"Insurer Sues Canadian Diocese for Covering Up Sex Abuse"

churchmilitant.com

"AXA court documents filed with the Superior Court in London mentions five abusive clerics, including former priests Charles Sylvestre and John Harper, for sexually abusing children and teens between the 1960s and the 1970s. Both men were moved from parish to parish for decades to cover their offenses.

The insurance company says it would not have insured, renewed the policy or increased premiums for the diocese if it had known about Sylvestre and Harper's past. The company claims that the policy in effect from 1963–71 never existed because it would have been null and void owing to the diocese's failure to reveal abuse.

The documents continue:

The Diocese of London, consistent with the policies and practices of the Roman Catholic church more broadly, engaged in a practice of concealing reports of child sexual abuse by members of the diocese's clergy, and then assigning the priests in question to different parishes in the Diocese, thereby providing the priests with further opportunity to commit sexual assaults upon children within the new parish."