Denis Vadeboncoeur (Sept. 19, 2005) ROBERT FRANCOIS, AFP/GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO
Priest Ordained 12 June 1965 probably for the religious order Saint Vincent de Paul (sv) (he is shown as a member of the order in the 1967 directory). In some later directories the order is referred to as the Religious Order of St. Vincent de Paul with initials rsv, – but it is the same order. (Members of the order are generally referred to as Vincentians.) 1985 CONVICTED on charges of gross indecency and sexually assaulting several children age 12 to 17 and one count of sodomy. Sentenced to 20 months in jail. Relocated to France. GUILTY plea again in 2005 in France. At some point left the Vincentians
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Archbishops of the Archdiocese of Quebec from the time of Father ordination: Maurice Roy (02 June 1947 – 20 March 1981); Louis-Albert Vachon (20 March 1981 – 17 March 1990) ; Maurice Couture, R.S.V. (17 March 1990 – 15 November 2002) ; Marc Ouellet, P.S.S. (15 November 2002 – – 30 June 2010 Appointed, Prefect for the Congregation for Bishops)
Auxiliary Bishops of the Archdiocese of Quebec from the time of Father Vadeboncoeur’s ordination: Lionel Audet (28 Feb 1952 – 26 March 1983); Jean-Paul Labrie (04 April 1977 – 19 May 1995); Joseph Paul Pierre Morissette (27 Feb 1987 – 17 March 1990); Clément Fecteau (17 June 1989 – 10 May 1996); Maurice Couture, R.S.V. (17 July 1982 – 1 December 1988); Eugène Tremblay (03 Nov 1994 – 03 May 2004); Jean-Pierre Blais (03November 1994 – 12 December 2008); Jean Gagnon (04 December 1998 – 15 November 2002)
[Note: Archbishop Maurice Couture rsv was also a Vincentian priest. Couture was an auxiliary bishop when Vadeboncoeur was charged and convicted. He would still have been an auxiliary when the two letters from the Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Quebec were sent to Bishop Gaillot. ]
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The following information is drawn from Canadian Catholic Church Directories (CCCD) which I have on hand, and media (M)
2010: not listed in index (CCCD)
September 2005: CONVICTED in French court for repeated sodomizing a boy under age 15 (14) between the years 1989 and 1992. It would seem from some media reports that there were other victims who came forward as well. Sentenced to 12 years in prison (M)
at trial the Diocese of Évreux (France) came under criticism by an investigating police officer after documents disappeared from Bishop Gaillot’s residence (M)
2002, 2000, 1998, 1997: 2555, ch. Ste. Foy, Ste Foy, Quebec (CCCD) (this is the address for the Provincial. Father Alain Fiset) (I believe this may have been head quarters for the Vincentians in Canada, but am not positive) (he was actually in France)
December 2000: arrested in France on charges of sexual assault of a minor (M)
1996, 1995: 2555, ch. Ste. Foy, Ste Foy, Quebec (CCCD) (this is the address for the Provincial. Father Yvon Larocher) (CCCD) (he was actually in France)
1995: Bishop Gaillot censured for his liberal views and removed from the Diocese Évreux and appointed Bishop of the extinct Diocese of Partenia – a demotion
1994, 1993,1992, 821 ave Bon-Air, St. Foy, Quebec (CCCD) (this is the address for the Provincial. Father Yvon Larocher) (CCCD)
1991: 821 ave Bon-Air, St. Foy, Quebec (CCCD) (this is the address for the Provincial. Father Yvon Larocher) (CCCD) (he was actually in France)
– it is known that at least one year after he was assigned to the parish in Gaillot’s diocese that Vadeboncouer began sodomizing a young boy. The abuse began in 1989 and continued until 1992 (M)
1988: Despite knowledge of Vadeboncouer’s conviction Bp. Gaillot appointed the predator-priest to a parish where he had regular contact with children (M)
16 February 1988: Letter re Vadeboncoeur’s conviction sent to Bishop Gaillot by registered mail
January 1988: left Canada for Diocese of Évreux (M)
29 October 1987: When the Vincentians learned that Vadeboncoeur planned to go to France a letter was sent to Bishop Gaillot in France advising of the priest’s crimes. Actually, two letters were sent, one in 1987 before Vadeboncoeur’s departure, and the other in 1988 after his arrival in France – between the two letters Gaillot was told of the possibility that Vadeboncoeur might re-offend and that the superior believed Vadeboncoeur had “homosexual tendencies.” (M) It would seem from media reports that the letter was sent by Father Pierre Levesque, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Quebec, Quebec (M)
1987: taken in by Bishop Jacques Gaillot, then bishop of Évreux in Haute-Normandie, northern France (M)
1985-86: 821 ave Bon-Air, St. Foy, Quebec (CCCD) (this is the address for the Provincial. Father Pierre Levesque)
according to media reports was vicar at St. Benoit Roman Catholic Church in Ste. Foy, Quebec (M)
08 November 1985: sentenced to 20 months in prison (M) served one-third of his sentence (M)
May 1985: GUILTY plea in Canada for sex abuse of children (M)
– according to media reports worked in the slums of Sao Paulo, Brazil for several years. His ‘colleague’ at one time was a Father Claude Trudel (M)
1973-74, 1971-72: listed as missionary in Brazil (CCCD) (address for Brazil mission: C.P. 580, Martilia S.P., Bresil) (Father R. Dumais – regional) (CCCD)
1968-69: 7700 3e avenue est, Quebec 7, P.Q. (Patro Notre-Dame) (sup. Father M. Carriere; econ, Father M. Berube)
1967: minor seminary in St. Foy, Quebec (CCCD) (shown as member of St. Vincent de Paul)
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08 April 2010: BLOG Wherein lies the truth?
