CANADA
National Catholic Reporter
Isabella R. Moyer | Jun. 13, 2013 NCR Today
News from Winnipeg, my neck of the woods, was highlighted in Dennis Coday’s Morning Briefing on Wednesday. Archbishop Kenneth William (Saraphim) Storheim, Canada’s highest-ranking Orthodox church cleric, is accused of assaulting two young boys more than 25 years ago. His trial is currently underway.
Storheim had been on the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests’ radar for years, according to Melanie Sakoda. She also acknowledged that his trial is possible because Canadian law does not offer him statute of limitations protection.
Fr. George Mulligan is a risk analyst for Praesidium Inc., a Texas company that gives training and assistance in abuse-risk management. He spoke last month at a mandatory workshop for all priests in the archdiocese of Vancouver. According to a report in The B.C. Catholic, Mulligan said, “What the Canadian Church has done from day one is be transparent, respond, enter into conversation, and tell its leadership at every level what was going on.” In this sense, he believes the Canadian bishops did a better job responding to the sexual abuse crisis than their American brothers to the south.
This is small comfort and doesn’t take away the anger at each new headline — and there have been too many headlines for too many years. The sexual abuse of children by clergy and religious first became national news in Canada with the 1988 reports from the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. Reports of other abuses spread like wildfire. Our government and churches have been dealing for decades with the aftermath of the residential school abuses. In 2009, Antigonish Bishop Raymond Lahey made headlines when his laptop was seized at the Ottawa airport and found to be filled with child pornography. Now we have the accusations against Archbishop Storheim.
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