Mount Cashel’s Continuing Saga of Abuse and Conspiracy

[Editor’s note: This story contains descriptions of physical and sexual abuse of children.]

Six men began their abuse of young orphans on one coast of Canada, then by a travesty of justice were sent to the opposite side of the country, where they allegedly abused more boys — as many as 200.

This month the offer of a $30-million class-action settlement to the second set of alleged victims to be paid by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Vancouver and two Lower Mainland Catholic schools adds another chapter to this tragic saga — a cycle of pain that a half-century later continues to ripple outward.

It’s worth retracing that dark circle to remind how the powerful who claim to shepherd and protect can instead shield the guilty. And to mark the wholly avoidable further suffering such conspiracies enable.

The “Mount Cashel Six” were members of the Christian Brothers of Ireland who were transferred by their order from Newfoundland after they abused their charges at Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s. They were sent to British Columbia to work at St. Thomas More Collegiate in Burnaby and Vancouver College, also run by the Christian Brothers.

Students in those schools suffered alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the six. It should be noted that none of the new accusations have been proven in court. But as the B.C. class-action filing notes, two of the Christian Brothers had admitted to abuse before they were sent to the West Coast. All six were later convicted of sexually or physically abusing the boys at the orphanage.

The court case that became a B.C. class-action suit was started in 2021 by Darren Liptrot, a former student at Vancouver College. Liptrot claims that he was physically and sexually abused by Brother Edward English in the early 1980s.

Another victim had previously come forward in 2000, telling police in Burnaby that he had been physically and sexually abused by English when he was in the eighth grade at St. Thomas More in 1978. At the time, that alleged victim had decided it was too difficult to proceed with the complaint. English was arrested in New Brunswick by Vancouver police in November 2023.

A settlement hearing is scheduled for the end of April by the B.C. Supreme Court to assess if the class-action payment agreement offer is fair and reasonable.

But this much is confirmed. These alleged crimes could not have happened if the authorities had not covered up the atrocities that did occur in the infamous Mount Cashel scandal.

A whipping and cries for help

The lid hiding Mount Cashel’s secrets was blown off by a beating. On Dec. 6, 1975, Christian Brother Joseph Burke whipped nine-year-old Shane Earle so severely with a belt that the child could not sit down. The small boy’s crime? He lost a library card. A volunteer maintenance man at Mount Cashel, Chesley Riche, reported the beating to social services. He also reported to authorities “the brothers in bed with the boys.”

The director of child welfare called Brother Dermod Nash, who was chief adviser in Newfoundland to Gabriel McHugh, head of the Christian Brothers in Canada and the West Indies. Nash was given the names of brothers involved.

The doctor who examined Shane Earle at Janeway hospital called the Criminal Investigation Division of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary after seeing the boy’s bruised backside. The officers were told about the beating, as well as the alleged sexual assaults at Mount Cashel against the boys by the Christian Brothers. Somehow, the assault did not make it into the constabulary’s occurrence book that night as would normally happen.

As it turned out, there were justice-killing protocols for dealing with the powerful or the prominent in the Newfoundland of the 1970s. In a denominational province, the Roman Catholic Church was the essence of both. From the very beginning the case was treated differently, despite the best efforts of Robert Hillier, the young detective assigned to the case.

The chief of police, John Lawlor, was a staunch Roman Catholic who attended mass daily at the huge cathedral on a hill overlooking the harbour in St John’s. When told they had a “serious problem” at the orphanage, including suspected sexual abuse by the Christian Brothers, Lawlor was shocked — and worried. He had been taught by the brothers as a young boy and also was deeply involved in the planning for the 100th anniversary celebration of the Christian Brothers of Ireland in Newfoundland.

Lawlor called the deputy minister of justice, his good friend and a staunch fellow Catholic, Vince McCarthy. On Thursday, Dec. 11, Hillier was told to halt his investigation until further notice. The Justice Department explained that arrangements had been made with the Christian Brothers to have the brother superior of the order in Mono Mills, Ontario, come to St John’s to assess the situation.

When Hillier finally got the go-ahead to interview the boys of Mount Cashel at the police station, they were crying and exhausted.

