Saturday, December 6, 2008

The Brothers Who Loved Boys Too Much

The Gazette came out today with an amazing in-depth look at sexual abuses at my alma mater, Collège Notre-Dame.

It talks about one particular case but also says the bulk of the cases reported to it took place in the 1970s.

I was there from 1990-95. I can say that cases in my era were absoltely not blatant and exposed. For one thing, Brothers no longer taught any classes, and only two were still on duty, in charge of the boys' dormitory for seventh graders.

Others roamed the halls at times, yes, because they still lived in the building, but most were never present when students were around.

It's hard to pinpoint how many kids were susceptible to have been abused, because you cannot assume a teen has been raped just because he acts weird.

But the two who tended to the boarding boys should not have been there in the first place. Whether accidental or intentional, some slips have definitely occurred. And to think that some kids were scarred to the point of committing suicide - for something that could easily have been avoided - by keeping the priests away from the kids. As simple as a math problem, really.

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