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Keep them keen: Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes for homemade mustard and what to use it with

Yes, you could just buy it in a jar or tin, but mustard is so easy to make that you really ought to try it at least once

Yotam Ottolenghi's creamy chicken with mustard and gherkins
Yotam Ottolenghi’s creamy chicken with mustard and gherkins: ‘A classic chicken fricassée.’ Photograph: Johanna Parkin for the Guardian. Food styling: Jack Sargeson
Yotam Ottolenghi’s creamy chicken with mustard and gherkins: ‘A classic chicken fricassée.’ Photograph: Johanna Parkin for the Guardian. Food styling: Jack Sargeson

First published on Fri 9 Jan 2015 13.00 EST

Making your own mustard may seem a bit of an indulgence when there are so many options available to buy in tins or jars, but do give it a go. It’s incredibly easy, the results are fast and the feeling of simple but tangible achievement is really rather lovely, in a “Ta-da, look what I made!” way.

Homemade mustard also gives you the opportunity to play around with the variables: texture, pungency and flavourings. Whether you want your mustard smooth or wholegrain is simple enough. For a smooth mustard, soak the mustard seeds in a jar that’s large enough to accommodate them when they swell (a lot), and make sure it’s not sealed, to avoid any unforeseen explosions when they do. Once they have been soaked, simply transfer the seeds and any unabsorbed liquid to a food processor and blitz to a wet paste. Your mustard will be runnier than commercial varieties, but you can always thicken it up with a little flour, if you prefer. For a completely smooth mustard, simply pass the mix through a fine-mesh sieve. Then it’s ready to have any flavourings you fancy added to it: a pinch of salt, a scrap of honey, various ground spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, allspice all work) as well as dried and fresh herbs such as basil and tarragon, which is common in the slightly vinegary and sweet Bordeaux mustard.

Wholegrain mustard, as you might expect, doesn’t require blitzing, but any mustard’s kick depends on the seeds being damaged to a greater or lesser extent. So, even in wholegrain, the seeds require some crushing, which I do with a pestle and mortar. This process releases the enzymes within, which, when coupled with water, activate the pungent compound. These compounds reach their peak of strength after about 10 minutes, and will break down further unless you do something to prevent it. An acidic liquid – cider or wine vinegar, white wine, lemon juice, unsweetened grape juice – will stop this reaction, as will heating the mixture, and the pungency and flavour will therefore be preserved. The liquid you choose also affects how pungent your mustard is – grape juice produces something more heady than cider or wine vinegar, for example.

When mustard seeds are left whole and cooked – as in, say, many Indian dishes, where they are toasted or fried until they pop – the fact that the cells are undamaged means that the enzymes remain inactivated, and the resulting flavour is nutty and bitter rather than pungent.

Mustard loses its flavour when subjected to heat, so add it only during the final stages of cooking. It provides a welcome kick to so many of the dishes that provide comfort in January: cauliflower or macaroni cheese, a creamy mash or gratin. Those are the kind of dishes that make me keen as mustard.

Homemade wholegrain mustard

A very simple recipe to get you started. This keeps in the fridge for a good few weeks, so the glow you’ll get from making your own is one that lasts. Makes one small jar.

3 tbsp black mustard seeds
3 tbsp English mustard powder
¼ tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp runny honey
1 tbsp white-wine vinegar
60ml dry white wine
½ tsp salt

Wash and sterilise one small jar and lid, and set aside. Put the mustard seeds in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar, and pound lightly, until about half of them are crushed and the rest only partly so. Transfer to a bowl with all the remaining ingredients, and mix. Pour into the jar, cover and refrigerate for at least 24 hours before using; the mustard needs this time to firm up. And that’s it – see, I told you it was easy.

Creamy chicken with mustard and gherkins

A classic chicken fricassée in a creamy mustard sauce with a sweet-sour hit from the gherkins. Serves four.

1 tbsp sunflower oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 chicken thighs (about 1kg), skin on and bone in
30g unsalted butter
1 large onion, peeled and finely diced
5g thyme sprigs
400g small button mushrooms
1 tsp paprika
300ml chicken stock
2 tsp homemade (or shop-bought) wholegrain mustard
100g soured cream
80g double cream
10 small gherkins, cut in half lengthways
5g parsley leaves, roughly chopped
5g tarragon leaves, roughly chopped

Put the oil in a medium bowl with half a teaspoon salt and a good grind of pepper. Add the chicken and mix with your hands to coat.

Put a large saute pan for which you have a lid on a high heat and, once hot, add half of the chicken skin side down. Sear for six minutes, turning halfway through, until both sides are golden-brown, then remove the chicken from the pan and set aside while you sear the rest of the chicken.

Keep the oil in the pan, keep the pan on the stove and turn down the heat to medium. Add the butter, onion and thyme, and saute for five minutes, until softened. Add the mushrooms, cook for eight minutes, until they take on a little colour, then add the paprika, half a teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper. Stir, cook for a minute, then add the stock and mustard. Cook for five or so minutes, to thicken the sauce, then stir in the chicken, cover and leave to cook for 10 minutes. Remove the lid, stir through both creams and cook, uncovered, for 10 minutes more, until the chicken is cooked through; if the sauce needs further thickening, lift out the chicken, reduce the sauce, then put the chicken back in. Off the heat, stir in the gherkins, parsley and tarragon, and serve piping hot – mashed potato or plain boiled rice would make a very happy partner.

