CANADA
CBC News
By Greg Rasmussen, CBC News
The Anglican Church of Canada expressed regret on Monday for the “immoral sexual behaviour” of one of its priests and apologized for not publicly disclosing a confession made two decades ago by the B.C.-based priest, who admitted to sexually abusing parishioners.
Gordon Nakayama’s case was never reported to the police, but his story was the inspiration for The Rain Ascends, a novel by well-known Canadian author Joy Kogawa who is also the priest’s daughter.
The former priest ministered to the Japanese-Canadian community in B.C. and Alberta. During the Second World War, he followed his Japanese-Canadian parishioners from Vancouver to their internment camps.
There were rumours he had abused young men and boys, and decades later he admitted it in writing to church officials.
“I made mistake. My moral life with my sexual bad behaviour. I sincerely sorry what I did to so many people,” he said in his confession to the church in 1994.
Instead of reporting his admission of a crime to the police, the church locked away this painful secret because, it says, the community preferred that at the time.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.