B.C. priest ‘should have been stopped,’ sex abuse victim says

BRITISH COLUMBIA (CANADA)
CBC News

August 31, 2020

By Bethany Lindsay

Lawyer for Rosemary Anderson says she hopes court victory will send a message to Kamloops diocese

A woman who was repeatedly sexually abused by a priest in Kamloops, B.C., says the leadership of the Catholic church failed her by not acting on previous reports of his misconduct.

Last week, a B.C. Supreme Court judge awarded Rosemary Anderson $844,140 in damages for the sexual battery she suffered at the hands of Father Erlindo Molon while he was a priest at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the 1970s.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Kamloops was held directly and vicariously liable for those damages after the court heard church leadership was aware of Molon’s reputation as a playboy priest and an archbishop had even confronted him about it, but nothing was done to stop him.

In an interview with CBC Daybreak Kamloops host Shelley Joyce, Anderson spoke about how Molon took advantage of her in 1976 when she arrived in town as a 27-year-old teacher freshly grieving the death of her father.

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