Blogger Reacts to Former Priest Sex Assault Charges

By Bre McAdam
CJME
February 9, 2012

http://cjme.com/story/blogger-reacts-former-priest-sex-assault-charges/43068

[The Inquiry]

Sylvia MacEachern blogs about Canadian priests charged with molestation

A devout Catholic is using the web to warn others about molestation and corruption within her religion.

Sylvia MacEachern chronicles the lives of Canadian priests accused or convicted of sexual abuse and one of the men on her website is former Saskatoon priest Father Hodgson Marshall.

Marshall is already serving time in a Kingston Ontario jail for 17 convictions of sexual abuse against young boys. Now the 89-year-old is facing two more charges of abusing boys at Saint Paul’s Catholic High School in Saskatoon over 50 years ago.

The two alleged victims are in their sixties now but they were only 14 when they say they were sexually abused by Marshall.

MacEachern started the website after being sued for trying to expose a priest in her own Ottawa church who was preying on young boys. Her blog has given many adult victims across Canada the courage to come forward. She was not surprised to hear about two more victims in Saskatoon because she thinks there is enough evidence to show that he was probably molesting children everywhere he went.

“I was relieved because the Crown has agreed to pursue the charges,” MacEachern said referring to the new charges against Marshall. “There are cases in which the Crown will not pursue because of the age of the accused.”

MacEachern stressed the point that the shame should never be on the victims of abuse and she wants to take away the stigma attached to speaking out.

“It breaks my heart to see the betrayal of trust of a little boy who wants to be a priest,” she said.

MacEachern reminds people that it is important to separate Catholisicm itself from the men who she says hijacked the church. She is a devout Catholic but she is able to separate her religion from corruption at the pulpit.

“I believe they got a foothold in, they’ve taken over and they have protected each other,” she said.

An official with the church told News Talk Radio yesterday that Marshall will not be stripped of his title because that decision has to come from the Vatican and that is not likely.