Estate of dead man files lawsuit against Ottawa archdiocese for sexual abuse

By Deborah Gyapong
Catholic Register
September 15, 2016

http://www.catholicregister.org/item/23091-estate-of-dead-man-files-lawsuit-against-ottawa-archdiocese-for-sexual-abuse

OTTAWA – The Archdiocese of Ottawa is withholding comment on a $2-million lawsuit launched by the estate of a man who, according to his wife, claimed on his death bed that he had been sexually abused by a priest in the 1960s.

The case of the man identified as “John Doe” was filed in August by Robert Talach, a lawyer who has represented many sexual abuse claimants against the Catholic Church.

According to a report in the Ottawa Citizen, “John Doe” claimed to his wife that he was abused by Fr. Jean Gravel, a priest at Ottawa’s Saint-Remi parish. “Doe” died in 2014.

Gravel pleaded guilty in 1967 to gross indecency charges involving two teenaged boys. In a rare move for that time, Archbishop Joseph -Aurèle Plourde appealed to the Vatican to have Gravel removed from the clerical state in 1970. Gravel committed suicide in 1980. Plourde died in 2013.

According to the Citizen, court documents indicate that “John Doe” was one of the priest’s teenaged victims involved in the 1967 criminal case. His wife told the Citizen she only became aware of the alleged abuse when her husband spoke about it before he died.