Abuse claims scheduled for month-long trial. Roughly seven decades ago, the Roman Catholic archbishop
patted the heads of some boys as he passed them in the hallway. Among
them was a St. John’s man who is set to stand up in court in less than
two weeks in a case about whether the church had a role in operating the
infamous Mount Cashel orphanage.
The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp.
of St. John’s, no longer represented by its longtime local lawyer, is
scheduled to head to court April 4 to fight four test cases —
representing about 60 claimants of physical and sexual abuse by some
members of the Roman Catholic lay order, the Christian Brothers, dating
back to the late 1940s, ’50s and mid-1960s.