Priest accused of sex abuse allowed to teach despite ‘psycho-sexual tendencies’

TORONTO (ONTARIO, CANADA)
CityNewsToronto

October 14, 2020

By Adrian Ghobrial, Meredith Bond and Jessica Bruno

If you’re a Catholic Priest accused of sexually assaulting a child in North America, there’s a good chance you could be sent to a sprawling inpatient complex just north of Toronto many have never heard of.

Southdown Treatment Centre is run by Catholic clergy to treat those in religious life with a long list of diagnoses, including pedophilia. Reports by its staff have shaped the Church’s decisions on how to handle admitted sexual abusers – including whether to allow them to continue to teach and minister to children.

CityNews first became aware of Southdown as part of its investigation into Father Leo Campbell, the now-deceased priest, teacher and principal, who allegedly abused teen boys, including Peter Luci.

Fr. Campbell was a member of the Basilian Fathers of Toronto, whose headquarters are in Toronto. The order’s calling is to teach, and they operate or staff schools and universities across Canada and into the United States and South America.

The Basilians’ personnel file on Fr. Campbell shows that he was sent to Southdown for evaluation twice, each time after allegations arose that he had sexually abused a minor.

The first time he checked in for a 10-day stay was in spring 1980. At the time, Fr. Campbell was working as assistant pastor in Windsor’s Assumption Parish, where he was also responsible for Chaplaincy at Assumption High School.

The incident that led to his stay at Southdown has been redacted from the staff’s report on Fr. Campbell’s time there. However, as part of the priest’s conditions of treatment, the full report was sent to his Basilian superiors at the time. An uncensored portion of the report does appear in a 2008 document by a Basilian priest investigating Luci’s allegations against Fr. Campbell.

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