The Cost of Silence
By Adam MacInnis
How do you know when a story someone is telling you is true? As a journalist, it’s something I struggle with often. This story is about two people and events that happened in the mid 1980s. Only they know the truth – Lewis Stevens and a man he alleges abused him. What further complicates the situation is the second man is dead. Perhaps some would remember him as a godly man – ‘a gentleman’ as one described him. Stevens remembers him as an alcoholic, an abuser. Officially, though, the man was never charged and there was no other allegation of abuse made against him that I could find record of. The intent of this article is not to let a pall of suspicion fall on all who served faithfully in the area during those years. But silence is never an answer to possible sins of the past. The Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal of the last century taught us that. This alleged chapter begins inside a Pictou County church. Lewis Stevens recalls the smell of cigarettes blended with hard liquor. The odour is in his face, over his neck, emanating from an unlikely source – the priest of his church. But as Stevens would learn, this Father is not what anyone would expect a man of God to be. Growing up in Pictou County in the 1980s, Stevens was a typical boy of a religious family who was actively involved in the local parish. His mother attended faithfully, was a member of the Catholic Women’s League and at times worked there. His family members were baptized there, and he had the role of altar server. For some the church in those days held heavy sway over their lives; it controlled man’s most precious possession – his soul. The church was a place Stevens loved. For a time he thought he might like to go into ministry. But something changed him – someone. Stevens was like many other teens looking for money, and considered himself fortunate to get work doing odd jobs at the church – shoveling snow off the steps in the winter and mowing the lawns in the summer. Everything was normal about it. But it soon began to drift from typical to troubling. When he would finish his job at the church and go to pick up his pay, the priest would often lean in close or touch him in a way that seemed out of the ordinary. At first he brushed it off as just the way the priest was. But the longer he worked at the church, the more unusual the behaviour became. He rationalized it. “That was just weird.” “That was a one-time thing.” “I must be mistaken.” “…it couldn’t have been the way I felt it was? He wouldn’t do that….” But, Stevens says, the touching turned into something more, something worse around 1983 and would continue on until 1985 when the last incident occurred. It was around Easter. Stevens was alone in the church with the priest. “We were setting up for a mass or something. He asked me if I had gone to confession.” Stevens responded that he hadn’t, and the father led him to the altar server’s dressing room, which contained a little pew for giving confession. What followed was what he describes as “one of the worst molestations.” “At that point I remember leaving and never going back.” When he left the church, he left the faith as well. “If the priest truly believed, then how could he do what he did?” While the abuse happened over a two-year period, Stevens said that day, in particular, changed him. Where he was once outgoing, he suddenly became introverted. “I stayed in the house, kind of lost touch with friends, lost touch with everything. I failed that year in school. I failed the next year in school.” Wherever he went, whatever he was doing, if there was an adult male around, he said he didn’t feel safe. Through it all, he told no one. “You didn’t know what to say, you didn’t know how to approach it, so you just don’t. You just keep it inside.” In some cases for decades. The fact that Stevens kept the alleged abuse a secret makes it hard to prove now. When I first received an emailed letter to the editor from Stevens telling his story, I knew there was something more to it, but I also knew it would hard to verify. It would be allegations without a chance for defence. But, because the man he accused couldn’t have his say, did it mean that Stevens couldn’t share his story? I was able to verify the priest served during the years Stevens served as an altar boy. Everything I have checked in Stevens’ story has proven true. I have left the priest’s name and the church where he served out of the article. Our intent is not to protect a possible predator, but simply because he can no longer defend himself and the legacy he left behind. As one lawyer told me, you have to be careful with stories like this. “Good men have been falsely charged.” Back then, Stevens recalls a lot of jokes about altar boys going around. “I would hear them day in and day out. It was always quite fun for everybody. Except it wasn’t funny for me.” As quickly as he could, he left the area, taking a job in northwestern Ontario in 1988. He saw it as a way to reinvent himself. No longer would he be a hermit in his room. He would will himself to become someone else. He later worked in Halifax and Saint John. But no matter where he ran, the weight of the abuse went with him. “It’s like if your arm died, but you couldn't take it off, you couldn’t cure it. It’s always hanging there diseased.” In his 30s, he went to his doctor and told him he thought he was going crazy. He was prescribed anti-anxiety and anti-depression drugs. “It helped me partially with getting through the day, but it didn’t begin to approach the reasons why. They’re treating you for the symptoms, and not what’s causing the symptoms.” Twice in his life, he tried to commit suicide. The wounds Stevens speaks of are both mental and emotional – out of sight regardless of how real they may be. But he’s not alone when it comes to staying