Press Release: RC Archbishop and Westminster Abbey Settle
Bernadette Howell Blog - May 28, 2024
Vancouver, BC -- In advance of a seven-week trial scheduled to commence June 3, 2024, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver, Westminster Abbey, and Seminary of Christ the King have settled with the plaintiff, anonymized as D.H. D.H. was raped at age 13 by Fr. Placidus aka Harold Vincent Sander, a Benedictine priest, when he was a grade eight boarding student at the Seminary of Christ the King (“SCK”) in 1977-1978. SCK still operates today: it is the last remaining Minor Seminary in Canada and has been operated by Benedictine monks since 1939.
Bishop Accountability - December 23, 2025 Brampton, ON - A Catholic priest in Brampton, Ont., has been charged with sexual offences and removed from the ministry, the Archdiocese of Toronto says. It says the man is accused of one count of sexual assault and one count of sexual interference, an offence that applies when the victim is under 16 years old. It says the decision to remove the man from the pastoral ministry was made in accordance with its protocols and procedures relating to allegations of misconduct.
Free Press - September 23, 2025 Somerset, MB - The Archdiocese of St. Boniface has denied a man’s claims he was sexually abused by one of its priests in rural Manitoba decades ago. The man, who’s in his late 60s, claimed in a lawsuit filed in the Court of King’s Bench earlier this year that he was sexually abused by now-deceased Catholic priest Rene Touchette in the village of Somerset, about 150 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg. In a statement of defence filed in late July, the archdiocese argued the lawsuit should be tossed out — and that the man has provided no proof of the alleged abuse.