Decadent ham hock sandwich

Yotam Ottolenghi's decadent ham hock sandwich
Yotam Ottolenghi’s decadent ham hock sandwich: ‘My take on the classic BLT, elevated to a higher plane.’ Photograph: Johanna Parkin for the Guardian. Food styling: Jack Sargeson

My take on the classic BLT, elevated to a higher plane by the addition of braised ham hock and mature cheddar. The ham hock takes a while to cook, so, rather than just making enough for these sandwiches, I’ve suggested cooking two here and saving the second hock, along with all the liquor, to make a soup later in the week: just add cooked barley or bulgar and any seasonal veg to the hot stock, and stir in shredded ham towards the end. If you want to make the sandwiches alone, just cook one hock and halve the quantities of the braising ingredients, adding enough water to cover. One hock is enough to make four large sandwiches.

For the hocks
2 cured ham hocks (about 1.4kg each)
2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
3 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
3 large celery stalks, roughly chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed with the flat of a knife
4 bay leaves
40g parsley and 10g thyme, tied together with a string
¼ tsp black peppercorns
1 litre cider
2 tbsp honey

For the sandwich
1 tbsp sunflower oil
12 slices smoked bacon
120g mayonnaise
3 tbsp homemade (or shop-bought) wholegrain mustard
8 very large slices sourdough, toasted if you like
½ iceberg lettuce, leaves separated
120g shop-bought tomato relish

100g mature cheddar, sliced

Put the hocks in a very large pot, cover with plenty of cold water and bring to a boil. Boil for two minutes, then strain and discard the liquid. Run the hocks under cold water, to rinse off any impurities.

Wipe clean the pot, add the hocks and all the braising ingredients, cover with water (you’ll need about two and a half litres for two hocks) and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-high – you want a steady but soft boil – and cook for two and a half hours, uncovered, adding more water as needed to keep the hocks submerged. Remove from the heat, set aside to cool, then lift the hocks out of the liquid (save this as a base for soups or sauces; it freezes well, too). Remove and discard the skin and fat from the hocks, shred the meat and set aside.

Put a large frying pan on a medium-high heat and add the oil. Once hot, add half the bacon and fry for three to four minutes, turning once halfway through, until crisp. Remove and set aside on a plate lined with kitchen paper while you fry the rest of the bacon.

To make the sandwiches, mix the mayo and mustard in a small bowl and spread this over one side of each piece of bread. Lay four slices of bread mustard sauce side up, cover with half the lettuce, followed by the bacon, relish, ham and cheese. Top with the remaining lettuce, lay the remaining slices of bread on top, sauce side down. Cut in half and serve.

• Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghi and Nopi in London.

Follow Yotam on Twitter.

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I want to defy the odds. iâ€™m going to go for it. We need some girl power out there.

Kristi Yamaguchi

I am not the best dancer, and I have not been the best dancer from the beginning. I am happy we made it this far.

Cristian de la Fuente

We should have started dancing with one arm waaay before.

Cristian de la Fuente [following his injury, trip to the hospital and subsequent stellar performance]

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So what have I been doing lately?!

Well, I am currently working on an online training programme for people to sign up to, where they can learn everything they need to know for competent, happy horse clipping! (Super exciting stuff!)
Its a work in progress and not going to be ready for a little while yet.. but in the meanwhile you can click the TRAINING tab in the menu bar along the top of this page to subscribe to my website newsletters, then when the training is ready I will be sending out a group email to those that are signed up for updates and you will be first in line for The Horse Barber unqiue online training courses!

Each course will have a limited number of spaces, so its important to keep in the loop for any updates via email.
In the mean time I am still offering 1-1 day training session, where you will learn a great deal to get you started and moving forward with clipping if you are keen to get started ASAP! You can find out more about 1-1 training in the SERVICES tab on the toolbar above this post.

Sign up for all important updates on The Horse Barber training programme for Budding Horse Barbers ^_^


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McGrory: Barry McGrory

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William Barry McGrory

Father William Barry McGrory

Father Barry McGrory

MR. Barry McGrory

Father Barry McGrory

Ex-priest, Archdiocese of Ottawa, Ontario. Ordained 1960. GUILTY plea August 1993 to charge of sex assault of 17-year-old native boy. Three years probation. November 1993 warned that he would face jail unless he abide by the terms of his probation.

