A Roman Catholic bishop has been found guilty of importing child
pornography in a case that has sent shockwaves through Canada and the
Church.
Bishop Raymond Lahey was stopped at Ottawa Airport
after border guards found 588 images and dozens of videos of naked boys
as young as eight on his computer and phone.
He was also carrying a bag of personal sex toys. He was found guilty on the charge.
The case will also likely act as a test of the Vatican's new strict sex abuse laws, which it approved last year.
The bishop’s crimes are especially shocking for Canadians because Lahey was the public face of an historic apology and $15million (£8million) settlement for victims of sexual molestation by a priest in his diocese.
Pope Benedict even
asked top church officials in Canada to do what they could to alleviate
the distress caused by the arrest of such a senior figure.
Lahey was charged after being intercepted at Ottawa Airport while returning home from a trip to Europe in September 2009.
Police
claimed the 70-year-old former head of the diocese of Antigonish, Nova
Scotia, was targeted after being evasive during questioning and refusing
to make eye contact with border guards.
Further investigations
revealed extensive travel since 2005 to countries notorious as sources
of child pornography, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Spain and
Germany.
A forensic examination of Lahey’s computer and several
memory sticks revealed hundreds of files and around 60 videos, some of
them showing boys between the ages of eight and 12 engaged in sexual
acts.
He was also in possession of numerous texts featuring themes of humiliation, degradation and slavery of young boys.
After some of the images were discovered Lahey initially denied
having an interest in child pornography, but told the officers that ‘he
was attracted to males aged 20 to 21'.
The native of Newfoundland
and Labrador resigned from the Antigonish diocese the day after he was
charged but before his crimes became public.
Lahey pleaded
guilty in an Ottawa courtroom to importing child pornography but told a
judge he was not guilty of possessing child pornography for the purpose
of distribution.
The case is highly significant because law enforcement
agencies have long looked the other way in prosecuting sex-related
offences where high-ranking church officials were involved.
It will also act as a test of the Vatican's stringent sex abuse code, approved last year.
The
new rules take away protection for bishops and cardinals who abuse
minors - allowing them to be investigated and punished in the same way
as Catholic priests.
Father Francis Morrisey, a professor of canon
law at the Roman Catholic University of Saint Paul in Ottawa, claimed
it was highly unusual for a bishop to face criminal charges.
‘Pornography
was only formally added to the church laws in May 2010 and with this
case, it shows how seriously those decisions have been taken,’ he said.
The
Vatican claimed today it was considering ‘appropriate disciplinary or
penal’ action against Lahey: ‘The Catholic Church condemns sexual
exploitation of all kind, in particular when minors are targeted,’ a
statement said.
While the church awaits his sentencing before
continuing with its own trial, survivors of sexual abuse believe the
hearing could be used as a precedent internationally.
‘We hope
that the Lahey case is a sign that the era of deference by civil
authorities toward bishops may be coming to an end,’ said Anne Barrett
Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org.
Lahey, who is
facing a mandatory 12-month minimum prison term, voluntarily entered
custody.
The images and videos will be viewed by the judge in
private before official sentencing.
In addition to the criminal
charges, Lahey also faces accusations in a civil suit of sexually
abusing an orphanage resident in the early 1980s.
The Mount Cashel
Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland was closed in 1990 after it was
revealed that staff had systematically abused some 300 residents over
several decades.