in silent suffering. In the course of researching this article, I learned that as many as nine in 10 victims of sexual abuse never report what happened to them. Stevens had many reasons for not wanting to tell his family or police. Who would believe his word over that of a respected church leader, a man of God? How would his parents, who made the church part of their lives, react? Then about eight years ago, he moved to Calgary, where he met his future wife. While there, he attended therapy daily for six weeks. The staff there tried to get to the root of his problems. “The questions started coming and trying to backtrack through my whole life and everything. That’s when I began to share.” At that point, the only other person who knew about the abuse was his wife. For a while, being able to share and realize the roots of his problems helped. “It was really nice to be able to open up and cry and literally lay it all out and say, ‘This is what happened.’” But still he struggled with his demons. For a time he tried to understand why the priest would have done what he did. He made excuses for the priest because the man was caught in a situation where he couldn’t express his sexuality and because he believes the priest had a drinking problem. “But at the end of the day, I was a minor. He was in a position of authority and he’s not supposed to do this. At the end of the day if he has issues, he’s the one who has to deal with them.” The effects have been lasting in his life. His marriage recently came to an end in part because of what he believes to be complications from the abuse he faced. There are days he says he catches a smell that reminds him of the priest and all he wants to do is withdraw from the world. What peace Stevens has found over the years has been in helping others. While in Calgary he worked at a homeless shelter and, here in Pictou County, he’s now working at a group home. At some point, as he dealt with the issue, he made a promise to himself that, when his parents died, he’d go public with what happened to him. When his father passed away last year he made a first step by telling his sister. She then encouraged him to tell their mother, saying their mom had an idea that something must have happened. “I knew it,” his mother said when he told her. She told him she had begun to wonder when she saw the drastic change in his behaviour that year. After telling her, he said he felt safe enough to make his suffering public and go in search of an apology from the Diocese of Antigonish. What he discovered, though, is that people who didn’t take part in the class action settlement in 2009 have few legal options. The settlement involved six named priests and covered any abuse by any priest in the Antigonish Diocese between the 1950s and 2009. In order to be considered for compensation, victims had to file a claim with Diocese Counsel on or before March 10, 2010. To him, it seems unfair that no options exist for those who didn’t come forward sooner. “What if they’re just not ready like I was. I was waiting for my parents to pass on so I didn’t cause them stress and pain.” John McKiggan is a Halifax lawyer who was counsel for the class action lawsuit. That settlement appears to be all-inclusive when it comes to abuse by priests in the Diocese of Antigonish in the period described. He says the case was well known at the time, so the excuse that a person didn’t know about it wouldn’t stand up in court. Still, he suggested victims should talk to a lawyer to see if other legal arguments might be appropriate. McKiggan said 143 victims were part of the class action settlement, but he doesn’t doubt that others who were abused weren’t part of the $16 million settlement. “The people that came forward are likely only a small percentage,” he says. When I approached the Antigonish Diocese about the accusations, Father Donald MacGillivray, who serves as a spokesperson, said he cannot answer questions about whether or not allegations were brought against the priest Stevens is accusing. He said counselling is available to victims. “Our concern is for anyone who is a victim.” I believe him. I think they do want to help victims, but I wonder: Is private counselling enough to pay for a sin that has lasting effects on a man’s life? MacGillivray would not comment on whether financial help is available. Stevens tells me he isn’t as concerned about compensation as he is about closure. “I’m searching for acknowledgement that this person did these acts.” Priests he says are like other public figures who are put on a pedestal and should be held to a higher level of accountability. “I would love nothing more than to have the Antigonish Diocese print an apology in the paper for the actions of their priest personally to me. That would make me happy. They don’t have to write me a cheque. They don’t have to do anything else but acknowledge that they harmed me. The harm doesn’t stop in a two-year period. It goes on for the next 30-35-40 years. That’s the killer right there.” I don’t know if Stevens will find the closure he wants. Father MacGillivray did share a contact number for someone in the Diocese who would be able to talk to him about what they are willing to do. I’ll leave it to Stevens to follow up if he chooses. Regardless of what happens, for the nine in 10 victims in silence, I share his story. In the class action settlement in 2009, six priests were named. At least three of those served in Pictou County at one time. At that time, 143 people were ready to go public. How many, like Stevens, weren’t? Possibly a few. Possibly hundreds. For some, like Stevens, the abuse has caused them to leave the church, a place of comfort and sanctuary to so many. But the loss of that seems minor compared to the loss of a childhood, a marriage, of trust… of faith.
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