The Minor Seminary Transparency Initiative

Bernadette Howell, Spiritual Health Practitioner - January 7, 2025

Breaking silence. Confronting clergy abuse.

The Minor Seminary Transparency Initiative

It’s hard coming back to reality when one has had a lovely break from it all! 

It’s additionally hard when that break was enjoyed in a warm and sunny climate in tee-shirts and shorts! 

But back to reality it is.

Thank you again to readers who emailed this past week and shared different articles and news on topics which I hope to address in future blogs. And my thanks to those who continue to encourage me to blog each week on the important topic of confronting clergy abuse and breaking the silence.

I did promise you all that when back in January I would comment more thoroughly on the new website that has been published by the Benedictine monks at Westminster Abbey and Christ the King Seminary titled The Minor Seminary Transparency Initiative.

For now, and the foreseeable future, I will continue to include this link under my weekly title so that people can become more familiar with this website and new subscribers can also learn about it. Please feel free to email me or ask any questions you may have about it, and I will endeavour to answer as best I can. Equally, feel free to share any comments you wish.

I have to admit that the website and all the documents released and published there tell a complex story that spans decades. 

Some of you have already shared that the website makes for “unwieldly reading” and that, a lot of the time you’re not quite sure what you’re reading or what the relevance is of the document. 

Bear in mind the complexity of any legal proceedings and the need for witness or documented proof. Every detail counts and what perhaps many of us are missing are the subtleties of knowledge known by those in leadership, aware for years of the predatory abuses of Placidus Sander.

I will endeavour to share some of these subtleties with you and it may be, that things come to surface over the coming weeks and months and which I may refer from time to time from this website. 

The most important thing to note is that the publishing of such documents by Catholic Church leaders to a public website is a ‘first’ here in British Columbia.

One blog reader has already commented that “there appears to be a deep-seated desire to change”, that “the language is gracious”, that “there is a focus on supporting survivors” and that the site seems geared to “helping prevent future victims”. 

Another blog reader shares the comment that “the Transparency Initiative is a fraud. Full of weasel words and worn-out risk management tropes.”

Indeed, there are many sections where one can read the gracious words acknowledging harm, offering deepest apologies and expressing heartfelt words in the Tribute to Victim-Survivors: 

· We will strive

· We will continue to strengthen 

· We will foster 

· We will work

Then there are the words that say:

“The case concerned sexual abuse committed by Placidus Sander, OSB, during the late 1970s, and was settled in May 2024.” 

Perhaps pause a moment over this statement if you will. 

This a period of over 50 years. 

Five decades. 

That’s half a century to get to the truth of the matter, the truth that those young boys knew all too well all those years ago.

We know from other ex-minor seminarians and blog readers that the abuse in fact was going on in the 1960s, at least a decade earlier. 

If many of the minor seminarians knew about it and lived in fear of Placidus in the 1960s, then I suggest we can safely bet that several in the community of monks knew about it too but turned a blind eye. 

But let’s go back to the statement provided by the monks that the most recent case settled and from which this ‘transparency initiative’ arises “concerned sexual abuse committed by Placidus Sander, OSB, during the late 1970s, and was settled in May 2024.” 

It is true that the recent D.H. case goes back to the 1970s.

During this period of over fifty years which they refer to and through the intervening years, complaints had been lodged and received— and ignored. 

See for example Volume 7, Criminal Proceedings, page 25. Information was brought to Canada's Papal Nuncio, to the Archbishop, the Abbot and, I believe, the Rector’s attention. All possible levels of Church leadership in this country.

The victim-survivor, whose name has been redacted, was: 

“…advised by the Papal Nuncio’s office in Ottawa to phone the Bishop’s office in Vancouver to ask and to receive therapy for past S.C.K. experiences. (Name redacted) asked 3 times over a three-year period and did not even get a return phone call.”

