BishopAccountability.org
	Parents Trusted Cloutier By Bob Vaillancourt Sudbury Star May 9, 2009 http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1561349 "Where is your child supposed to be safer than with your priest?" asked the mother of a man who says he was sexually assaulted by Roman Catholic priest Bernard Cloutier at the priest's trial Friday. The woman testified her son would often go to the parish rectory where Cloutier had a sophisticated stereo system that enthralled her son. He was interested in music and was fascinated by the the priest's stereo system, she said. But one evening when Cloutier phoned to invite the boy to a party at the rectory, the son told his mother he wanted nothing to do with the priest. "He started telling me about Father Cloutier. He didn't like the things he was doing and he didn't want to go back. He told me Father Cloutier was trying to touch his private parts," the woman told the trial. When the boy's father heard of what his son had said, he and the father of another boy went to the rectory to confront the priest, testified the woman. Days later, the couple received a phone call that the other parents had decided to meet with police. The two couples were sitting at the kitchen table with two members of Sudbury police when Bishop Gerard Dionne and Cloutier walked in. The alter boy's father testified at the trial Friday that after the bishop talked privately with the two boys, he asked the parents not to press charges. In exchange he would ensure Cloutier was sent to Paris for the treatment he obviously needed. The parents agreed. But the boy's father said he learned later that Cloutier "didn't even get to Whanapitae. They just moved him to another parish." Cloutier, now 68, has pleaded not guilty to 16 sex charges involving alleged incidents with five young males from 1970-1983. The charges consist of seven counts of gross indecency, seven counts of indecent assault and two counts of sexual assault. During that period, Cloutier served at various French-language parishes in communities across the North, including Espanola and Sudbury.
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