By George Conger
Religious Intelligence
December 23, 2009
http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=5412
Canada -- The arrest on Dec 8 of the Rev Robin Barrett, rector of St John's Anglican Church in Goulds, Newfoundland, is the second recent high-profile arrest of a clergyman in Canada for possession of child pornography.
On Sept 25 Ottawa police charged Roman Catholic Bishop Raymond Lahey with possessing and importing child pornography. Bishop Lahey, who resigned as Bishop of Antigonish in Nova Scotia shortly before his arrest, allegedly brought a laptop home to Canada that contained images the Canadian Border Services found of "concern" during a customs inspection.
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| An Anglican priest in Canada has been arrested for possession and distribution of child pornography. |
The laptop was confiscated and after a forensic analysis the Catholic bishop was charged with possession of child pornography.
Fr Barrett was arrested after detectives in Toronto, posing as paedophiles on an internet chat room, struck up an on-line relationship with the priest, and allegedly received pornographic images from him. "I can tell you that they are images that involve, basically, sexual activity, and it involves infants and babies. This person had what I would consider a fairly large collection, however the age of the [people in the] collection really concerns us," Detective Paul Krawczyk told the Toronto Globe & Mail.
The Rt Rev Cyrus Pitman, Bishop of the Diocese of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, said Fr Barrett had been suspended from his post while the investigation is underway. The bishop said the diocese was co-operating with the police in this matter.
In 2003 Canada's Anglican Journal published a profile of the priest, telling of his having left his wife and three children "to publicly live the rest of his life as a gay man." He told the Journal it was his intention to abide by the church's guidelines which only permit celibate gays and lesbians to serve as clergy.
Bishop Pitman he was worried that "people will connect this up with people who are gay and lesbian, which is unfortunate."
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