Can you imagine? Whomever the victim-survivor was, he was left alone without support and not so much as even a return phone call…

Since the 1970’s, courageous victims who came forward found themselves continually rebuffed at every attempt they were making to bring harms to light. It was resulting from this resistance and rebuttal that these victims subsequently found themselves with no other option but to file lawsuits with the Catholic Church and the Benedictine monks.

As one astute blog reader shared with me this past week, and this reader is themselves a victim-survivor and knows a bit about the legal system and how it is for victims, wrote: 

“The Abbey and the Chancery Office go into protection mode. Vancouver’s top criminal defense lawyer is hired. The priest is acquitted despite admitting a “consensual relationship” with a seminarian. Years later, victims are still looking for the truth, and only now, with some of these documents starting to trickle in do we start to see pieces of the story.” 

‘Pieces’ of the story are scattered all over the place. The pieces are embedded deep and at times are barely detectable throughout different sections of the many documents on this website. 

But the pieces are there…

Take another example. Volume 8, Post Criminal Proceedings, page 68 and 69.

This is an email written on December 19, 2019, and is from a victim-survivor who came forward in 1993, two years before Placidus Sander’s criminal trial. 

By the way, there was NO mention whatsoever of this “1993” victim-survivor’s disclosure or of the Vancouver Archdiocese’s involvement and facilitation of an in-person meeting between this person and his abuser (Placidus) when the Clergy Abuse Review Committee discussed the Placidus Sander’s case in 2018. 

The only thing the Church lawyer (who was the Chair of the Committee) shared with us and related to Placidus were the three complaints received from the plaintiffs who subsequently were questioned by the police and proceeded to criminal trial.

This '1993' victim survivor shares that he confided in and was listened to at one point by the then Monsignor, Gregory Smith and even met with Placidus Sander at the time, arranged by the Archdiocese. 

So why was the Clergy Abuse Review Committee not informed of this? 

Where was that file hidden? 

In ‘secret archives’ even though Archbishop Michael Miller publicly proclaimed he was working for ‘truth and transparency’ and that as a team of committee members, we had apparently been given access to “probe the files”?

Talk about cover-up! This '1993' victim-survivor knows he was 'covered-up' and even says in his email, "I know that there are cover ups. I am also a great example."

This particular '1993' victim-survivor shares that he no longer lives in Canada. He sends an email to the Vancouver Archdiocese with a subject-line title which reads:

“Just another game to make people feel that you care -reporting sexual abuse."

He writes:

“My greatest disappointment is that you have someone I confided in, Monsignor Gregory Smith on your review panel, and I smell another rat!” 

Was this victim-survivor responding perhaps to some outreach made back in 2019 by Monsignor Greg Smith and Marissa Ruggier Andrews? No wonder this victim-survivor is, very understandably so, incensed and angered. 

Monsignor Greg Smith is now the Vicar General for Vancouver. 

This priest, promoted up through the ranks, was someone this victim-survivor once trusted and confided in. But now, the victim-survivor who has already been through so much, smells “another rat”. 

It sounds remarkably similar to another priest promoted up the ranks who was the Vicar General for Vancouver before Gregory Smith, Gary Franken. Gary Franken actually sat at the Clergy Abuse Review Committee table and never once mentioned his own involvement in the cover-up and silencing of a victim survivor in the case of Fr. James Comey (case still pending) and a young 17-year-old girl, a case that mysteriously remained hidden from Clergy Abuse Review Committee and which was not brought to our attention. 

Another rat indeed. And should this not be plural?

Going back to The Minor Seminary Transparency Initiative, the monks, you will note, refer to only one case, noting that this one case goes back to abuses from the 1970’s.

Notably, there have been three separate cases, one criminal and two civil in the last twenty years. And, to my knowledge, there are more coming down the pipeline…

Sadly however, at all junctures when courageous victims attempted to bring things to light, they were pushed back down into the darkness.

Yet this new minor seminary website quotes U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis saying: 

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant”? 

