WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Catholic Philly

December 1, 2020

By Francois Gloutnay

Montreal – For more than three decades, leaders of the Archdiocese of Montreal failed to properly treat the complaints and the red flags periodically raised about Father Brian Boucher, said a report prepared by retired Quebec Superior Court Judge Pepita G. Capriolo.

Instead, church authorities seemed intent on covering the priest’s behavior to protect his and the church’s reputation, she wrote.

In 2019, Boucher was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual assault of two boys; he was laicized in 2020. But in her 283-page document on Boucher, Capriolo said numerous incidents were reported and called into question during his career. For nearly 40 years, these warnings were all ignored or deemed irrelevant, especially because they concerned adults and not minors.

Capriolo reported not only on sexual abuse, but also physical assault, threats, loss…