Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Southwestern Ontario, Canada · 2006

Canada: priest pleads guilty to 47 counts against girls across four decades of parishes

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

parish priest, Diocese of London

Organization

Diocese of London (Ontario)

Spiritual nexus

Forty-seven girls across four decades of parishes — each inside the ordinary pastoral relationship of priest and child parishioner, transferred parish to parish.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2006-10-01 · guilty plea and sentence

    Ontario courts, Canada. Fr Charles Sylvestre pleaded guilty to 47 counts of indecent and sexual assault against girls aged 9 to 14 across parishes in Belle River, Windsor, London, Sarnia and Chatham-Kent between 1952 and 1989 — described by the Crown as the largest known non-residential-school clergy abuse case in North America at the time. Sentenced to three years, he died in custody in January 2007.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • pastoral authority over girls aged 9–14 across successive parishes, 1952–1989

Primary record

Sources

national public broadcaster verdict and sentencing report CBC News, 'Retired Ontario priest pleads guilty to 47 sex charges' (2006).

Reports the plea, the span of parishes, and the sentence.

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