The former Superior Court judge Pepita Capriolo does not see the need to hold a public inquiry into the abuses committed within the Catholic Church in Quebec, an exercise however claimed by many victims. The one who investigated at the request of the Archdiocese of Montreal into the case of pedophile priest Brian Boucher, sentenced to eight years in prison, believes that very little new information could filter through such an exercise, but that a forum to free the voices of victims would be useful.
“With all the class actions that have been filed, is there really someone who doesn’t know [qu’il y a eu des abus au Québec] ? »Asks the ex-magistrate in her first interview with a media since the tabling of the report on Brian Boucher. The former judge Capriolo does not see the relevance of remaking in the province an exercise like the one that was carried out recently in France. “Not another time,” she said.
In recent years, such surveys have been carried out in Germany, Ireland, the United States and Australia. These long and expensive exercises tend towards a common conclusion: the Church knew, but did nothing.
The ex-judge Capriolo came to the same conclusion by investigating the ex-priest Brian Boucher of the Archdiocese of Montreal – one of the most successful investigations carried out in Canada on the case of a pedophile priest. . “My report was pretty devastating. I did not spare the Church, she said, specifying that I was of the Jewish faith. What I observed is what I wrote. “
In the 276-page document filed in November 2020, the former judge decries the culture of secrecy and the principle of protecting the reputation of the Church above all that reigned in the Archdiocese of Montreal.
Consequently, the many red flags hoisted throughout Brian Boucher’s career have had no effect. “It would have been possible to end [aux] abuse [de l’abbé Boucher] earlier, ”concluded Pepita Capriolo. The ex-priest was sentenced in 2019 to eight years in prison for sexual abuse of two minors.
According to the former magistrate, it is obvious that many other similar situations have occurred across Quebec. But you don’t need to do an exhaustive investigation to come to this conclusion. “When we do a soil study, we take one or two carrots, we are not going to clear everything,” she illustrates. And the carrot, the ex-judge has already scrutinized it from top to bottom, she assures.
Pepita Capriolo remains equally skeptical about the reliability of the figures put forward during such investigations to determine the number of victims of the abusing priests. “Any statistical survey is going to be an extrapolation, so that doesn’t give us anything,” she says.
The victims are often walled in silence, sometimes even dead, recalls the ex-judge, and the diocesan archives possibly breached. “You really believe that it was not done elsewhere [qu’à l’archidiocèse de Montréal] to shred papers and hide some? She exclaims, referring to her findings.
A balm
So what can be done to allow victims to free their speech and thus progress in their healing process? The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada – where all those affected by the tragedy of the residential schools could share their stories – had acted as a balm for many survivors.
“If, for the victims, it is important to have a platform, let’s create it, this platform,” suggests Pepita Capriolo. But for the purpose of compensation, where the Church accepts her role of having been an executioner, asks forgiveness and says she is ready to listen to compensate [financièrement]. “
The former judge also recalls that the dioceses and religious congregations do not have to wait for a collective action to be filed to compensate the victims.
Afterwards, the gaze must be turned to the future, believes Pepita Capriolo, to ensure that such abuses do not happen again. The archdiocese of Montreal is working hard to implement the 31 recommendations contained in its report on Brian Boucher that it tabled a year ago, assures the former magistrate. “I have a table of my recommendations and there is a checkmark next to almost everything. It is miraculous. “
In particular, document management has been changed. All archives – even “secret” archives – have been digitized to prevent compromising files from disappearing again. Bilingual videos were also shot for staff and volunteers working in the Archdiocese of Montreal or in other dioceses in order to transmit them the best practices to adopt to avoid new abuses.
Pepita Capriolo doubts, however, that so much energy has been devoted to the issue of sexual abuse in other dioceses. “What we are doing here [à l’archidiocèse de Montréal], some must find it interesting, but it will scare a lot of people: bishops and archbishops. I’m afraid there isn’t much that has been done elsewhere. “
According to the magistrate, if an investigation had to be made, it would rather be on the measures adopted by the dioceses and the congregations to ensure that such a scandal of sexual abuse never happens again.