Priest, Diocese of St. Paul, Alberta. Ordained 09 June 1963. GUILTY plea 1989 to two charges of indecent assault and four charges of sexual assault against five girls and one boy from 1980 to 1987. The victims were aged five to 16. At his sentencing hearing asked the judge to be good to him, and said: “I’ve been forgiving people for 25 years. I think it’s my turn to be forgiven.” Sentenced to two years prison and three years probation.
________________________
26 August 1996: ‘The bishop wants you to stand!’: A pedophile Alberta priest harasses Mother Teresa’s nuns for kneeling during Mass
________________________
The following information is drawn from Canadian Catholic Church Directories (CCCD) which I have on hand, media (M) and personal (p)
2010: address for Diocesan Centre. Phone number has changed and is now a 614 exchange. (CCCD)
(I have been told that he lives in same apartment as Father Crouteau and Bishop Luc Bouchard. My understanding is that the occupants share kitchen and eating areas.) (p)
served as driver for Bishop Luc Bouchard after the Bishop’s stroke
2003: Tetu was described in the Western Catholic Reporter as “a close collaborator” of Bishop Roy.(scroll down)
executor of Bishop Roy’s estate
involved in the production of Bishop Luc Bouchard’s diocesan paper. The paper lasted two years
2002, 2000: address for Diocesan Centre. Phone number is different: 780-645-5803 (CCCD)
1998, 1996, 1994, 1993: address and phone number for Diocesan Centre (4410-51st Ave., , St. Paul, Alberta 403-654-3277) (CCCD)
1997: was presumably striped of his faculties after complaints from the laity that he was saying and/or assisting at Masses
for years Tetu acted as Bishop Roy’s driver
1996: Tetu and Bishop Roy involved a Ponzi-type scam involving phone sex lines
1994: assigned as chaplain and spiritual director to Mother Theresa’s Missionaries of Charity serving in Edmonton. In that capapacity Tetu said Mass, provided spirtiual direction and was their confessor.
December 1988: charged. Living in Bishop’s palace after charges laid (M)
1980-87: Fort Kent, Alberta (M)
Pastor, St. Joseph RC Church in Fort Kent, Alberta with mission at St. Michael in La Corey, Alberta (CCCD)
1973-74: St. Paul Cathedral, St. Paul, Manitoba (Rector Father J. M. Martineau)
“Procureur” (CCCD)
1971-72: St. Lawrence RC Church, Brosseau, Alberta (CCCD)
1968-69: P.O. Box 1018 Athabasca (I don’t know what he was doing in Athabasca. The mailing address for the RC Church, St. Gabriel, was P.O. Box 329 and Pastor was Father W. O’Farrell. Was he teaching at a school perhaps?) (CCCD)
1967: St. Paul Cathedral, St. Paul, Manitoba (Rector Father Fernand Croteau – Croteau was later charged and convicted as well) (CCCD)
___________________________________
31 March 2011: BLOG That would make sense
30 March 2011: BLOG A “close collaborator” with the bishop?
___________________________________
St. Paul’s Bishop Roy dead at 84
Roy made diocese centre for apostilic activity and renewal
Western Catholic Reporter
June 2003
By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
St. Paul
Bishop Raymond Roy will be remembered as a faithful announcer of the Gospel, first-rate preacher and church builder.
Roy, bishop emeritus of St. Paul, died June 25, the 21st anniversary of one of his proudest moments – the visit of Mother Teresa to St. Paul. He was 84.
Father Antoine Tetu, a close collaborator of the bishop, called Roy a “faithful announcer of the Gospel” and good disciple of the Lord. “He’s been faithful in announcing the Good News of salvation,” Tetu said June 25.
“I can truly say that he’s helped the people grow through the liturgy of the Mass, a little bit like the prophets and the patriarchs of the Old Testament have done. He was a very good preacher.”
Bishop Luc Bouchard, the current bishop of St. Paul, and Archbishop Thomas Collins, Roy’s successor there, could not be reached for comment.
