Church 'needs to find a different way' to address survivors, says Rosica accuser

(OSV News) -- OSV News recently spoke with Father Michael Bechard, who alleges in a civil lawsuit filed in March with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice that he was sexually abused by Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, a Vatican media expert, founder of a prominent Canadian national Catholic television network and organizer of the 2002 Toronto World Youth Day. The suit also names Father Rosica's order, the Basilian Fathers of Toronto.

For his part, Father Rosica has denied any improper conduct and maintained his innocence. He has urged the court to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing the allegations should play out instead in a canonical court of the Catholic Church.

Father Bechard told OSV News he has also filed a complaint under "Vos Estis Lux Mundi," Pope Francis' 2019 motu proprio governing the reporting of alleged sexual abuse involving clergy, religious and bishops.

This interview with Father Bechard has been edited for clarity and length.
 
OSV News: What is the status of the legal action you have taken regarding the alleged abuse?

Father Bechard: First, I think it's important to say that I never wanted this to become a legal matter. I never wanted to go to court. I never wanted to engage lawyers. I spoke to my bishop. I had spoken to the superior general of the Basilians. I thought that we could really address this issue quietly and discreetly.

(But) when I saw that (Father Rosica) was coming back and doing more work and putting himself out there (despite the reports of alleged abuse), I thought I needed to do something -- not only to kind of begin the process of healing within myself, but to ensure that Father Rosica didn't have the opportunity to hurt other people in the way that he hurt me.

In November 2023 I received, along with everybody else in the diocese, a message from our bishop indicating that he had invited Father Rosica to do two weeks of formation and retreat facilitation with all of our diocesan clergy. And at that point I realized that, despite the fact that I had brought this forward to my bishop, he chose not to take my concerns seriously, and then still welcomed this man back into our diocese. I couldn't remain silent anymore. I felt the need to speak openly about what happened.

(Editor's note: In a statement emailed Sept. 23, the Diocese of London, Ontario -- which is not named in Father Bechard's lawsuit -- told OSV News, "A recent report in the online publication 'The Pillar' and other media outlets contains serious allegations that Bishop Ronald Fabbro failed to act in 2015 when a priest from the Diocese reported misconduct by Fr. Thomas Rosica in the early 2000s, directed towards the priest. Bishop Fabbro denies this allegation. A diocesan priest did inform Bishop Fabbro of alleged misconduct by Fr. Rosica that had taken place years earlier. The Bishop advised the diocesan priest that the correct course of action was to contact the Congregation of St. Basil so they could begin an investigation.")

I met with (Father) Kevin Storey, the superior general of the Basilians, in December 2023 at his office in Toronto. He was very sympathetic, and led me to believe that he was taking my claims very seriously, that he recognized that there had been problems with Tom before, and that he had already written to my bishop to indicate that Tom would no longer be doing this retreat.

What was odd is that after speaking with the Basilians, I saw that Father Rosica was still scheduled to be doing retreats. He gave a retreat in February, and he was scheduled to do one in 2025 (at a Jesuit-run retreat center). The Jesuits had (even) issued a statement saying that their safe environment policy no longer permitted Father Rosica to do so. (Editor's note: Father Rosica led a Feb. 16-18 retreat and had been scheduled to lead a Jan. 6-10, 2025, retreat at the Manresa Jesuit Spiritual Renewal Center in Pickering, Ontario. That retreat was recently canceled, the center told OSV News in a Sept. 17 email.)

The lawyers for the Basilians and Father Rosica have indicated to my lawyers that they're going to ask that the case be dismissed from civil court and then turned over to canonical court. I would hope that a judge wouldn't allow that to happen, just based on the church's past practice around some of these issues. There are no systems or really any (canonical) courts set up anywhere in North America to address these issues. So if I wanted to address something (canonically), it would mean hiring canon lawyers overseas and then having them kind of fight the battle for me.

Over and over again, not just in our own diocese but elsewhere, when the church has tried to address these issues on their own, what I often see is that people are simply re-victimized or the one who's the perpetrator has a chance to re-offend again.
 
OSV News: What is the status of the "Vos Estis" report you also filed?

Father Bechard: I submitted my original testimony at the end of February, and I hadn't heard anything at the end of March. … I've checked in every month since then. And the last time I checked in, they said, "We haven't heard anything, but be sure that we will get back to you when we hear something." It was kind of like, "Don't call us, we'll call you."

I'm grateful that Pope Francis has put the ("Vos Estis") procedure into place. I'm grateful that I was able to express my concerns to the metropolitan through this platform.

I wish that the church was a little bit more definitive ... on what timelines for these things would look like. You can imagine holding onto something for years and years, finally mounting the courage to disclose what happened to you, and then feeling like you're waiting for an unknown period of time for some sort of answer.
 
