Fr Godwin Scerri’s Paedophilia Charges in Canada Relate to 1983
By Karl Schembri
The Malta Independent
Downlaoded October 17, 2003
A priest who is now facing charges of rape and sexual abuse of a child at St Joseph’s Home in Santa Venera had already faced charges of child sexual abuse that he allegedly committed while in Canada between 1983 and 1987, before he allegedly abused children in Malta.
According to a Canadian paper, the Maltese Curia was informed about the charges by Canadian authorities.
Fr Godwin Scerri, 67, a member of the Missionary Society of St Paul, was reported by Canadian newspaper The Windsor Star on 24 June 1993 as facing “sexual assault charges if he ever returns to Canada” following a warrant of arrest issued by the Ontario Provincial Police.
The report carrying the title, “Accused priest remains in Malta”, had said that Fr Scerri was wanted by the Canadian authorities in connection with charges of sexual abuse filed by a 22-year-old man. The man had alleged that he was sexually abused by Fr Scerri while the priest was in Emeryville and on Pelee Island between 1983 and 1987. Fr Scerri was a priest at St William’s Church in Emeryville at that time.
The Ontario Provincial Police had said back then that they issued a warrant for the arrest of Fr Scerri after London diocese officials said they couldn’t force Fr Scerri to return to Canada from Malta. The Windsor Star report said that the Maltese Curia had been informed of the charges, including sexual assault and gross indecency, adding that Fr Scerri had refused to return to Canada.
Only three months after The Windsor Star’s report, KullHadd picked up the story and published the charges against Fr Scerri in a front-page report on 5 September 1993.
KullHadd had followed Fr Scerri’s steps back here in Malta and reported that he was working at the San Domenico Savio oratory in Birkirkara with adolescents and youth. He was also working at St Joseph’s Home in Santa Venera.
The Archbishop’s Curia had confirmed to KullHadd that it knew about the allegations “but only through foreign newspaper reports” while former MSSP Superior General Fr James Bonello had told the media that “MSSP carried its preliminary investigations and it resulted that the priest in question always denied the allegations against him both in Canada and in Malta”.
Fr Scerri is now facing paedophilia charges together with Fr Charles Pulis and Br Joseph Bonnett in a child abuse scandal that rocked the Maltese church over the last weeks.
Fr Scerri is the only one who is also facing charges of rape with violence.
The three religious members are expected to appear in Court on 28 October in front of Magistrate Saviour Demicoli behind close doors. Some cases of child abuse reported to the Maltese police go back to around 1983 and have been allegedly ongoing until this year with other children, until the priests involved were reportedly removed from contact with children.
At least 11 children were allegedly sexually abused by the priests at the institute for children in Santa Venera, at the MSSP’s summer residence in Marfa and at St Agatha’s convent in Rabat.
The reports carried by The Windsor Star and KullHadd in 1993 state that both the Curia and the MSSP knew about the allegations in Canada but they still allowed Fr Scerri to work with children at the institute upon his return, at the society’s youth oratory in Birkirkara and elsewhere.
When contacted yesterday, the Director of St Joseph’s Home, Fr Silvio Bezzina, said he could not answer questions about Fr Scerri in 1993 as he was not in a position of authority back then. “I don’t know what happened at that time,” Fr Bezzina said.
He added that the Superior General of that time is now on a mission in the Philippines.
Gozitan clergy abuse scandal rocks Maltese Church’s omertà
Karl Schembri
Malta Today News 22 October 2006
For years now, the Maltese and Gozitan curias have been sweeping under the carpet some of the most serious allegations of child abuse by members of the clergy and religious people, shelving files of reported cases in their obscure and secretive internal tribunals, away from police investigators and doomed to remain in the darkest ecclesiastical corridors unless the victims find the courage to report their cases to civil authorities.
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Sacred Scandals
1986 – Fr Louis Scerri, a Jesuit and teacher at St Aloysius is silently removed from the order after reports of abuse of his students surface to his superiors. He is eventually posted at a girls’ junior lyceum in Handaq and then at a government school in Mosta,
facing criminal charges of child abuse later on
1993 – MSSP member Fr Godwin Scerri is rushed to Malta from Canada as soon as child abuse allegations are filed to the Ontario Provincial Police. The Curia takes his denial and stops investigations, but he is still considered a fugitive of justice facing charges of sexual assault on minors in Canada.
Incredibly the Maltese Archbishop posts him as spiritual director of Can. P. Pullicino Girls’ Secondary School in Rabat upon his return. Ten years later he faced fresh charges of abuse of children at the St Joseph Home in Santa Venera
2002 – Fr Louis Scerri, who was serving at the San Gejtanu parish in Hamrun, stands accused of raping three minor sisters from Mosta. The Curia says it is not responsible for him
October 2003 – Fr Godwin Scerri, Fr Charles Pulis and Br Joseph Bonnett, all members of the Missionary Society of St Paul, are charged in criminal court of abusing and raping children at the St Joseph Home in Santa Venera
October 2006 – Fr Anthony Mercieca of Gozo is named by disgraced US Congressman Mark Foley as having abused him 40 years back in South Florida when the latter
was still an altar boy
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