Born in Fisher-Branch, Man., May 3, 1919, Roy attended elementary school in his native town as well as in Aubigny, and secondary school and university at St. Boniface College. He held a bachelor of arts from the University of Manitoba and studied theology at the Montreal Major Seminary and the Boniface Seminary. He was ordained a priest in St. Boniface Cathedral on May 31, 1947. He was named bishop of St. Paul May 3, 1972. He retired June 30, 1997.
In the early ’70s, before taking over as bishop of St. Paul, Roy was known at the time as a great lover of flowers. “I’m impatient by temperament,” he once said, adding flowers served as a gentle reminder of the need to be patient.
Roy said nature deeply influenced his approach to changes in religion. “I have a reticence to follow the new trends, but I also have a repugnance for remaining static; which means I evolve according to the rhythm of life.”
Roy came to St. Paul in 1972 with a reputation as a first-rate preacher and church builder.
He retired 25 years later, leaving behind a diocese which had been re-shaped by petroleum mega-projects.
In the meantime, he spearheaded projects enabling the Gospel to be preached in a new era.
From its foundation in 1948 until 1979, the St. Paul Diocese was a 100-km wide strip running across Alberta just north of Edmonton. Roy worked to expand the diocese so that it now includes the major centre of Fort McMurray and covers most of northeastern Alberta.
That gave the diocese greater resources and more flexibility in planning. During Roy’s term, virtually every parish in the diocese undertook a major renovation or reconstruction project.
In 1982, Roy took the unused church at St. Edouard, 11 km east of St. Paul, and built a large renewal centre as an addition. Since then, the St. Paul Renewal Centre has been the focus for numerous programs of spiritual renewal.
Roy also shepherded the John Paul II Bible School in Radway, North America’s first Catholic Bible school. The school began in an abandoned hospital 19 years ago and is now the model for similar schools around the world.
During Roy’s tenure, the diocese began Bible study programs, the Emmaus lay ministries formation program, the RENEW program of parish renewal and a program to recruit people to work in foreign missions.
And who will forget the June 1982 visit of Mother Teresa to St. Paul? Roy invited her to come and, during her one-day visit, she was presented with $925,000 raised for her work by the people of the town of St. Paul.
The visit led to the establishment of a house of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in St. Paul.
Recent years have not always been pleasant for Roy. He drew unfavourable media coverage for his handling of sexual abuse scandals involving three priests of his diocese in the late 1980s.
And, in the 1990s, he was again in the news for making a hefty investment in a sex phone line scam. Roy said he was told the funds were to be used for developing prayer phone-in lines.
After his ordination in 1947, Roy set about a career of building churches, forming co-operatives and preaching retreats.
He once told the WCR he built seven churches, hammering nails and serving as general contractor for the first six.
He got into church building by accident. Shortly after ordination, the church to which he was assigned burned down.
“The parishioners had a lot of energy. But they had no money. So we put all the energy together and built the church. I went into the bush cutting wood and went to the sawmills.”
His seventh church-building project was the historic St. Boniface Cathedral, which was destroyed by fire in 1968.
He became rector of the cathedral the following August and united a warring flock to rebuild a marvellous modern cathedral within the ruins of the old one.
“Every time I have built a church, it has always been through teamwork,” he told the Winnipeg Tribune in 1972.
Roy was ordained a bishop July 18, 1972, in the new cathedral, the day after it was opened. Nine days later, he was installed as bishop of St. Paul.
He spoke of his ideal of a bishop: “The bishop must be a tower of joy and hope, not the centre of attraction, for people to see in his person something of Christ.”
Funeral services for Bishop Raymond Roy will be held on Wednesday, July 2 at 2 p.m. in St. Paul Cathedral.
___________________________________
Canadian Press
22 May 1991
EDMONTON (CP)
In the last two years, three Roman Catholic priests from the northeastern Alberta diocese of St. Paul have been convicted of sex crimes against children.
To the other priests of St. Paul, why the crimes have happened among them is still a mystery. Perhaps a bigger puzzle is how such offences should best be handled.
Earlier this month, Rev. Fernand Croteau was convicted of indecently assaulting three girls from his parishes in St. Paul and Cold Lake, Alta. He was sentenced to 15 months’ custody in a sex offenders program.
Rev. Antoine Tetu is serving a two-year jail term after pleading guilty in 1989 to two charges of indecent assault and four charges of sexual assault against five girls and one boy.
