Ontario Woman Testifies Starting Relationship with Priest at 15, Having His Baby

By Neil Bowen
Sun News
October 19, 2013

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/canada/archives/2013/10/20131018-210214.html

A Catholic priest's former lover accused him of preferring young teenage girls after learning she was pregnant, a Superior Court trial heard Friday.

Former priest Gabriele DelBianco, 57, is on trial for on 16 sexual offences involving four teenage girls during the 1980s.

A woman in her early 40s testified DelBianco fathered a child with her when she was in her early 20s, but their romantic relationship started when she was 15 or 16 and he was 29.

He fondled her in his car, but they did not have sex until she was 20, she said, adding she felt like the luckiest person because he had chosen her.

By the time she was 21, they were a secret couple, she said, and she stayed at his church residence several times a week.

DelBianco talked about leaving the priesthood, she said, and she dreamed of a legitimate relationship.

But DelBianco told her people in high places would not allow the relationship and he said he was involved with the CIA, she said.

Around the time she became pregnant she became concerned about the time he spent alone with two girls in Grades 8 or 9, she said, noting the actions mirrored the beginning of her relationship with DelBianco.

Two other woman have testified about teenage sexual encounters with DelBianco.

The woman testified Friday she confronted DelBianco and he denied anything improper. Nevertheless, she ended the relationship.

In the mid-1990s, the woman ended all contact with DelBianco through a legal agreement for a one-time $10,000 child-support payment.

DelBianco left the priesthood in 1996.

During this time, the woman started getting packages from DelBianco containing handwritten letters and odd items, like a hot water bottle and a can of tomato soup.

The letters stated DelBianco's friends in the CIA could make her children disappear.

Despite fear for her children, the woman didn't tell police about the letters because of DelBianco's position and anyone Catholic could not be trusted, she said. She agreed with defence lawyer Andrew Bradie that not all police officers are Catholic.

During cross-examination, the woman said she destroyed the letters after keeping them for several years.

The woman rejected Bradie's suggestion the letters are figments of her imagination.