Frankly, I personally find the use of this quote to be hurtful to victims given it has taken sixty years for the monks to acknowledge the incredible efforts and energies expended and let us, without any hesitation but with heartfelt solidarity, also acknowledge those who took their own lives, so harmed, abused, shamed and abandoned by those whose care they were under at the time. 

The monks, from what I read and observe and up until May 2024 only promoted darkness by resisting, hiding and celebrating Placidus's acquittal in the 1990s and still resisting two further civil actions until forced into the position they now find themselves in. Instead and all along, they shunned and blocked the sunlight from reaching victim-survivors.

Moving on, allow me to share the following opening words found under website’s ‘Documents’ tab:

“Westminster Abbey and the Seminary of Christ the King are voluntarily releasing the files of the monk and priest, Placidus Sander, who has been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors."

I am sorry. I want to be generous and magnanimous and positive about all this, but this statement is a complete and blatant lie. And I need to call it out for what it is.

Westminster Abbey and the Seminary of Christ the King never voluntarily wanted to release any files of the monk and priest, Placidus Sander! 

The release of the files and documents only came about because of the specific terms of the D.H. settlement of May 2024. 

D.H. refused to accept the monetary terms offered by Catholic Church leaders if he could not also have the documents pertaining to his case physically released. It was upon his specific request that a website be established and that the documents published. 

There was nothing “voluntary” about it as far as the monks and Vancouver Archdiocese were concerned.

Without those express terms cited in D.H.'s settlement, none of us would be seeing any of these documents. 

The Press Release (May 28, 2024) of the D.H. settlement specifically notes:

“Importantly, D.H. made it an express term of his settlement that the defendants will make public all documents disclosed by them in this litigation, akin to the Minnesota Transparency Initiative. D.H. is hopeful that this public disclosure of information will herald a new era of improved transparency between Roman Catholic institutions, survivors, and the Canadian public.”

The full settlement can be read at the following link:

https://bernadettehowell.com/my-blog-1/f/press-release-rc-archbishop-and-westminster-abbey-settle.

I find the statement that “Westminster Abbey and the Seminary of Christ the King are voluntarily releasing the files of the monk and priest” to be very damning written alongside such words as “your healing matters more than the reputation of the institution” or that there is a claim to a “commitment to transparency and healing”. 

Call it lack of trust on my part, for this is 100% what it is, but I am tending to agree with the blog reader who said he found the website to be “full of weasel words”. 

In other words, words or phrases, as dictionary definitions will tell us, that are “aimed at creating an impression that something specific and meaningful has been said, when in fact only a vague, ambiguous, or irrelevant claim has been communicated.” 

If the healing of victims matter and the monks really are listening, where is the retraction notice for Placidus Sander’s 2021 two-page tribute? 

Have the monks not heard victims continually asking and pleading for a retraction notice? 

How can healing come about when the monks are completely ignoring this basic request that has been requested multiple times by victim-survivors?

Before I finish off and speak to the brief comment on the website which I obtained from D.H. himself, I want to draw your attention to a simple and seeming innocuous document on this website and found in the middle of the mass of various documents.

When next at your laptop or computer, go to Volume 3 (Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vancouver). 

Go to page 89 – 93 of this 258-page document. 

In a letter from the then Vancouver Archbishop, James Carney, to the Abbott at Westminster Abbey, Carney refers to a program that "has been prepared by the Senate in discussions with Father Glendinning” and then goes on to say that “even a casual reading of the topics will show that they touch on matters of everyday interest and importance in pastoral life.”

On page 91, the document subsequently details the various talks on sacraments that Father Barry Glendinning will give to the priests of the Vancouver Archdiocese during their annual clergy days event taking place November 8 – November 10, 1976, at Westminster Abbey/Christ the King Seminary. 

Local Vancouver priests are to be taught and mentored by this sexual predator priest who, at the time of this invitation was a convicted predator priest and on probation for clergy sexual abuse of minors. 