08 April 2010: Quebec church says it warned about priest
05 April 2010: BLOG A “mistake”
05 April 2010: “Bishop regrets helping Canadian paedophile priest” & “French bishop regrets sheltering paedophile priest”
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Quebec order on defensive over priest
Says it notified French of pedophile’s past
Published On Wed Apr 7 2010
ROBERT FRANCOIS, AFP/GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO
Jonathan Montpetit The Canadian Press
MONTREAL–A Roman Catholic order in Quebec is defending its reputation after a former French bishop claimed he was asked to take in one of its priests found guilty of sexually abusing children in the 1980s.
The one-time bishop of Évreux, Jacques Gaillot, told a Paris newspaper this week he regretted appointing Denis Vadeboncoeur to head a parish in western France, where he was convicted in 2005 of child abuse.
“We were being helpful,” Gaillot said in an interview with Le Parisien. “We were asked to take in an undesirable priest and we agreed.”
But Vadeboncoeur’s old order in Quebec, the Religieux Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, denies it had anything to do with Vadeboncoeur’s career being allowed to continue in France.
They said he went to France on his own initiative in 1987, two years after being given a 20-month sentence in Quebec for sexually assaulting children. He was originally charged in the province with gross indecency and sexually assaulting several children aged 12 to17, as well as one count of sodomy.
Upon learning of his new position in France, the order wrote a letter, dated Oct. 29, 1987, to Gaillot informing him of Vadeboncoeur’s past.
“We did what we had to do to inform those who were taking him in (in France), so there wouldn’t be any surprises,” said Alain Fiset, who headed Saint-Vincent-de-Paul during Vadeboncoeur’s trial in France five years ago.
“What they did with that information is their responsibility.”
The letter was sent to Gaillot again in 1988 and details Vadeboncoeur’s crimes and punishment in Quebec, noting he served one-third of his sentence after pleading guilty.
Vadeboncoeur received a 12-year prison sentence in 2005 after a trial related to the rape of several minors between 1989 and 1992.
Vadeboncoeur’s old order asserts its members acted properly in its handling of the situation and insists Gaillot must be more willing to accept some of the blame.
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Priest convicted of second assault
Calgary Herald
22 September 2005
A Canadian priest was sentenced to 12 years in prison Wednesday in France for raping a young member of his Normandy parish — the second conviction for the clergyman who already served time for similar crimes in Quebec.
The trial of Rev. Denis Vadeboncoeur rattled the northern France community where he had served for more than a decade and sparked outrage over how he was hired and why his past conviction was kept secret.
Vadeboncoeur, 65, who moved to France after serving a 20-month sentence in Quebec, confessed in testimony Monday to repeatedly sexually abusing a boy who was under 15. The abuse occurred from February 1990 to August 1993 while Vadeboncoeur was a priest at a church in the village of Lieurey.
The victim, identified by his first name, Jean-Luc, took the stand Tuesday, saying that he initially sought Vadeboncoeur’s guidance at his mother’s urging because he was having problems at home.
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Canadian sex-abuse priest jailed for 12 years: ‘Destroyed’ little boy
National Post
22 September 2005
EVREUX, France – Denis Vadeboncoeur, a Quebec priest with a prior conviction for paedophilia, was sentenced to 12 years in prison by a French court yesterday for sex abuse of a 14- year-old boy.