And Rev. Armand Beaupre was sentenced in March to 15 months in a sex offenders program for indecent assault and gross indecency with a youth.
The RCMP have said they found no links between the cases, but all involved complaints that surfaced several years after the incidents.
The three priests are among dozens of Catholic religious leaders across the country to be charged with sex offences in the last few years.
NO SERMON
Raymond Roy, bishop of St. Paul, did not discuss the latest conviction in a recent sermon and has said repeatedly he does not want to deal with the issue in public.
“I do not wish to speak to the media,” Roy says. “The option I have chosen . . . is to give my diocesans information, and I strive to motivate them, first and foremost, in forgiving and adjust in a Christian way to this sad situation that has touched everyone.”
During the trials of Croteau and Beaupre, the court heard that Roy did not go to police after hearing allegations that the priests had been involved in sexual assaults. Legally he didn’t have to.
But Jane Karstaedt, executive director of the Sexual Assault Centre in Edmonton, says priests have a moral obligation to speak out.
“Child sex abuse has been able to carry on for so long because of the secrecy surrounding it. If you speak out, you declare that you’re putting a stop to it.”
Roy told the media earlier this year that he follows the Edmonton archdiocese’s guidelines on sexual abuse, which lay out specific steps to be taken when a parishioner complains of sexual abuse.
OFFERED PRAYERS
But Rev. Roger Guerin, now pastor at Cold Lake, said he has never seen a copy of the Edmonton guidelines, nor can he recall being briefed on the issue. But he said the bishop has occasionally mentioned the problem at priests’ gatherings and has offered prayers for those involved.
Guerin suggests part of the reason for Roy’s silence may be that he’s feeling overwhelmed.
“My impression is that he doesn’t know what more he can say that would improve the situation or satisfy the public.”
Rev. John Hamilton, chancellor of the Edmonton archdiocese, says opening the closet on hidden sins from the past may have therapeutic value, but he questions how useful it really is.
“There’s some bewilderment out there,” says Hamilton. “How could this happen? How could it not come to light until now? What’s the justice of dredging it up after 25 or 30 years?”
Karstaedt says that coming forward with a complaint is part of the healing process for the victim.
“These people weren’t heard when they were children. They continue to feel the abuse. It’s affected their lives.”
Edmonton lawyer Fred Day, who defended all three St. Paul priests, wouldn’t comment specifically on their cases. But he speculates that the lack of social opportunities for priests may have led to the sex offences.
“They became socially isolated. They had little opportunity to go out and play hockey, go for a drink. The degree of isolation might have made the proclivity for child molestation.”
___________________________________
Police think first case spurred other victims to step forward; RCMP found no links in three St. Paul cases
Edmonton Journal
19 May 1991
Greg Owens, Staff Writer.
Edmonton
Two plainclothes RCMP officers approached the back door of the St. Emile rectory in Legal at about 8 a.m. on Aug. 10, 1988.
Inside former Fort Kent priest Rev. Antoine Tetu prepared for his day at the church, just north of Edmonton.
The police knocked on the door and when Tetu answered they identified themselves and told him there were complaints about him of sexual assault against children.
“(Tetu) said `yes there are bad tongues there.’ I advised him of his rights and then he said `yes bad tongues, bad tongues,’ ” said Const. John Scott, an investigator with the Edmonton RCMP headquarters Crimes Against Persons Unit.
Lengthy investigation
The meeting was the beginning of three years of sexual-assault investigations and trials against three St. Paul diocesan priests:
* In June of 1989 Tetu plead guilty in Edmonton Court of Queen’s Bench to two charges of indecent assault and four charges of sexual assault against five girls and one boy. He was sentenced to a two-year prison term and three years probation.
* Rev. Armand Beaupre was sentenced in March this year to 15 months custody in a sex-offenders’ program and three years’ probation after being convicted of indecent assault and gross indecency with a male youth between 1976 and 1983.
* Two weeks ago Rev. Fernand Croteau plead guilty to indecently assaulting three girls and was sentenced to 15 months custody in a sex offenders’ program and three years probation.
Scott said he hoped the church has learned from the experience and would find a program to help prevent future incidents.
