By Craig Pearson
The Vancouver Sun
April 15, 2010
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/reopens+case+priest+fled+Canada+while+facing+charges/2912116/story.html
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| Vatican spokesmen, meanwhile, say the Pope is considering meeting this weekend in Malta with victims of sexual assault at the hands of three priests, including Scerri. Photo by L'Osservatore Romano, Getty Images |
WINDSOR, Ont. — The Ontario Provincial Police has reopened a case against a former Windsor, Ont.-area priest accused of sexual assaulting minors in Canada before moving to Malta where he faced similar charges a decade later.
"Allegations from the case recently came to light so it has been resurrected as a cold case," OPP spokeswoman Shawna Coulter said Thursday. "We are looking at any information we can get."
A Canadawide warrant for Rev. Godwin Scerri remains valid, and Coulter said the OPP would still like to extradite him to face sex-abuse charges here.
Vatican spokesmen, meanwhile, say the Pope is considering meeting this weekend in Malta with victims of sexual assault at the hands of three priests, including Scerri.
The OPP charged Scerri in June 1993 with sexual assault and gross indecency, stemming from complaints by a 22-year-old man. The complainant alleged the abuse occurred between 1983 and 1987 — starting when the victim was 12 years old — on Pelee Island and in Emeryville, where Scerri worked as a priest at St. William's Church.
Scerri never faced those allegations in court, however, since he had returned to his native Malta — where he was named spiritual director of a girls' secondary school in the city of Rabat, according to the Malta Today newspaper.
In October 2003, Scerri and two other members of the Missionary Society of St. Paul — Rev. Charles Pulis and Brother Joseph Bonnett — were charged with abusing and raping children at the St. Joseph Home in Santa Venera in Malta.
Ten men who claim to have been sexually abused by members of the clergy are following a court proceeding in Malta concerning Scerri, Pulis and Bonnet. The tribunal, which has gone on intermittently since 2003, is closed to the public and few details have emerged.
Maltese reporters can't even say whether Scerri, Pulis and Bonnet are in custody or remain free. The Malta diocese has said none of the accused priests remain in positions of authority.
The Malta diocese told the Windsor Star it will not comment on the situation.
The only alleged victim to publicly speak on the topic is angered that Scerri faced charges in Canada and simply moved to Malta where he allegedly continued his ways.
"The problem is he escaped from Canada but the bishop in Malta put him at an orphanage," Lawrence Grech, 37, said by telephone Thursday from Malta.
Grech said he remembers Scerri as a kind man. "He was friendly with kids. He had a nice character."
But Grech claims Scerri also had a dark side. Grech said he was abused by three priests at the St. Joseph orphanage, starting when he was 11 years old. He said Scerri was not one of his abusers, though his best friend alleges he was abused by Scerri.
"The abuse was normal. It was common for us," said Grech, who spoke at a news conference in Malta this week, calling the seven-year court case against his alleged abusers too long and asking to meet with the Pope over the incidents. "In fact, we used to dress as women."
Grech said the abuse caused lasting pain.
"It hurt me," he said. "It hurt me spiritually, and inside my heart. I was an innocent boy, but my innocence ended early."
The case is receiving heightened attention since Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit Malta on the weekend in a whirlwind 26-hour trip. Vatican spokesmen have been quoted as saying that the Pope has a "very tight schedule" in Malta and may not be able to meet the alleged victims, who argue that they would receive some closure by receiving an audience with the Pope.
Some 40,000 to 50,000 people are expected to flock to the Pope's Sunday mass in Malta, a Mediterranean country of 400,000 on an archipelago off the coast of southern Italy.
The visit comes as a worldwide scandal intensifies on the Roman Catholic Church, and in particular the Vatican, for allegedly covering up abuse by priests — and in some cases, reassigning offending clergy to positions of power over minors and other vulnerable people.
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