Do you really think Archbishop Carney or others didn’t know this? 

Of course they knew!

Two years earlier in 1974, Fr. Glendinning was charged with gross indecency involving five boys and one girl, and was convicted.

See Sylvia's Site: https://www.theinquiry.ca/wordpress/accused/charged/glendinning-barry/

Such facts are additionally to be found recorded in an Ontario Supreme Court Case:

“On the 12th day of March 1974 Glendinning was arrested and charged with gross indecency with six children.” 

The court documents also note that Glendinning who “pleaded guilty to the six counts two months later, was convicted, and on the 17th day of May and was given a suspended sentence and placed on probation for a period of three years.”

Glendinning, on probation, was sent first to a new parish in London, Ontario, then sent to Southdown and then recycled to the Archdiocese of Edmonton, Alberta, teaching at Edmonton’s Newman Theological College and its affiliated seminary, St. Joseph’s. This was when he was then invited to speak to the Vancouver priests at their annual clergy days retreat. 

This predator priest who sexually molested kids continued, by the way, to sexually molest more kids while in Edmonton. 

Sylvia’s Site reports he sexually molested at least 15 more young boys during his time there although no charges were laid. Oh, and then he was sent to Southdown again because it seems that bishops think that Southdown will ‘cure’ predator priests of this chronic sickness of sexually abusing and harming children.

Fr. Glendinning was invited (as the documents detail) to come to Westminster Abbey and Christ the King Seminary where lots of minors and young boys lived, irresponsibly exposing them to this criminally convicted predator priest and molester of children.

The Abbott and the Archbishop would have been fully aware that Fr. Glendinning, convicted on May 17, 1974, was on three years’ probation for child sexual abuse. 

Sadly, it is this very act of inviting him to speak, reside with and be amongst vulnerable minors that is the epitome of the problem.

Shielding and promoting abusers is clericalism and cronyism at its best, a group of priests who believe themselves exempt from all regular standards of morality.

One has to wonder, and it actually makes my stomach churn, as to what conversations and possible actions took place between Glendinning and Placidus Sander during those November days. 

And between others… 

Yes, of course ‘others.’ 

There is always knowledge, collusion, cover-up and acceptance when such heinous acts are allowed and, whether you wish to believe it or not, there are networks and pedophile rings operating at different levels within the Catholic Church 'brotherhood'. 

Indeed, there are also ‘black cult’ or ‘satanic rituals’ that take place amongst Catholic Church priests as well. See the case of Rachel Mastrogiacomo, sexually raped during mass by California based priest, Fr. Bertrand. 

“After years of silence and shame, Rachel told her diocese of the abuse, but to no avail. Her pleas for help to obtain justice from the Diocese of San Diego, led by Bishop Robert McElroy, were ignored, denied, and deflected. Finally, she was forced to go public and take her abuser to court. Bertrand ultimately confessed and was convicted of ritual rape.” 

Hmmm... interesting that the then Bishop Robert McElroy, since made a Cardinal, has just been in the news this week, promoted to take over the Washington D.C. Archdiocese, considered the most important diocese in the U.S. 

McElroy, by the way, was someone who stonewalled Richard Sipe in 2016 when Sipe wished to share details of certain abuser prelates, of whom one was Theodore McCarrick.

I hope to share more about Californian bishops and a B.C. victim-survivor’s connection to a California priest in an upcoming blog...

Referring back to the Glendinning document on the website, this one simple document which perhaps many of you skimmed over, is just one example of the small but hugely important details found buried in the midst of the vast number of documents compiled for this one trial. 

Bear in mind also that the D.H. case was settled at the eleventh hour and thus, even more critical documents that were being withheld until the last minute do not appear on this website. 

They still remain secret and unpublished. 

Allow me to draw to a close this week with brief comment from D.H. himself who I managed to reach late yesterday evening. 