“I don’t really think giving the Catholic church a black eye assists anything.”
The Catholic church and religion in general also became victims because of the actions of the priests, Scott said.
“I don’t think anyone can get any pleasure out of seeing an institution like the Catholic church scandalized in this way.”
Scott recalls 55-year-old Tetu inviting them in and then calmly sitting back down at his kitchen table to finish his breakfast of toast with peanut butter and bananas.
Divine forgiveness
Tetu was brought back to Edmonton by Scott and Const. Rick Pasker where he was asked to give a statement. The priest waived his right to counsel.
He told the investigators he would see Bishop Raymond Roy of the St. Paul diocese later that day on an unrelated matter and would talk to him about the charges.
Tetu was the first and only priest of the three to give a statement to RCMP.
“He answered questions in relation to his association with the children, the good things he had done for the children, what positive things he had done for the children or that he believed he had done for the children.”
Tetu told investigators of the counselling and the jobs he provided the children.
“He didn’t deny anything, he merely chose not to answer the questions in relation to the offence being investigated,” Scott said. Tetu appeared unemotional throughout the whole ordeal, he recalled.
“I don’t think he felt any compulsion to deal with the matter before the courts of man when he maybe had already obtained his forgiveness before God.”
During sentencing Tetu asked the judge to be “good to me” and told the court “I’ve been forgiving people for 25 years. I think it’s my turn to be forgiven.”
Bishop interviewed
After the police interview he was charged, put before a justice of the peace and released.
“I think the first one made it easier for the claims about the other two priests to come out,” Scott said.
Pasker, 39, a four-year veteran of investigating sexual offences, later investigated the Croteau case, along with another officer from the same unit.
Pasker interviewed Bishop Roy in the morning and Croteau, 64, on the afternoon of June 21, 1990.
Croteau was the summer replacement priest in Mallaig when the two plainclothes RCMP officers went to the rectory to interview him.
Croteau only talked about the places where he served as priest. “He wouldn’t discuss anything about the charges,” Pasker said.
The priest showed no emotion to the allegation and charges. “It was basically a non-reaction,” Pasker said.
“I think he expected it, I think it was just a matter of time, it wasn’t so much a matter of if as when. He anticipated we were coming, he had already spoken to his lawyer.”
The victims had already gone to Roy and he was aware the girls were possibly going to police, Pasker said.
“We went to Roy basically to see if he was aware of any activity that had taken place,” he said, recalling the bishop saying he had talked to the alleged victims but did not have any direct knowledge of what had happened.
Croteau had befriended a grieving family after the father died in 1963 and the assaults on the three sisters started shortly after that, Pasker said.
Didn’t know
The sisters did not know that Croteau had assaulted all of them until years later when they discussed it, he said.
During the bishop’s 10-minute conversation with police, he answered questions the officers had about the case but volunteered no further information.
Roy was eventually subpoenaed to testify but was never called to the stand because of Croteau’s guilty plea to the charges concerning the girls, said Grant Nickless, Crown prosecutor in the case.
In February 1990 Scott again was involved in the arrest of a St. Paul-area priest.
This time it was 59-year-old Beaupre, whose victim came forward to RCMP in Edmonton to give a statement three weeks before Beaupre was summonsed.
“He (the victim) had made efforts with the Catholic church to stop Father Beaupre being in a position he was in. In frustration he went to the police.”
Scott said the victim, now 29, was first uncomfortable talking about the assaults and pointing the finger at the church.
“His upbringing had been Catholic and I think that made it especially difficult for him to make allegations against something he had believed in.”
In this case, a charge was laid before Beaupre was interviewed. Before investigators located the priest, a representative of the Catholic church contacted Scott and set up a meeting in Edmonton.
No statement
Scott was informed that Beaupre would make no statement on advice of legal counsel. Another priest with Catholic Social Services set up the meeting.
“Father Beaupre was very shaken and very upset by receiving a summons. He went to make a statement about what happened but was cut off” by another church representative at the meeting.
Scott said he really felt that Beaupre wanted to talk to the RCMP.
“I think he wanted to, I really think he felt he had something to explain and I think his actions in court give credence to that. At one stage he went to explain it, and he was very upset about what was happening and what had happened.
