CANADA
Catholic Spirit
BY ROBERT BREHL
May 3, 2018
Last week’s record financial award to a man abused by a monstrous priest 50 years ago is cringeworthy on many levels.
A Toronto jury of four women and two men in the Ontario Superior Court awarded Rod MacLeod, now 68, $2.6 million in damages, including $500,000 in punitive damages. While in high school in Sudbury, beginning at age 13 and lasting four years, MacLeod was repeatedly sexually molested by William Hodgson (Hod) Marshall, then a priest and teacher.
The award of punitive damages is significant. Punitive damages are a way of punishing the defendant — in this case the Catholic Church and the Congregation of St. Basil — in a civil lawsuit and are based on the theory that the interesontariots of society and the individual harmed can be met by imposing additional damages.
In the decision, the jurors wrote that the Basilians time and again concealed the priest’s behaviour to avoid “scandal” and knowingly “put children in harm’s way.”
That in itself is cringeworthy, but moving Marshall around and covering up for him, the Basilian leaders have also exposed the Church to even more punitive damages in future court proceedings. Marshall had many other victims, some of whom have already received out-of-court settlements and other victims will likely — and deservedly — follow the path of MacLeod.
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