdiocese of Ottawa, to mark Faucher’s 50 years as a priest.
It recounts that he studied theology in Paris before coming back to Ottawa and serving in the parishes of Notre Dame-des-Anges, Saint-Louis-Marie-de-Montfort, Sainte-Jeanne-d’Arc, and Christ-Roi.
Faucher also taught at the Grand Séminaire, the newsletter said, and was “actively involved in the field of education, notably teaching catechism in several high schools.”
The priest also served as a trustee on the Ottawa Board of Education.
In 2011, he published a memoir about his life growing up in Lowertown titled Sur Les Chemins De Ma Mémoire: Un echo de la Basse-Ville d’Ottawa.
In it, he describes the walks he took as a child around Lowertown with his Grandfather, Leopold Beaudry. The two went many times to the Château Laurier where Faucher describes the vast lobby, bathed in lamp light and crystal chandeliers.
“To my child’s eyes, this place could evoke the dream of Cinderella’s Castle. At seven years old, nothing can be better than being carried away on the wings of imagination.”
The book opens with a quote from Brazilian novelist Lya Luft “Childhood is the ground on which we walk all our life.”
Faucher has been lauded for his work in helping to establish Daybreak, a non-profit organization that provides transitional, minimum support housing for low-income men and women.
In a story about Daybreak that ran in April of last year, Faucher told the Citizen about the effort 30 years earlier to address the slums that were housing people with disabilities — “the invisible poor, we called them,” Faucher said.
Faucher has also put time into the Catholic Immigration Centre, the Rooming Houses Ecumenical Corporation for low income people, the United Way of Ottawa, the Club Richelieu, Cooperative Radio-Ville Marie Outaouais and the Anglican/Roman Catholic Canadian Dialogue.
— With files from Zev Singer
First, I commend another complainant for coming forward, and, I encourage anyone with allegations against Father Jacques Faucher to contact police.
Next, a question. Why, I wonder, was Father Faucher not in the courtroom answering to the new charge? Why did he appear by video from the courthouse cell? I could understand if he was at the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre, but for goodness sake, he was – according to this article – right there in the courthouse! Why then was he not brought up to the courtroom? Were there threats on his life?
Has anyone seen this before?