Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Edmundston, New Brunswick, Canada · 2015

Canada: defrocked Edmundston priest sentenced to seven and a half years for abusing altar boys

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Roman Catholic priest, Diocese of Edmundston

Organization

Diocese of Edmundston

Spiritual nexus

Altar boys serving directly under a parish priest's liturgical and pastoral authority, the paradigmatic clerical-access relationship.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Ritual, oath, or initiation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2015-01-01 · guilty plea and sentencing

    Edmundston Provincial Court. Rino Deschênes pleaded guilty to charges including indecency and sodomy against four youths who served as altar boys under him in the 1960s while he was a priest in Edmundston. Judge Brigitte Volpe of Edmundston Provincial Court sentenced him to seven and a half years' imprisonment in 2015. He was subsequently defrocked.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • clerical authority over altar boys serving under him in the 1960s
  • defrocking followed the conviction, confirming loss of clerical status only after the fact

Primary record

Sources

press news report McKiggan Hebert Lawyers, 'Rino Deschenes Charged with Sexual Abuse.'

Reports the guilty plea, sentence, altar-boy victim role, and defrocking.

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