Montreal Institute For The Deaf Ex-Students Allege Horrific Abuses

MONTREAL (CBC) - Montreal School for the Deaf's ex-students allege horrific abuses. Warning: This story with the video contains potentially disturbing content.



Former students at a church-run institute for the Deaf in Montreal have come forward with graphic tales of sexual abuse they allege they suffered during more than four decades.



Quebec's Superior Court authorized a class-action lawsuit last March against members of the Clerics of St-Viateur who worked at the school, formerly known as the Montreal Institute for the Deaf.



The former boarding school was run by the Clerics of Saint-Viateur, a religious congregation founded in 1831.



According to students who attended the all-boys institute between 1940 and 1982, violent sexual assaults were commonplace.



Denis Chalifoux, who alleges he was eight years old when the abuse began in 1968, is one of 64 claimants taking part in the class action against 28 religious staff and six lay workers. Only four or five of the alleged abusers would still be alive today.



Most of the alleged victims' identities are protected in court documents, but Chalifoux came forward to tell his story to CBC's French-language service with the help of a sign language interpreter. He described horrific acts allegedly at the hands of a staff member.



"He showed me his penis. It was in front of me, in my face. I didn't want to look," Chalifoux told Radio-Canada. "He touched my cheek with it. All the while, he was masturbating." ... Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/story/2012/11/25/alleged-sexual-assault-st-viateur-deaf-institute.html?autoplay=true

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Sexual Abuses Children At Montreal School For The Deaf

MONTREAL - Lawsuit alleges dozens of clergy abused children at Montreal school for Deaf. Another chapter of Quebec’s dark history of the sexual abuse of children in church-run institutions was aired this week by Radio-Canada. But this was not just any chapter. It threatens to be one of the most horrifying in an already heartbreaking record.



It deals with the sexual abuse of young boys, already vulnerable because of their age but doubly or triply so because they were also Deaf and mute. Their alleged abusers were educated men who promised to set the boys free from their silent world.



Clerical and lay members of a much-admired Roman Catholic teaching order, the Clercs de Saint-Viateur, these men did not set the boys free. The boys who say they were abused ended up in a living hell, terrified of telling anyone what was happening to them. They remained trapped in that hell in adulthood, unable to erase the grotesque images in their heads of masturbating priests and anal rape.



This case may turn out to be the worst ever seen involving the abuse of Deaf children. Unlike the previous record, held by a single Roman Catholic priest, Lawrence Murphy of Wisconsin, in Quebec more than 30 clergy are alleged to have abused the Deaf children in their care, sometimes one after another. (Murphy, who may have sexually assaulted as many as 200 children at a school for the Deaf in Wisconsin, was denounced in 1996 to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.



Radio-Canada’s investigative program Enquête called its program The Perfect Victims. The boys came as boarders to the only school for the deaf in the province at the age of 7 or 8. Many were thrilled to be at the school, where for the first time they would be taught to communicate with other children and learn to read and write. ... Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/literacy/raiseareader/Lawsuit+alleges+dozens+clergy+abused+children+Montreal/7602508/story.html



Watch the coverage video: http://www.radio-canada.ca/widgets/mediaconsole/medianet/6495646



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Montreal Institute For The Deaf Ex-Students Allege Horrific Abuses

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God

MILWAUKEE, WI - Movie about Catholic priest sex abuse scandal makes US premiere in Milwaukee. The controversy over the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal hits the big screen. Five Deaf men who led the first known public protest against clerical sex abuse in the United States.



Not only that, but Friday night is the US premiere of the film. It's called Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House Of God -- a documentary focused on the sexual assaults within the church right here in Milwaukee. With bright lights, ticket lines, even a red carpet, the event had all the trimmings of a blockbuster premiere.



The film brought a message to the big screen. Telling the story of hundreds of young men abused by Father Lawrence Murphy, the headmaster at St. John's School for the Deaf in St. Francis. Showing the film to many of the victims themselves, filmmaker Alex Gibney uses the documentary to expose their pain -- and the cover-up by the Catholic Church... Read more: http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/172923131.html



Find more information at tiff: http://tiff.net/filmsandschedules/tiff/2012/meamaximaculpasilenc



Holloywood Reporter: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/mea-maxima-culpa-silence-in-the-house-of-god-film-review-374736



Abused in Wisconsin blog: http://www.abusedinwisconsin.com/St_Johns_School_for_the_Deaf.aspx



Video source tiff