The boys complained about Brother English and Brother Alan Ralph feeling inside their pants. Sometimes Brother English would give a boy he had molested the toy from a cornflakes box.

Brother Joseph Burke beat them across a bare backside with a stick or a strap. The boys also described Brother Douglas Kenny kissing them on the lips and asking them to bite his tongue and his neck. Brother Kevin Short was added to the list of alleged abusers.

The boys complied with the sexual advances because they had no choice. One nine-year-old told detectives about Brother English: “He tells me to play doctor with him and when I do, he puts my hand inside his pants and makes me play with his bird.... I does this for him because I’m afraid he will hit me if I don’t do it.”

The boys also informed the detectives that some of the Christian Brothers had left the orphanage suddenly, just as the police investigation began. The detectives were devastated by what they were hearing.

After the boys had given their statements, a further ordeal awaited. They had to troop down to the Ford station wagon where one of their abusers, Mount Cashel superintendent Brother Kenny, was waiting behind the wheel to ferry them back to the orphanage.

The coverup conspiracy

By Tuesday, Dec. 16, Hillier had decided he had gathered enough evidence to start interviewing suspects and making arrests. Then something stunning happened. Hillier was told by both the chief of police and the assistant chief of police not to take these steps until they got back to him. No reason was given.

In the meantime, brothers English and Ralph were whisked out of St. John’s after several boys made allegations against them. One was sent to Grand Falls and the other to Corner Brook on the west coast of the island.

Word spread that the two brothers were about to leave the province. When the interviews were finally conducted, they did not follow normal police practice. The sessions were not held at police headquarters but at McAuley Hall near Holy Heart of Mary school. Hillier was told that he had to do the interviews as quickly as possible since the brothers were on their way out of the province.

The brothers were waiting with their luggage when the detectives arrived to interview them. One was supposed to be going to the United States. The brothers were congenial, co-operative and very nervous. Brother Ralph gave a written signed statement, but Brother English would agree only to an oral statement. Astonishingly they matter-of-factly admitted to the allegations.

Hillier knew he was running against the clock when he received a phone call telling him to return to headquarters. The detective was thunderstruck when the chief of police and his assistant pushed through the door of the Criminal Investigation Division office and informed him that the investigation was over.

Hillier replied, “I can’t do that, Chief, there’s more work to be done.” Only 26 of the more than 90 boys at the orphanage had been interviewed.

Lawlor replied, “There’ll be no work.” The Church would be looking after matters pertaining to the brothers. Lawlor demanded Hillier’s report immediately and the detective complied. It was entitled “Homosexual Acts and Child Abuse at Mount Cashel Orphanage” and statements he had taken were attached. Hiller pointed out to his superiors that several other Christian Brothers had been mentioned but had yet to be interviewed.

Another shock awaited the detective. Less than an hour after Hillier had turned in his report, he was ordered to alter it. The detective recalled, “I was told to rewrite the report and leave out the sex matters, just put in the physical abuse.” He protested but knew he would be fired if he persisted. Stunned and upset, Hillier thought about leaving the force.

As the justice system blinked, the church went to work. Brother Ralph was sent to the Emmanuel Convalescent Home in Aurora, Ontario, in January 1976. “Southdown,” as the refuge and treatment centre for troubled priests was known, was a 110-acre farm deep in the rolling hills of King Township’s horse country.

Brother English was sent to the House of Affirmation in Whitinsville, Massachusetts, a Catholic-run centre for troubled clergy 45 minutes west of Boston.

Brother Kenny also departed from Mount Cashel prematurely in January 1976, halfway through his second three-year term. He was sent to Rome for a sabbatical.

On April 10, 1976, Kenny learned his new assignment for the next year would be at Vancouver College, where his religious superior hoped Kenny would be “able to assist with the boarders.... I feel sure, also, that for a while you will not want too many reminders of the painful experience of December. Vancouver will take care of that too.”

On the same day as Kenny’s reassignment, April 10, 1976, Brother English was dispatched to St. Thomas More Collegiate in Burnaby, B.C. The principal was told that English had been involved in the Mount Cashel situation “because of his overemphasis on corporal punishment,” which had been rectified. There was no mention of Brother English’s sexual abuse outlined in Hillier’s original report.

The six-month treatment that had been suggested for English was less than half over before he was reassigned to Vancouver.