OSV News: What can you specifically share about the alleged abuse you experienced, which according to the legal filing dates to several months in 2000? (Editor's note: Father Rosica's attorney, J. David Murphy, declined any comment to OSV News on the following allegations.)

Father Bechard: I had been invited by Father Rosica to join him at a resort north of Toronto. I believed that there was more than just one of us going to this resort together, and it ended up just being Tom and I. When we arrived at the resort, we brought our suitcases into our room. I went into the washroom to use the facilities. When I came out of the washroom, Father Rosica was laying on one of the beds in a pair of white boxers and a T-shirt, inviting me to cuddle.
I said I was not interested in cuddling, and as a matter of fact, I was no longer feeling very well. I wanted to get back in my car and go back to Toronto. From there, I made my way back to the diocese.

The second occasion, I was working pretty closely with Father Rosica on preparations for World Youth Day 2002 (in Toronto), and he was hoping to secure the assistance and the endorsement of (then) Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his wife. So (Father Rosica) asked me if I would go with him to the prime minister's residence in Ottawa, and he invited me to come to Toronto the night before because we were leaving early the next morning.

Now, it wasn't uncommon for me to be at the Newman Center where Father Rosica was working, and I normally stayed in a guest room. When I arrived in Toronto, Father Rosica said the guest rooms were all occupied, and that he was going to put a cot in his room for me. It ended up not being a cot, but a mattress on the floor beside his bed. I remember there was a sheet on top of the mattress, and there was a gray woolen blanket on top of that.

We had gone out for dinner, and we came back. ... I went to sleep on the floor, and then during the night, I found myself being grabbed and groped and fondled by Father Rosica.

I said "no" on a number of occasions, and kind of pushed my mattress away. I thought that would be the end of things.

The next morning, we were in the World Youth Day office, and he asked me if I would leave my diocese to come to work full-time in Toronto with him.

I said, "No. I just got appointed to campus ministry, I'm teaching at the university, and I really believe that my place right now is to be in the diocese."

And he said, "Well, you know, I can really make your career go places." At that point, I knew that this was not a man that I wanted to be associated with any longer.

So on top of the physical assault, there seemed to be this sense that if I was more compliant and came to take care of Tom, that Tom in turn would take care of me.

I think in my situation, it was a very senior priest in a very powerful position who was well engaged with the universal church, (and) who preyed upon the naivete, goodwill or maybe the ignorance of this fairly newly ordained priest.

I put my confidence in this guy. He was someone that my bishop at the time told me would be a good role model for a university chaplaincy. You walk into his office and there's like pictures of him and the Holy Father.

At the end of the day, one of the reasons I suppose I never brought all this forward (until now) was because I thought, "Who's going to believe me, this newly ordained kid from the country, when you've got this powerful guy who's leading workshops, doing translations, writing communications for the Vatican?"
 
OSV News: What did you experience following these alleged encounters with Father Rosica?

Father Bechard: After the abuse, I was living for a long time with anxiety and depression that I began to self-treat with alcohol and benzodiazepines. So that went on for about six years. I found myself coming into Alcoholics Anonymous in January of 2008. ... It kind of gave me the ability to see myself as God sees me, to recognize that I was not responsible for the abuse. And when I could work through those things, then I had the ability to speak to my bishop.

I think many of us who are survivors of sexual abuse, we begin to blame ourselves, question our own identity, ask if we did something that would have made it appear as though this was welcomed or even acceptable.
 
OSV News: What are you currently experiencing as the legal action and "Vos Estis" filings are in process?

Father Bechard: I no longer have any suicidal ideation, but the events over the last six months, in terms of talking to my bishop and talking to Father Rosica's superior, has left me at times feeling quite anxious.

I've really lost a lot of my faith in the institutional church. I struggle being around clergy or around people who are in positions of authority and leadership, because I feel that they're going to hurt me. ... I feel like something that was very precious and holy and innocent was taken away from me.

My bishop has said to me before that he finds me to be a very angry person. And I am. I'm not angry at people (in general). I think I'm angry at him and his lack of accountability.

The church needs to find a different way of ministering to and speaking with victims or survivors of clerical abuse. I think when the church is defending itself in many situations against the victims or survivors, we're just re-traumatizing people again. We keep on asking for more details of what happened or when exactly was the date. At the time when you're being sexually assaulted, you're not writing (it) down in your calendar.

But I pray for Father Rosica and for my bishop every day. Sometimes I pray that God will not do to them the things that I would like to do to them. And that's a very honest prayer.

And then sometimes the prayer is, "I pray and I hope that you are freed from everything that keeps you unwell."