It's been a long, lonely and often tumultuous road for Randy Johnston since former priest Kevin Bennett spent several years molesting and controlling him as a child.Randy was one of more than three-dozen boys Bennett molested while he was a parish priest on the Burin Peninsula.
It's been a protracted 18-year battle in the courts that first saw Bennett convicted and jailed and later found the diocese of St. George's liable and consequently ordered to compensate Bennett's victims.
For the bulk of the 40 years since the abuse, Randy (now living in Labrador City) has lost much; including his sense of inclusion in the Roman Catholic faith.
"I was detached from the Church and my religion, that is what he (Bennett) did to me," Randy said. "It's been many years since I went to Church, it's just too difficult, and I figured they were all tarred with the same brush. I found it very hard to trust anyone."
A couple of years ago, Randy felt a glimmer of light shining on his long abandoned faith; the understanding words and assurances of a bishop gave new hope and comfort that Randy hadn't felt in decades.
"The first time I contacted Bishop (Douglas) Crosby was after the Supreme Court of Canada ruling a couple of years ago...I intended to be rude to him, to confront him I guess," Randy explained the beginning of the relationship with Bishop Crosby who is currently overseeing both the St. George's Diocese and Labrador West.
"I began calling him and I felt better or something talking to him. He calmed me and he seemed so genuine. He told me so many times that the victims were first and foremost in all this. I tell you, I felt so comfortable around him and developed a trust in him that I was seriously considering going back to Church. I didn't think I'd ever even consider that, but I did, I am not telling you a word of a lie. I talked to him about many personal things, the pain and the hurt I've felt all my life and he seemed to understand."
Finding solace with another man of the cloth was something Randy never would have imagined happening up until a few years ago. But the rapport he developed with the bishop had Randy allowing a sense of hope to peer into his tortured spirit.
A couple of weeks ago however, Randy experienced another major letdown when news came from his lawyer Gregg Stack. Randy found it unbelievable that the diocese had relayed there would be no more efforts made, on its part, to raise the remaining half of the $14 million compensation to Bennett's victims.
"I still can't believe it," Randy said. "I think I need to hear it from the bishop himself. I want to think that it was a huge mistake, that it was communicated wrong or something. I put all my confidence in Bishop Crosby and I have a real hard time believing that he would deceive me."
The diocese's claim of having no money to pay, he says, is a lame excuse that holds no water.
"The Catholic Church is the biggest and richest organization in the world, and they are crying poor mouth," he said. "They could have this paid if they really wanted to and have this finished up. They could have borrowed the money from other dioceses...they should've gone right to the Vatican."
Randy says it's difficult to explain how this compensation might've been the key to closing a very ugly and elongated chapter of his life. It's not just the money alone, it's the principle attached to paying the debt; it's a reckoning of a repulsive wrong that has crippled him emotionally and spiritually for the best part of his life.
When the courts sided with Bennett's victims and pointed the finger at the diocese-it was an affirmation for Randy as a victim, that indeed it was not his shame to bear anymore, it was the Church's shame, the diocese's shame because they shrouded the truth and protected Bennett rather the victims who innocently went through his hands.
The compensation payment is an important and final phase of the whole accountability aspect of what happened to Randy and the many more who endured the same vile abuse. For Randy it's like running a 40-year-long marathon, he yearns to finally cross the finish line, for closure and a sense of freedom from what chains him to an unhappy past.
He explains how the dead weight of Bennett's sins have been planted heavily on his shoulders for so many years, how he has carried and felt the shame and embarrassment of a history with the pedophile priest and how he laments often for a childhood that was cruelly robbed from him by the same man.
"No one will ever understand what it does to a person, only a victim can know the pain and horrible feelings that come after such abuse, and probably, in some cases their wives and immediate family," said Randy. "Now, so many years later, so many years fighting to have some kind of life that is free from it all, I am tired and so sick of it all. If the diocese is trying to get out of this, then it only means we are victims all over again. When Bishop Crosby comes back, I will probably call him...yes, I will call him; I want him to tell me himself."
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