CANADA
CBC

A Montreal deacon has been accused of producing and distributing child pornography.

William Kokesch, 65, was charged Saturday via video link after police searched his west-end home a day earlier, Const. Dany Richer said, adding investigators seized more than 2,000 images.

Kokesch will remain in jail until Monday when he’s scheduled to appear in court, Richer said.

Kokesch, a communications director for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, helped co-ordinate World Youth Day conferences in Toronto, Rome and Paris, according to the organization’s website.

In a news release issued Saturday, the Archdiocese of Montreal announced Kokesch had been removed from all ministry and pastoral activity at a church in Beaconsfield, a suburb in Montreal’s West Island, and that it would co-operate with civil authorities.