A retired priest and former Vatican official would fondle, shower and sleep nude with a young male at his Wilno cabin and Ottawa apartment, a Pembroke court heard yesterday.Testifying on the first day of Msgr. Bernard Prince's trial on a single charge of indecent assault, the now 44-year-old alleged victim said the sexual conduct began in the summer of 1976 when he was 13 years old.
According to the man, who cannot be named due to a court-ordered publication ban, Msgr. Prince's request for a back massage was a prelude to a series of 10 to 12 sexual encounters over a two-week period while the two stayed in the cabin alone.
According to the man's testimony, Msgr. Prince would strip naked before guiding the boy's hand to his genitals. Msgr. Prince allegedly would fondle the boy's genitals at the same time.
On occasion, Msgr. Prince would also climb in the cabin's tiny shower with the boy and ask him to rub soap on his back.
During a 10-day trip to Ottawa about a year later, the man, who lived in Toronto with his family, testified that a nude Msgr. Prince would spoon with him and fondle his genitals while they slept in the same bed in the priest's Riverside Drive apartment.
The sexual assaults stopped when he threatened to call the police if Msgr. Prince touched him again, the man testified.
Msgr. Prince, 72, pleaded not guilty to the single charge of indecent assault yesterday.
Twelve other charges of indecent and sexual assault on 12 other young males that allegedly occurred between 1969 and the 1980s are expected to be dealt with later this week or early next. Three of those alleged victims sat in the public gallery during yesterday's testimony, which was heard by Justice Julie-Ann Parfett.
Throughout much of the man's testimony yesterday, the white-haired Msgr. Prince showed little emotion and stared directly ahead as he sat next to his lawyer, Chris Kelly.
The man testified he never told anyone about the incidents until February 2006, when his family learned through a newspaper article of criminal charges against Msgr. Prince for the alleged abuse of another young male.
The man told Crown prosecutor John Pepper that his father and mother were devout Catholics and extremely close to Msgr. Prince. The man's sister, who, like her brother, can't be identified, testified that
Msgr. Prince was like a "second father" to her. He performed her wedding ceremony and baptized her child. The man's father, who also testified yesterday, said Msgr. Prince even arranged for them to meet Pope John Paul II during a trip to Rome.
The man testified he knew what happened at Msgr. Prince's cabin was wrong, but he was too embarrassed and scared to tell his parents. The man said he knew the allegations would destroy his parents and vowed to keep it a secret until they died.
However, seeing the newspaper article, coupled with his family's questions about whether he, too, was a victim, prompted him to come forward.
"I knew I couldn't leave it buried forever," he testified, adding that he had never shared the specific details of the incidents with his family. The man testified he "loved" Msgr. Prince before the assaults, but, by the time Msgr. Prince visited the family's home for the pope's visit to Toronto, he hated him.
"I despised the man," he testified.A bench warrant had been issued for Msgr. Prince, who had been living near Rome, in mid-October 2005, after police laid initial charges of buggery and indecent assault for the alleged assault of a then-12-year-old boy in 1969.
Msgr. Prince was arrested at Montreal's Trudeau Airport in February 2006 after returning to Canada from Italy to face the charges in connection with the first alleged victim.
Msgr. Prince, who is from the Wilno area, was ordained in 1963.
His career included posts at the Vatican as the secretary general of the Pontifical Work for the Propagation of Faith until his retirement more than three years ago. He had lived in Italy since 1991.
He had also worked at parishes in Arnprior and Pembroke before he took a posting at the Apostolic Nunciature in Ottawa.
He later worked at the Canadian Conference of Bishops in Ottawa and taught at Saint Paul University on Main Street before moving to Toronto as director of Canada's Pontifical Mission Society.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce