Father Des McGrath

A Toronto Star story on the 2004 federal election suggested if there was a man in Newfoundland who could be called a saint, it was Father Des McGrath.
Paul Vivian read the article and became physically ill.
“I just projectile vomited across the table,” recalls the Corner Brook native, who was living in Toronto at the time.
“My partner, who knew what I was going through, looked at the article and said, ‘Paul, you have to do something about this. You have to confront this. You’ve been receiving psychiatric care for years. You’re still waking up screaming in the middle of the night. If you don’t confront this man, it will ruin the rest of your life.’ ”
Within a month of reading the story, Vivian attempted suicide.
He tried again about a month later.
“And it was close,” he says. “I was (unconscious) for three days.”
McGrath — lauded for helping to create the Fish Food and Allied Workers’ union in 1970 — was found dead in his Stephenville garage July 28.
It was one day after he failed to appear in court to face sex charges, including three counts of indecent assault.
The incidents were alleged to have taken place in Lourdes on the west coast between Jan. 1, 1981, and Dec. 31, 1982, and are said to have involved a boy who was around 11 at the time.
McGrath was an Order of Canada recipient and was honoured for being a humanitarian. Many who knew and worked closely with him were shocked by the allegations.
Vivian wasn’t.
While McGrath was never found guilty of abusing him, Vivian, now 44, reached a $250,000 settlement with the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of St. George’s in late 2007 because of what he said the priest had done to him in the late ’70s and early ’80s. (Due to the church’s bankruptcy, only $214,804 was paid out.)
He says the church offered to settle with him because his description of the sexual abuse was so compelling.
Vivian says during the alternative dispute resolution hearing, he was able to draw pictures of rooms in the church and new parish manse where some of the abuse happened. He was also able to describe McGrath’s body in detail.
The agreement between Vivian and the church stipulates that the settlement is not an admission of liability, but represents a compromise of disputed claims.
Vivian, who is gay and has known it since he was a young man, told The Telegram the sexual abuse started about a year after McGrath recruited him to serve as an altar boy at Holy Redeemer Parish in Corner Brook.
He figures he was in Grade 7 at the time of the first encounters — mutual masturbation and oral sex in the altar boys’ change room and bathroom, as well as in the vestry.
“I didn’t like it,” Vivian says on the phone from Toronto.
“There was no question in my mind about that.”
He says he’s sure he did not enjoy the experience because he told a family member, who didn’t believe him.
The abuse escalated to anal intercourse, he says, adding that a lot of the incidents happened in McGrath’s black Crown Victoria or the priests’ residence.
When intercourse would take place at the new parish manse, Vivian says McGrath would often initiate it by reading from a book called “The Persian Boy,” by Mary Renault, which is about Alexander the Great’s boy lover.
Vivian says their encounters continued even after McGrath left the Corner Brook parish, and the priest would rent a hotel room when
he visited the west coast
city.
“There were certainly people that I knew and that McGrath knew who saw us in the lobby, clearly going downstairs (to a room),” he said.
“And that used to frighten me to pieces. McGrath was cool as a cucumber.”
He said encounters involving oral sex and mutual masturbation would often happen after he had helped McGrath serve mass, and McGrath regularly gave him cigarettes and often offered booze.
After sex, Vivian said McGrath would observe, “Anything that feels that good, couldn’t be bad” or, on occasion, “That was fine now, tell your mudder.”
“And then he’d laugh. I’ll never forget that,” Vivian said, adding the priest would also tell him they were doing what gay people do.
Despite the smokes, the liquor, occasional gifts and the time they spent together, Vivian said McGrath’s exploitation of him remained hidden in the guise of a family friend guiding a troubled teen.
“My parents were thrilled with his interest in me. They just thought it was great,” he says.
Vivian says he never lashed out at McGrath because he was too scared.
It was also made very clear that he couldn’t say anything because it would ruin both of their lives, he adds.
Vivian says he was afraid someone would find out and think he was responsible.
He says he was having nightmares and praying to God for forgiveness.
“I had worked myself into quite a spot. ... I felt hollow, that’s how I felt … and I was more and more interested in just being drunk.”

Five years of abuse
Vivian says the abuse continued for five years, until he was about 17.
While attending Dalhousie University a year or so later, he says, everything spiralled out of control and the abuse he suffered was seriously affecting his life.
He moved to Toronto and managed to put a good face on his problems for a while before things went off the rails for a long time (see Part 2 of this story in Monday’s Telegram).
Vivian says after he read The Toronto Star article — which was prompted by McGrath’s bid to win a federal seat for the NDP — he endured weeks of intense rage.
He says he even called the priest to tell him he had destroyed his life.
McGrath, Vivian says, responded by sending him money. He doesn’t remember the amount, and says the cheque was destroyed and never cashed.
The newspaper story and encouragement from family eventually spurred him to pursue legal action against McGrath.
“It was certainly not money-motivated. I wanted him removed from active service, because I was so angry he was still running around, running for the NDP, being called a saint in the newspaper. It was just an indignity that I just decided I wasn’t going to live with.”
He says he gave McGrath the option to avoid the legal proceeding by resigning from service and providing the names of any other victims.
“He laughed in my face,” Vivian says.
By the time he was offered a settlement, Vivian says he was cracking up and his life was in shambles.
But at least he knew the agreement reached with the church meant McGrath would have been censured.
Still, he says, the settlement gave him little solace.
“There was nothing satisfying about it. I never felt a sense of justice,” Vivian says.
He says he is telling his story because of his dissatisfaction with how the church handled the matter, and in case there are other victims.
He believes there are, based on things McGrath told him.
“McGrath told me about his encounters with other kids my age, although he was very cagey about the details,” Vivian says.
He hopes going public helps anyone who didn’t get a chance to see justice served because of McGrath’s death, which is believed to have been a suicide.
If there are victims out there, Vivian wants them to know at least one person believes them — him.
“My life became hell because of this. One of the only things that pulled me out of this was being believed in and having proved that it happened. And I said to myself, what would it be like if I was one of these men and I had to live now without any verification? ... One of the most important things in my life was that I was believed, that this happened to me.”
Vivian has advice for anyone who may have been abused by McGrath, and it comes from his own experience — get help.
“Otherwise, it will rip your life apart.”
In Part 2, Monday: Paul Vivian describes how sexual abuse ruined much of his life.

sbartlett@thetelegram.com