“He showed a lot of remorse.”
Scott, 38, who has investigated dozens of sexual assaults during his four years in the unit, said these cases were investigated the same as any other.
“There are good priests out there as well as these bad ones. You can’t go out there on a witch hunt trying to knock off your local priest.”
Police never found any connection between the crimes of the three priests, he said, adding if there were more priests involved, the resulting publicity would probably have brought other victims forward.
“Bearing in mind the nature of the person that does sexual assaults it is unlikely that we have spoken to all the victims,” he said.
“When it comes to sexual assault it is unlikely that the sexual assault we catch someone for is the only that they’ve done. It’s unlikely that we catch them the first time they ever offend.”
Sexual assault is one the most unreported crimes because for various reasons victims will often not talk about the crime, Scott said.
___________________________________
Bishop plans returning priest, convicted of sex assaults, to duty
Ottawa Citizen
26 June 1989
EDMONTON (CP) _ A Roman Catholic priest who has admitted to sexual assaults on children in northern Alberta will return to service with the church.
Bishop Raymond Roy said on the weekend that Rev. Antoine Tetu ”will go in for treatment and then he will be restored.”
Tetu, 55, pleaded guilty Friday to sexually assaulting five girls and a boy between 1980 and 1987. He will be sentenced next Friday. The Crown has asked for a five-year jail term.
A priest for 25 years, Tetu ”will always be a priest,” said Roy.
Tetu begged forgiveness in Court of Queen’s Bench after he pleaded guilty to assaulting children, aged five to 16, in Fort Kent, a tiny community 250 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.
Roy, who has sheltered Tetu at his residence in St. Paul since the priest was relieved of his duties in 1988, said he has already forgiven Tetu.
The bishop said he was unaware of any other incidents involving priests in the St. Paul area.
But the RCMP are searching for a second priest who has been charged with eight counts of sexual assault. Rev. Ferdinand Christian Croteau, 58, of Mallaig, 150 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, has been charged with one count of buggery and seven counts of indecent assault.
The children involved range in age from seven to 12 years.
”There are no other incidents that I know of,” Roy said. ”This is a phenomenon that is new to the church and we will have to take each case as it comes.”
Roy rejected a suggestion that the Catholic priesthood’s oath of celibacy might be at the root of sex scandals that have hit the church in Alberta and Newfoundland in the last year.
”It has nothing to do with celibacy, but with someone’s personal inclinations,” said Roy.
Police think first case spurred other victims to step forward; RCMP found no links in three St. Paul cases
The Edmonton Journal
___________________________________
Canadian Press
June 24, 1989
EDMONTON (CP)
A Roman Catholic priest begged for forgiveness Friday after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting six children repeatedly for several years.
“I’m a man even though I’m a priest,” Father Antoine Tetu, 55 told Court of Queen’s Bench Justice J.C. Cavanagh.
“No one is foolproof when it comes to the wickedness of the flesh. I’ve been forgiving people for 25 years ‑‑ I think it’s my turn to be forgiven.”
Tetu, a priest for 25 years, is to be sentenced next Friday. The Crown prosecutor is asking for a five‑year prison term.
The Quebec native served as parish priest in Fort Kent, a tiny community of about 200 near Bonnyville, Alta., 250 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, from September 1980 to August 1987.
He was relieved of his duties after charges were laid. He has lived in the bishop’s residence in St. Paul, Alta., since December 1988.
Tetu pleaded guilty to two charges of indecent assault and four charges of sexual assault against five girls and one boy from 1980 to 1987. The victims were aged five to 16.
SIMULATED SEX
All assaults, some of which involved fondling and masturbation took place in the Fort Kent rectory where Tetu lived.
During his sentencing submission Friday, Crown prosecutor Grant Nickless said Tetu offered the children a reward system of candy and cash in exchange for sexual favors.
He said Tetu’s sentence must show society’s denunciation of such a betrayal of the trust of children.
“He abused his position of trust by abusing these children. The children cannot have any blame placed upon them ‑‑ they were not in a position to consent to this in any way,” said Nickless.
He said the children, currently aged eight to 17, have been traumatized by the assaults and two are still receiving counselling.