Our conversation was brief, but his comments focused, as they have always done, on the protection of children and with particular concern for those currently attending this same minor seminary who are still at risk.

D.H. notes all the goodwill and intent expressed in “gracious words” by the monks on the website. 

He alluded to the notion of “a battle” which essentially is what a legal court-case is. In any battle, D.H. commented, there is a conflict that needs to be resolved. There are winners and there are losers. But when the battle is over, the real winner has to then question themself and ask:

What can we now do that is right and so that we don’t have to fight again? How can we avoid future battle?

To be honest, I’m not sure I agree with D.H. that there are winners and losers in cases such as his. Yes, D.H. won the battle of insisting documents be made public on a website and the monks and Archdiocese's leaders lost in that their hand was forced, and they had to agree to publishing such documents as well as parting with money. But they 'won' by offering sufficiently large sums of money so as to prevent court proceedings and Archbishop Michael Miller having to take the stand.

But where is the change?

D.H. did add that “there is still a lot of work to be done”. 

And he did note that while he acknowledges all the nice words found on the website, he also posed the question: 

“Where is their act of contrition?”

The monks complied to the terms of the settlement, but where is their true contrition and action?

Catholics well know that in the Sacrament of Confession, a person normally admits to their faults and failings, apologizes, and then asks for guidance to avoid ‘sinning’ in the future and starts changing how they act. 

The monks do express their “heartfelt commitment to change” but will they change how they act? 

Its early days at one level. But it’s not on another. 

It’s sixty years plus of knowing about a predator priest in their midst and denying everything that he was doing.

And it’s coming up on eight months since the D.H. case was settled.

Has anything really changed? 

I’ll let you make up your own minds on that one.

As for me personally, I saw a blatant lie in the very first words I read on the website introducing the Documents.

And I still see no retraction notice to counteract and remedy the 'glowing' and hurtful Placidus tribute. 

There is one further example I wish to share before I leave you. 

Under the ‘Monk Status’ tab there is simply a one-liner that says Placidus was “removed from involvement in the minor seminary in 1997”. 

Hmm…well so too, more recently, Fr. Peter Nygren was 'removed from his involvement in the minor seminary', albeit it in 2024. 

Indeed, Fr Nygren was additionally "removed from ministry" which Placidus, shamefully, was not.

First off, could the monks not have at least stated, with honesty, clarity and transparency, that:

“Placidus Sander committed sexual abuse of children and was removed from involvement in minor seminary in 1997”.

And secondly, if indeed The Minor Seminary Transparency Initiative is being truthful and transparent, under Monk Status, should we not also see that Fr. Peter Nygren was "removed from ministry in 2024"?

Given two rectors of the Minor Seminary have been “removed from ministry” in the last 27 years alone, I’m inclined to agree with D.H. and other ex-seminarians who are calling for the closure of the minor seminary, that the only way of ensuring no more children are at risk of abuse is to ensure there are no more children attending that minor seminary. Period.

As another ex-seminarian wrote to me after Christmas, “Children are not safe there. The Abbey, the Seminary and the Archdiocese should send the boys home. And then shut the place down. “

Let me share this. Prior Benedict Lefevre wrote in August 2024 and in response to such requests: 

“If the seminary were to be shut down tomorrow, what would I say to all the monks who are staffing it?”

This was the concern? 

What would he say to the monks?



To shut down the minor seminary would be, in his view, to imply that all the monks are too high-risk for minors to come near and thus, what would he say to them. 

Goodness...you can tell none of them have ever been parents who strive, at all times, to put the care and safety of children first.

I think most of us would agree that the monks up at Westminster Abbey and Christ the King Seminary should be able to see the bigger picture. 

They should not be concerned for their jobs teaching small classes of children but rather should be concerned about doing the right thing. 

According to the general populous and the rest of society, children are best raised in the care of their immediate family, creating good memories in their childhood homes, loving healthy relationships and living with a balance of parents and siblings, to include females and males.

Till next week,

Bernadette