Brother Burke was transferred to St. Bonaventure’s College in St. John’s, but he would eventually become vice-principal of Vancouver College.

Brother Kevin Short would become principal of St. Thomas More Collegiate.

Brother Alan Ralph was sent to teach at St. Joseph’s Academy in Antigua.

In 1975 no treatment was offered for the boys, despite the additional trauma of the police investigation.

Back in the day, the original investigation into Mount Cashel was completed without any charges being laid. The celebrations to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Christian Brothers apostolate in St. John’s went ahead as planned. Visitors from all over the world, including Mother Teresa, flooded in to take part.

The most prestigious event was a black-tie gala at Memorial University on Jan. 31, 1976. Five hundred and eighty-three guests braved a severe winter storm to attend the tribute to the Christian Brothers. The sumptuous dinner went off without a hitch.

Shane Earle was sent back to Mount Cashel with his older brother Billy four months after he was beaten by Brother Burke.

It would take 14 years before the truth finally emerged in 1989 about the secret machinations at the top levels of the attorney general’s office, the social services department, the police and the Christian Brothers of Ireland and came to light.

Belated Mount Cashel reckonings

Shane Earle left Mount Cashel Orphanage for good as midnight neared on Sept. 7, 1987. No longer would he and his two brothers climb the broad front steps that had led them into the care of Brother Douglas Kenny.

Two years later, in 1989, he would be the person who finally told the story of Mount Cashel to the world. Fourteen years after he was beaten and abused as a small child, he called the newspaper where I worked, the Sunday Express, and asked for a meeting. In the quiet gloom of a St. John’s hotel, he led me through the dark chronicles of Mount Cashel. He told me, “Mount Cashel was supposed to be the place for boys. But it turned out to be hell on Earth.”

Not by any plan, the story broke on Easter Sunday 1989. A brilliant group of young journalists at the Sunday Express kept investigating. It became an international sensation. Shane and I appeared on Oprah Winfrey’s show to tell the sordid tale to an astonished United States.

This was 12 years before the Boston Globe investigation into the sexual abuse of children by priests in 2002. The Academy Award-winning movie Spotlight was based on that series of reports.

In 1989, shortly after the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary reopened the 1975 Mount Cashel case, 10 former residents accused Brother Kenny of engaging in 38 incidents of physical and sexual abuse. The orphanage’s former superintendent was charged with nine counts of indecent assault, three counts of gross indecency and two counts of assault causing bodily harm. The Newfoundland Supreme Court convicted Kenny on seven counts of indecent assault on April 14, 1992. He was sentenced to five years.

In 1991, Brother Burke, the man who had beaten Shane Earle, was convicted on three counts of indecent assault and one count of causing bodily harm for his conduct at Mount Cashel. The convictions were upheld on appeal but most of the charges were overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Brother Burke was given a conditional discharge for one count of causing bodily harm. He returned to Vancouver with no criminal record and, with the support of the community, continued teaching.

In 1991, facing 20 charges, mostly for indecent assault, Brother English received a 10-year sentence for abusing children at Mount Cashel Orphanage. He served his time at a federal prison in New Brunswick.

A royal commission was established to find out what went so tragically wrong in Newfoundland. It laid bare a stunning collective malfunction at all levels of society, the utter failure to protect the interests of vulnerable and cruelly abused children. At least 87 people in positions of authority knew about what happened at Mount Cashel in 1975. Yet no one took action to drag the scandal out of the shadows into the light.

Fifty years later, the suffering has come full circle. Adults who had been children in B.C. are claiming that they were dreadfully harmed by some of the same men who had abused the boys of Mount Cashel.

If the class-action settlement of $30 million is approved next month by the B.C. Supreme Court, former students of St. Thomas More between 1976 and 1989 and of Vancouver College between 1975 and 2013 can apply for compensation from the settlement fund. Payments, scaled to reflect severity of abuse, could range from $30,000 to $1 million.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Joe Fiorante, expects more than 200 victims will come forward to seek restitution. Among the claims so far logged, a “very significant number of those involved physical abuse by the Christian Brothers,” Fiorante told CBC. “And tragically there are a number of serious sexual abuse claims that we're aware of.”