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B.C. woman settles lawsuit over alleged childhood sexual abuse
by Catholic priest during confession
Father Gerhard Hartmann served with the Hitler Youth before his career
in the church on Vancouver Island
Bethany Lindsay ·
CBC News ·
Posted: Dec 15, 2022 3:00 AM PT |
A Vancouver Island woman who says she was sexually abused as a child by a former Nazi turned Catholic priest has settled her lawsuit against the church.
Father Gerhard Hartmann repeatedly sexually assaulted and fondled the victim over a period of three years at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in Nanaimo, B.C., beginning in 1976, when she was just 10 years old, according to the notice of claim.
"It happened during confession, which for a Catholic is a sacred time," the plaintiff said. Because she is a victim of alleged sexual abuse, CBC has agreed to refer to her by her initials, S.P.
Apparently, confession is not so sacred for some priests.
"I was in a very vulnerable position and I was just a young child. It's such an abuse of power on so many levels — the physical assault, it's a mental assault and it's a spiritual assault."
Her lawsuit, filed in February 2020, alleged the Roman Catholic Diocese of Victoria was vicariously liable for her abuse, saying it was negligent and failed in its duties to protect parishioners from harm.
The lawsuit was settled out of court earlier this month on undisclosed terms, but S.P. said the resolution is "satisfactory to all parties."
Bishop Gary Gordon provided a written statement addressing the settlement on behalf of the diocese.
"The Diocese of Victoria is committed to responding fairly and compassionately to victims of sexual abuse. We recognize that this information may be difficult for people to hear but may also be an opportunity for other victim-survivors to come forward so that in the light of truth, there may be healing and justice," Gordon said.
Priest was 'always proud' of Nazi past: plaintiff
Hartmann, who died in 2015, came to Canada from Germany after the Second World War. He was a member of the Hitler Youth, S.P. said, and defended Hitler's bunker during the Soviet advance on Berlin.
According to S.P., that history was common knowledge in the church community.
"He was always proud of it," she said.
An obituary published in the diocese's newsletter maintains that Hartmann was forced into defending Nazi Germany.
He was ordained as a priest in January 1976. S.P. alleges he began assaulting her just a few months later, and continued to do so until he left Nanaimo in 1979.
"It only ended because Father Hartmann was transferred," she said.
S.P.'s claim alleges Hartmann used his position of authority to ensure she didn't tell anyone. It notes that Catholic children at the time are raised to believe that priests are God's chosen representatives on Earth, and that disobeying the rule of God would land them in hell.
The lawsuit also claims S.P. wrote to the diocese about her abuse in the early 2000s, but received a "dismissive" response.
S.P. said the alleged abuse has had a profound effect on her life, and she is still grappling with the fallout. The consequences have included mental health problems, addiction and suicidal thoughts.
A Vancouver Island woman alleges she was sexually abused by a priest at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church in Nanaimo, B.C., from 1976 to 1979. (Google Maps)
But she added that taking legal action has helped.
"It was an important process for me to go through because I've lived my whole life as a victim, and now, for the first time, I'm beginning to feel like I'm more of a survivor," S.P. said.
One of her main reasons for speaking out is that she believes there may be others across Vancouver Island who were also abused, and she wants them to feel comfortable coming forward.
According to the diocese obituary, Hartmann went on to serve in churches across the north island and in Port Alberni, Campbell River, Sooke and Victoria.
Her lawyer, Robert Talach, urged anyone with a similar experience to speak to police or trusted people in their lives.
"I would implore people not to go to the diocese," he said. "For me, there is no track record of any diocese in the Catholic Church dealing with this effectively, and I would encourage people to go to secular resources."
S.P. said she'd like to see the church take more proactive steps to protect Catholics, rather than waiting for victims to speak out.
"I think it's really hard on the victims when they are the ones that need to come forward in order for change to happen," she said.
"It needs to come from within the church. The church needs to listen to the victims and then create a system that is really protective of everyone."
That's what you might expect of a church that has a genuine fear of God. In the hundreds of stories on this blog about Catholic priests and child sexual abuse, the fear of God is never indicated.
More questions here than answers:
Anti-abortion priest Frank Pavone defrocked for blasphemous posts
NICOLE WINFIELD
VATICAN CITY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
mass at Ave Maria University's Oratory in Naples, Fla., in 2009
GREG KAHN/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Vatican has defrocked an anti-abortion U.S. priest, Frank Pavone, for what it said were “blasphemous communications on social media” as well as “persistent disobedience” of his bishop who repeatedly told him to stop his partisan activism for Donald Trump.
A letter to U.S. bishops from the Vatican ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre, obtained Sunday, said that the decision against Pavone, who heads the anti-abortion group Priests for Life, had been taken Nov. 9, and that there was no chance for an appeal.
Pavone has been in conflict with the bishop of Amarillo, Texas, for over a decade over his pro-life and partisan political activities that came to a head in 2016 when he put an aborted fetus on an altar and posted a video of it on two social media sites. The video was accompanied by a post saying that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic platform would allow abortion to continue and that Trump and the Republican platform wanted to protect unborn children.
Even before then, Pavone successfully appealed 2011 restrictions on his ministry that Amarillo Bishop Patrick Zurek had placed on him.
Pavone remained a firm supporter of Trump and in 2020 disputed the outcome of the election won by Joe Biden. Ahead of the election, the Amarillo diocese denounced Pavone’s use of social media for political ends, distanced the diocese from him and said his positions weren’t consistent with Catholic teaching.
Pavone relocated from Amarillo and was allowed to move to Colorado Springs, Colorado. His Twitter handle still features him wearing a “MAGA” hat with a background photo of former President Trump, who is praised by many conservatives for his Supreme Court nominees who helped overturn the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.
In a tweet Sunday, Pavone sounded defiant, comparing his fate to that of the unborn.
“So in every profession, including the priesthood, if you defend the #unborn, you will be treated like them! The only difference is that when we are `aborted,’ we continue to speak, loud and clear.”
He later appeared in a social media video wearing a black leather biker jacket over his priestly collar against a faux backdrop of St. Peter’s Basilica vowing that the anti-abortion “war” would continue and denouncing the “cancel culture” of the church that he said had persecuted him for decades.
In a statement on his Priest For Life website, he said that his laicization was “the result of an abusive process” and that he was considering unspecified legal action against unnamed U.S. bishops.
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