In a three-day trial at Evreux, 100 kilometres west of Paris, Vadeboncoeur, 65, admitted seducing the boy — named as Jean-Luc V. – – and having sex with him over several years from 1989.
“I am shattered. I bear all the guilt … The relationship could have remained a wonderful friendship but sex had to enter it. It is I who perverted the relationship,” the priest said.
The prosecutor at the trial was strongly critical of the former bishop of Evreux, Jacques Gaillot, who gave Vadeboncoeur a parish in 1988 despite having been told that the priest had just served a 20- month prison term in Quebec for sex acts on adolescents including sodomy.
Gaillot was sacked from his bishopric by the Vatican in 1995 for his outspoken liberal views on sexuality and other matters.
In testimony on Tuesday, Jean-Luc V. — now aged 31 — wept as he recalled his sexual encounters with Vadeboncoeur who, on the boy’s first ejaculation, said: “It is a unique moment — as if one is meeting God.”
Jean-Luc’s mother, Paulette V., said of the priest: “He betrayed us. I trusted him completely. He took a little boy and he destroyed him.”
It was not till 1998 that Jean-Luc told his parents of his relationship with the priest and began a course of psychotherapy. Two years later he filed suit at the courts.
The trial also heard evidence from two social workers, a homosexual pair who were friends of Vadeboncoeur and helped him settle in France after his conviction in Canada.
They told the court that Vadeboncoeur often came to stay with them in the company of young boys with whom he shared a sofa-bed.
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Canadian priest convicted of sexually abusing French teen, sentenced to 12 years in prison.
The America’s Intelligence Wire
21 September 2005
(From AP Worldstream)
Byline: FIONA SMITH
A court on Wednesday sentenced a Canadian priest to 12 years in prison for raping a young member of his Normandy parish _ the second conviction for the clergyman who went to jail for similar crimes in Quebec.
The trial of Rev. Denis Vadeboncoeur rattled the northern France community where he had worked for more than a decade and sparked outrage over how he was hired and why his past conviction was kept secret.
Vadeboncoeur, 65, who moved to France after serving a 20-month sentence in Quebec, confessed in testimony Monday to repeatedly sexually abusing a boy who was under 15 at the time. The abuse occurred from February 1990 to August 1993 while Vadeboncoeur was a priest at a church in the village of Lieurey, according to the prosecution.
Vadeboncoeur’s face tightened when the verdict was read out. He did not speak.
“This is very hard on Father Vadeboncoeur. He is having a hard time accepting it. He is devastated,” his attorney, Xavier Hubert, said later. “I don’t think he will appeal.”
Public prosecutor Jean Berkani had requested a sentence of 12-15 years in prison followed by a ban from French territory.
The victim, identified only by his first name, Jean-Luc, took the stand Tuesday, saying that he initially sought Vadeboncoeur’s guidance at his mother’s urging because he was having problems at home.
“He was an adult who wasn’t strict and understood kids. We could talk about everything with him,” Jean-Luc, now 30, testified. He alleged their relationship quickly turned inappropriate, with Vadeboncoeur giving him massages and, eventually, making him feel like a “prostitute.”
“Today, for the first time in a while, I don’t feel guilty about my existence,” Jean-Luc told the court. “With this trial, I finally respect myself and I understand that I was not guilty.”
Vadeboncoeur had risked a 20-year sentence for charges of raping a minor and having abused his position of authority.
Vadeboncoeur moved to France in January 1988 to resume his life as a priest after serving a 20-month sentence in Canada. He had pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual abuse and one of sodomy against four teenage boys there.
Former Evreux Bishop Jacques Gaillot, 70, said he had learned from Canadian religious leaders of Vadeboncoeur’s criminal past a few months after the new priest’s arrival.
“It’s true that I knew. I was worried about the appointment of Denis Vadeboncoeur and I named him to Lieurey with hesitation,” said Gaillot, who drew media attention in 1995 when the Vatican stripped him of his diocese because he challenged the church’s stand on homosexuality and the celibacy of priests.
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Pedophile priest also served in Brazil
The Montreal Gazette
21 September 2005
Francis Shalom
Quebec bishop repeatedly warned French official. After cleric served five months in prison here for sex assaults, he quit order and took post in France
Denis Vadeboncoeur, the pedophile priest convicted of sexual assault in Canada and facing sentencing for the same offence in France, may have committed similar crimes when he was posted in Brazil, a top church official in Quebec City said yesterday.
