A small group of Quebec's "Duplessis Orphans" staged a Good Friday protest in front of Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica, demanding an official apology from the Roman Catholic Church.Since 2002, the orphans have gathered on the church steps on this day to make their case.
But with the Vatican under fire amid a growing multinational abuse scandal, they have renewed hope their demands will be heard.
The Church "has been stonewalling the issue for some 30 years," said Carlo Tarini, a spokesman for the group.
"They've been maintaining a wall of silence. It's a scandal and needs to be denounced."
The orphans say they were physically and psychologically abused in church-run institutions during the reign of former premier Maurice Duplessis in the 1940s and '50s.
In 2001, many of them accepted a multi-million-dollar compensation offer from the provincial government.
The settlement worked out to an average of $25,000 per person.
But under the government's proposal, no blame was be laid on anyone for the orphans' treatment, and those who accepted the offer had to drop any further legal action.
Still, a number of Duplessis Orphans have refused to let the issue die and have continued to lobby for an apology from Catholic religious leaders, including Canada's top cardinal, Marc Ouellet.
"We see there may be an openness in the Vatican but it has to start in the local community, " said Lucien Landry.
"There were many, many orphans who were victims of pedophilia."
They group is not ruling out a collaboration with other alleged victims worldwide who are seeking some form of compensation or acknowledgment of wrongdoing.
"The problem is large, in a number of countries," Landry said. "We wondering: the fact this is in Ireland, the U.S., Canada, can we take this to The Hague? We want to examine this."
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