The Religion of Pederasty

"What I have heard is that he got advice from people from the Justice Department, off the record, that he should leave."
People from the police and his lawyer told him, 'Get out of here. As long as you don't come back to Canada, there is not a problem'. And that's what he did."
"I heard that Eric was told — off the record — to leave Canada by some persons of the police and his lawyer and some Oblates."
"At that time it was thought that was the best thing to do. With hindsight, it turns out to have been a mistake."
Georges Vervust, Belgian Oblates

Eric Dejaeger is shown in an undated Interpol photo. Dejaeger, a former priest who this week is to face 76 sex charges involving Inuit children, may have been tried years ago but for a quiet nod from Canada that allowed him to leave the country, says a church leader.THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Interpol

In fact, Fr. Vervust, of the Belgian Oblates, just happens to be the authority who sent Eric Dejaeger to several communities around Nunavut. The Oblates, an order of Catholic priests whose mission is to serve their church and the communities of the heathen, to ensure that no backsliding occurs, and to guide them in the ways of righteousness and obedience to God. Perhaps the Oblates' screening tools were misplaced.

In obvious error, they dispatched a child predator to serve the needs of the Catholic Church in far-off Northern Canada. There are no fewer than 76 sex charges of violations against Inuit children brought against Fr. Dejaeger. A man of simple tastes, those tastes directed toward the degradation and victimization of children to suit his appetite.

A priest in the community of Igloolik between 1978 and 1982, he was given the trust and faithful belief of the people living in that isolated community. The allegations of sexual abuse of children started in 1995 when he was charged with three counts of indecent assault and three counts of buggery in the old Criminal Code.

This man of the cloth pleaded not guilty. But he will stand trial and will be tried by judge alone.

Back in 1995 Fr. Dejaeger had already completed a five-year sentence, mostly served in a halfway house on probation, on 11 counts of sexual and indecent assault against children in Baker Lake. For he was dispatched to Baker Lake after he had conducted himself as a man of God in Igloolik.

Isn't that representative of the usual formula for such child predators in the church? Shuffled from one pasturage pastorage to another?

Scheduled to return to court to respond to the Igloolik charges in 1995, he thought otherwise might be more suitable for his personal agenda. Once the Igloolik charges had been laid, he had written Oblate officials in Belgium to propose that he be invited to return to the country. And in their turn they wrote to assure him he was free to return. And so he did, with Belgian and Canadian passports.

After he had arrived in Belgium an Oblate colleague remaining in Canada wrote him to inform him he was home free: "It seems to me that they [Canada] will do nothing unless you come to Canada." Happily living in Oblate communities in France and Belgium, he had no intention of returning to Canada. Europe may have served him just as well to continue his child predation.

A Belgian journalist, however, was busy doing what journalists do; looking carefully into details. And he discovered that Fr. Dejaeger had lost his Belgian citizenship in 1977 when he had become a naturalized Canadian. When he returned to Belgium his citizenship status had already been annulled automatically since Belgium citizens cannot hold dual citizenship.

Living without a visa in Belgium, a criminal offence; the discovery had the result of ejecting him from the country. Actually returning him to Canada, where he does have citizenship and where the law demands that he stand trial for his numerous dreadful offences against Inuit children whom his religious office was meant to protect and guide.

Justice Canada's regional director for the Northwest Territories which back then included Nunavut, explained how unprepared his office was to deal with such occurrences. "You wouldn't believe how it was at the time," he said in a recent interview. "We were dealing with hundreds of serious cases. It was very difficult."

There were two other major similar trials occurring in Baker Lake alone at the time, one involving an Anglican priest and another one which centered on the abuse of a mentally disabled girl by 17 men. 

"We were understaffed," said Pierre Rousseau. "When I remember those days, for every Crown, it was quite an ordeal."

On the other hand, what of the responsibility of the Oblates? Fr. Vervust, who now claims in interviews that Canada was relieved to be rid of his colleague against whom such horrible numerous charges of sexual abuse were laid, speaks nothing of his personal responsibility nor that of the Oblates themselves.