“It really wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he had done some serious damage there, too,” said Jean Pelletier, chancellor of the archdiocese of Quebec City, the Catholic Church’s legal expert.
Alain Fiset, provincial superior for the church’s St. Vincent de Paul Order, to which Vadeboncoeur once belonged, said from Quebec City that Vadeboncoeur was near Sao Paulo, Brazil, for several years in the early 1980s, prior to his 1985 arrest in Quebec City on charges of sexually assaulting minors. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 months in jail, but served only about five months.
He left Canada in January 1988 to take up a post in Evreux, a French town about an hour’s drive west of Paris. He was arrested in December 2000 on charges of raping a minor, and again confessed to sexual assault.
The then-bishop of Evreux, Jacques Gaillot, was caught in a lie when he later claimed he hadn’t been told of Vadeboncoeur’s past.
Canadian religious authorities went out of their way to inform Gaillot that Vadeboncoeur was a convicted pedophile, and warned the bishop explicitly and repeatedly that Vadeboncoeur was likely to offend again.
In a letter sent on Oct. 29, 1987 – and sent again as registered mail on Feb. 16, 1988, shortly after Vadeboncoeur’s arrival in Evreux – Pierre Levesque, on behalf of the archdiocese, laid out Vadeboncoeur’s crimes and judicial problems in great detail.
Fiset said only the Vatican could have defrocked Vadeboncoeur, not the local order. But the case never reached that high, he added. The priest left the order of his own volition.
Fiset added Gaillot “really put his foot in it when he denied knowing about it. It’s kind of weird for a bishop, don’t you think?”
He noted Vadeboncoeur had worked “for some years in the very, very, very poor slums” around Sao Paulo. “But I have no idea what happened there.”
Vadeboncoeur’s colleague there, Claude Trudel, is still in Brazil, at a mission in Marilia. But he’s not available for an interview, Fiset said. The elderly Trudel has cancer and recently had a severe car accident.
Vadeboncoeur’s sentence, to be handed down tomorrow, could go up to 20 years.
fshalom@thegazette.canwest.com
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Canadian priest admits raping boy in France
Toronto Globe and Mail
20 September 2005
A Canadian clergyman with a criminal record for sexually abusing minors confessed yesterday to charges of raping a young member of his parish in Normandy, where he moved after serving a Quebec prison term.
“I take responsibility for what has happened,” Denis Vadeboncoeur, a priest in the Evreux diocese, told a court at the opening of his trial. “Now, I must accept and assume the consequence of my acts.”
Father Vadeboncoeur faces a 20-year sentence if convicted on charges of having abused his position of authority and raping a boy under 15.
The assaults allegedly occurred from February, 1990, to August, 1993. Father Vadeboncoeur, 65, moved to France in January, 1988, after having served 20 months.
He had pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual abuse and one of sodomy against four boys. AP
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Priest confesses to rape charge
Toronto Star
20 September 2005
A Canadian clergyman with a prior criminal record for sexually abusing minors confessed yesterday to charges of raping a young member of his parish in France, where he moved after serving a prison term in Quebec.
“I take responsibility for what has happened,” Rev. Denis Vadeboncoeur, a priest in the Evreux diocese, told a court at the opening of his trial. “Now, I must accept and assume the consequence of my acts.”
Vadeboncoeur faces a 20-year sentence if convicted on charges of having abused his position of authority and raping a boy identified only as having been under 15. The assaults occurred from February 1990 to August 1993 while he was a priest at a church in the Normandy village of Lieurey.
The victim, now 30, came forward in 2000, first informing the bishop of Evreux, Jacques David, who alerted authorities.
Vadeboncoeur, 65, moved to France in January 1988 to resume his life as a priest after having served a 20-month jail sentence. He had pleaded guilty to two charges of sexual abuse and one of sodomy against four teenage boys in Canada.
Canadian religious authorities had contacted church officials in Evreux in 1987 to tell them of Vadeboncoeur’s record, said Lieurey Mayor Elisabeth Simon.
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Former vicar jailed on 10 sex convictions
The Toronto Star
09 November 1985
QUEBEC CITY (CP) – Rev. Denis Vadeboncoeur, 44, former vicar of St-Benoit parish in suburban Ste. Foy, was sentenced yesterday to 20 months in prison for a variety of sexual charges involving teenagers. Vaneboncoeur pleaded guilty last May to seven charges of gross indecency, two of sexual harassment and one of sodomy with boys between 12 and 16 years of age.