{"id":223,"date":"2009-10-02T10:04:26","date_gmt":"2009-10-02T16:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/?p=223"},"modified":"2009-10-02T14:40:01","modified_gmt":"2009-10-02T20:40:01","slug":"lahey-testified-aganist-child-abuse-victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/lahey-testified-aganist-child-abuse-victim-223.htm","title":{"rendered":"Lahey Testified Against Child Abuse Victim"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Christian Brothers of Ireland ran the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. Some of the brothers physically and sexually abused children. The boys complained to police and social services, and both authorities covered up as much as they could for the Church. On a radio call-in talk how, Shane Earle broke the story of the abuse.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Royal Commission discovered what the Brothers had done to the boys: \u201cforced mutual fellatio, buggery, forced mutual masturbation, fondling of the students\u2019 genital, \u2018inappropriate\u2019 kissing, and insertion of fingers into rectum.\u201d (Sacrilege<\/em>, p. 73)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the abuse was so horrendous it could not be covered up, and in November 1982 Brother David Burton was tried for sexual abuse of a victim, W.N. Burton admitted having sex with this boy at least fifty times.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The defense then called the first of two character witnesses for Brother Burton \u2013 Raymond Lahey, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of St. John\u2019s. The future Roman Catholic bishop praised Brother Burton as an indefatigable worker in the cause of children entrusted to him, a man who “had a tremendous talent for handling children who were tremendously disadvantaged.” The Vicar General was less enthusiastic about Burton\u2019s victim, W.N.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI think anyone who even visited there [Mount Cashel] for a short time would take note of him. He was a child who constant demanded attention. He constantly demanded attention of someone and in particular of the accused. He would go to any lengths to gain attention. He was very aggressive in that\u2026. He would demand attention by even interrupting conversation, shouting, pulling at people\u2019s arms or punching them in the arm. I even saw him bounce a ball against a wall consistently to gain attention\u2026.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lahey didn\u2019t come right out and say that W.N. had instigated the relationship with Brother Burton, but the implication of his testimony is clear; the fifteen-year-old was a problem child who relentlessly pursued the accused to satisfy his insatiable craving for affection \u2013 however that might be defined. When asked by counsel for the defence if he had noticed any change in W.N. over the past year, Lahey testified that he had. \u201cI think that he matured over that year, very definitely, I think you could see a [visible] progress. He gained, I think, a self-esteem and self-confidence which he didn\u2019t seem to have at the beginning of my period of visiting there. He gained a certain amount of academic confidence too. He was a very slow learner academically, but he showed a very marked improvement in that respect.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sexual abuse apparently agreed with W.N. The year in which the Vicar General noted such an improvement in the young boy was the same period of time in which he was being sexually molested by Brother Burton.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The pattern of the Vicar General\u2019s testimony \u2013 eulogizing Brother Burton and casting W.N. in a bad light \u2013 was repeated in the evidence given by the next defence witness, Brother Henry Bucher.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(from Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel<\/em> (Viking, 1990) by Michael Harris, pp. 237-238)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lahey and Burton\u00a0are spouting classic pederastic propaganda: that the adolescent boy wants sex,\u00a0 <\/span>that his sexual relationship with a mature man helps the boy mature sexually and emotionally, that pederasty is an authentic form of love and is highly educational.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not everyone who uses child pornography goes on to have sex with children,, but all child abusers began with child pornography. Whether Lahey confined his sexual interests to pornography is not know, but his testimony in the Burton case shows what he thought of man-boy love.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Christian Brothers of Ireland ran the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. Some of the brothers physically and sexually abused children. The boys complained to police and social services, and both authorities covered up as much as they could for the Church. On a radio call-in talk how, Shane Earle broke the story of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,3],"tags":[273,276,1120],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canada","category-clergy-sex-abuse","tag-lahey","tag-mount-cashel","tag-sexual-abuse","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}