A Catholic priest says 20 years ago he warned an archbishop about allegations Raymond Lahey had shown pornography to a young man in the 1980s. Father Kevin Molloy says he was told of the allegations by Shane Earle, then 16, in Portugal Cove, N.L. in 1989.
"I never had any further details except the boys saw pornographic material in Father Lahey's house," Molloy told CTV News in Florida, where he now lives. "That's the only thing I had to go on."
Molloy said he soon brought up the allegations with then-Archbishop Alphonsus Penney, and assumed the Church would deal with the matter. He never heard about it again.
"So what else was I supposed to do?" he said.
Molloy was reminded of the allegations last week, when Lahey -- then a bishop in Nova Scotia -- was charged with possessing and importing child pornography.
Police seized Lahey's computer during a random check at the Ottawa International Airport on Sept. 15, as he returned to Canada from another country.
Lahey is due to appear in court on Nov. 4, and is now living somewhere in Ottawa. None of the charges against him have been proven in court.
It was initially thought Lahey would stay in a New Brunswick monastery, but his bail conditions changed Tuesday.
Archbishop Martin Currie confirmed Tuesday that officials with the Roman Catholic Church were aware of Earle's allegations against Lahey in 1989.
"To possess pornography was not a crime then as it is now," he said. "It's still not the behaviour I would expect from a priest to have pornography in his home when young people are around."
Earle, who was a victim of sexual abuse at Newfoundland's Mount Cashel Orphanage in the 1980s, said that hearing about the charges last week awakened old traumatic memories.
"What we're dealing with today gives every indication that nothing happened, nobody followed up," he told the Globe and Mail.
"I don't know if it was that nobody believed me at the time, but here we are 20-odd years later dealing with the same issues."
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SIC: CTVN