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Then-Father Brian Boucher is pictured at a court proceeding in this undated photo. A Quebec judge stated that for more than three decades, leaders of the Archdiocese of Montreal failed to properly treat complaints against Boucher. In 2019 Boucher was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual assault of two boys; he was laicized in 2020.
CNS photo/courtesy CBC
October 2, 2024
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Former priest and convicted sex offender Brian Boucher has been on a hospital ward with minors present for at least a month, The Catholic Register has learned.
A document sent to the Register shows the Parole Board of Canada was so concerned it alerted hospital staff to the defrocked clergyman’s sordid crimes and advised of the legal prohibition on him being around young people.
But the recently paroled ex-clerical convict, who still faces trial on charges of voyeurism, sexual assault and harassment arising from his time in prison, was so belligerent that a parole board case management team was limited in what it was able to share about him with the unnamed hospital’s medical team.
The parole board document reveals frustration with Boucher for his refusal to admit his guilt – or even that he is no longer a priest.
“To this day you have not made any significant progress,” the document says, alluding to him ignoring his correctional plan.
Convicted in 2019 for sexually abusing two teenage boys while he was a priest in the Archdiocese of Montreal, Boucher was sentenced to eight years behind bars. He left prison on July 23, 2024, but by Aug. 26 was admitted to hospital for treatment of an unidentified malady that has left him “limited in terms of walking and autonomous living,” according to the parole board document.
His initial 30-day leave from the half-way house where he was ordered to live has been extended indefinitely. His recovery time is said to be unknown. Tests show he’s a “low” risk to offend but his case management team notes in the document that his “level of accountability” is low as well.
Boucher’s arrest and conviction unleashed a massive scandal in the Montreal archdiocese. An inquiry conducted by retired Superior Court Justice Pepita Capriolo found the pedophile sex abuser had been protected for years at the highest levels of archdiocesan authority and was repeatedly sent for treatment in the belief he was a low risk to reoffend and would reform.
Capriolo’s exhaustive 276-page report was scathing in its criticism of Boucher’s kid gloves treatment and led to a major overhaul of sex abuse reporting. Yet even as he was led off to the penitentiary, Boucher protested his innocence and rejected the legitimacy of his defrocking.
Boucher continues to insist on his innocence and is reported as displaying the “rigidity” that was a recurring theme of his interactions with the clergy and faithful of Montreal before his conviction and incarceration.
On his release last summer, the parole board imposed the maximum number of conditions for the full extent of his remaining sentence. Boucher must live in a half-way house, have no contact with his victims or children, have no job or position that places him in authority over children and report all relationships with adults who have parental authority. The board also recommended “a strict and structured environment that can also offer you opportunities to address your high needs for intervention.”
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