Tetu’s lawyer, Fred Day, urged the judge to consider a two‑year sentence with three years probation combined with counselling to blend punishment and rehabilitation.
Day said he didn’t want to minimize the offences, but said violence was not involved.
“The children were free to come and go as they chose,” said
Day.
dear Sylvia,
I was wondering whether or not you would have any information in regards to the statute of limitations in regards to these specific cases? I too was definitely one of Tetu,and his groups victims and havn’t as of yet been able to get past the large # of hurdles that the courts have in my way in regards to a class action suit that took place in bonnyville or Edmonton around 1990….I served those bastards as an altar boy from a very early age in Fort Kent, Bonnyville, and LaCorey….however,I began running away at about13. And was long gone by about 1986….I was so traumatized,terrorized,and afraid for my family because of how they threatened that me and my family would burn in hell.And that satan would do these things…..that when I got away I completely left my family behind….I am only now rebuilding my self esteem enough to sort of believe in a higher power and myself…through the 12 steps of aa…..I do not want to have to fall backinto little to no self esteem….feling like a sexual deviant….being a criminal….violent….or any of the many unusual places that those terrible experiences led me…..
What I would like is to motivate a change in the legislations, and laws that protect these monsters, and allow them back into the very communities that they committed these reprehensible acts of viciousness…..I also do not ever want to end up like them….
I feel it is necessary to motivate these changes to eliminate the continual production of such types of monsters….and that if the politicians and law makers don’t find it imperative to do so…..Then all of the blood is on thier hands as much as the offenders themselves.
Unless you were ever a victim yourself you probably have no idea how painful it is to revisit these (sketchy at very best) memories is for me…
Also very empowering to speak out about something that only used to make me fantasize about committing vicious..random acts of violence to the perpetrators of my abuse…..
yours truely
Allen R. Jean
my facebook is where I’m easiest to find…there is a picture of me with one of my drawings of a thunderbird and a heart in flames….inEdmonton
Dear Sylvia,
I was wondering whether or not you would have any information in regards to the statute of limitations in regards to these specific cases? I too was definitely one of Tetu, and his groups victims and haven’t as of yet been able to get past the large # of hurdles that the courts have in my way in regards to a class action suit that took place in Bonnyville or Edmonton around 1990….I served those bastards as an altar boy from a very early age in Fort Kent, Bonnyville, and LaCorey….however, I began running away at about13. And was long gone by about 1986….I was so traumatized, terrorized, and afraid for my family because of how they threatened that me and my family would burn in hell. And that satan would do these things…..that when I got away I completely left my family behind….I am only now rebuilding my self-esteem enough to sort of believe in a higher power and myself…through the 12 steps of aa…..I do not want to have to fall back into little to no self-esteem….feeling like a sexual deviant….being a criminal….violent….or any of the many unusual places that those terrible experiences led me…..
What I would like is to motivate a change in the legislations, and laws that protect these monsters, and allow them back into the very communities that they committed these reprehensible acts of viciousness…..I also do not ever want to end up like them….
I feel it is necessary to motivate these changes to eliminate the continual production of such types of monsters….and that if the politicians and law makers don’t find it imperative to do so…..Then all of the blood is on their hands as much as the offenders themselves.
Unless you were ever a victim yourself you probably have no idea how painful it is to revisit these (sketchy at very best) memories is for me…
Also very empowering to speak out about something that only used to make me fantasize about committing vicious..random acts of violence to the perpetrators of my abuse…..
yours truly
Allen R. Jean
my facebook is where I’m easiest to find…there is a picture of me with one of my drawings of a thunderbird and a heart in flames….in Edmonton
Allen Jean: There is no statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse in Canada. If you were abused, go immediately to the Police and tell them. It is the only certain way to ensure that a proper investigation will take place.
Fr. Tim
Father Tim, it is true there is no statute of limitations for criminal proceedings, but some Canadian provinces do have limitations for civil proceedings.
allen, what is it you want to do? Are you trying to file a lawsuit? Do you wnat to have him charged? Or, are you wanting to find ways to change the laws? or are you just not sure?
Whatever it is allen stay dry. Don’t let yourself slide back into that dark hole you are managing to pull yourself out of. My thoughts and prayers are with you.