Taught variously at Bishop’s University, Lennoxville (Quebec), St. Paul University (Ottawa) and the Grand Seminary on Kilborn Ave. in Ottawa.  Served as a parish priest.  Headed the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada (now Catholic Missions in Canada)

03 December 2020:  “‘I keep asking why,’ victim tells court during Barry McGrory sentencing hearing” & related article

December 201:  arrested and incarcerated

18 November 2019:  Failed to show in court for sentencing – warrant issued for his arrest 18 November 2019

October 2018:  News that Father McGrory is now MR. Barry McGrory – he has been defrocked/laicized/dismissed from the clerical state

01 October 2018:  Ottawa priest defrocked following abuse admissions, allegations

03 December 2020:  “‘I keep asking why,’ victim tells court during Barry McGrory sentencing hearing” & related article

18 November 2019:  ARREST WARRANT: Disgraced former Ottawa priest skips sentencing

24 June 2019:  Former Catholic priest Barry McGrory found guilty of historic sex assaults

24 June 2019:  BLOG Thank you

24 June 2019:  verdict GUILTY to all four counts from two victims (other charges related to a third victim were withdrawn after the victim died)

10 March 2017:  further charges laid:  2 counts of indecent assault on a male; 2 counts of gross indecency.  The incidents are alleged to have occurred in the 60s.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Ottawa Police Service Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit at 613-236-1222, ext. 5944. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) or by downloading the Ottawa Police app.

08 March 2017:  further charges coming – anticipated they will be laid by police on Friday 10 March 2017.  There will then be a court date set to address the new charges.  If things proceed according to this timeline there will be a pre-trial hearing 22 March 2017 (NOT open to the public).  This info will be updated after Friday.

25 November 2016new charges laid – two counts of gross indecency and two counts of indecent assault, in relation to offences alleged to have occurred in the late 1960s.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Ottawa police sexual assault unit at 613-236-1222, ext. 5944m or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).

Next court date: 07 January 2020:  10 am, sentencing hearing, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.); 27 & 29 August 2019 9 am to 10 am sentencing hearing: Judge sick rescheduled to January 2020,  Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.); 24 June 2019:  VERDICT,  Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.).; 18 June 2019:  09:00 am, VERDICT, third floor, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.).

TRIAL date for Ottawa charges set  for 06-10 May 2019 (and 21-22 May if needed)  Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.);  10 April 2019:   pre-trial motions, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.) ;26 June 2018:  10:15 am, pre-trial discovery,  Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.);31 May 2018: 09:00 am,  courtroom #2, “to be spoken to”, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.) ; 20 April 2018:  09:00 am,  courtroom #10, “to be spoken to”, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.) ; 03-04 April 2018:  10 am, courtroom #10, one case number scheduled for a Preliminary Hearing or matters related to a preliminary hearing, and another case number is “to be spoken to”, Ottawa courthouse, (161 Elgin St.); 12 April 2017: 08:30 am, “to be spoken to,”  courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.) ; 04 April 2017: 08:30 am, “to be spoken to,”  courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.) ; 23 March 2017:  possible judicial pre-trial hearing (NOT open to the public) Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.) ; 08 March 2017:  08:30 am.  “to be spoken to,”  courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.);13 February 2017:  08:30 am.  “to be spoken to,”  courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.); 01 February 2017:  08:30 am.  “to be spoken to,”  courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.); 11 January 2017:  08:30 am. he is to show in person – “to be spoken to,”  courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.); 21 December 2016:  08:30 am. “to be spoken to,”  courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.)

Archbishops of the Archdiocese of Ottawa from time of Father McGrory’s ordination: Marie-Joseph Lemieux, O.P. (29 June 1953 – 24 September 1966) ; Joseph-Aurèle Plourde(02 January 1967 – September 1989) ; Marcel André J. Gervais (Coadjutor Archbishop: 13 May 1989 – Archbishop: 27 Sep 1989 – 14 May 2007); Terrence Thomas Prendergast, S.J. (14 May 2007 – – )

Auxiliary Bishops: Paul-Émile Charbonneau (15 November 1960 – 21 May 1963); Joseph Raymond Windle  (15 November 1960 – 23 Jan 1969);  René Audet  (21 May 1963 – 03 January 1968); John Michael Beahen  (11 May 1977 – 14 March 1988); Gilles Bélisle (11 May 1977 – 19 August 1993); Frederick Joseph Colli (19 December 1994 – 02 February 1999); Paul Marchand, S.M.M. (31 May 1993 to 08 March 1999)

BLOGS & Media coverage

18 November 2019:  ARREST WARRANT: Disgraced former Ottawa priest skips sentencing

24 June 2019:  Former Catholic priest Barry McGrory found guilty of historic sex assaults

23 May 2019:  Historic sex abuse victim says he told archbishop about the incident

22 May 2019:   Defrocked Ottawa priest, 85, on trial for historic sex abuse

27 August 2018:  Two sex abuse charges dropped against priest after complainant dies

04 April 2018:  BLOG “I urge you not to indulge your carnal desire.”

03 April 2018:  BLOG “It’s none of your business anyway!”

10 March 2017:  Police lay additional sex-abuse charges against former Ottawa priest

10 March 2017:  “Former Ottawa Priest faces further charges of Gross Indecency and Indecent Assault ” & related article

02 December 2016:  Ottawa diocese initiates removal of sex abuser Rev. Barry McGrory from priesthood

25 November 2016:  “Former Ottawa priest accused of sexually abusing teenage boy in late ’60s” & related articles

25 November 2016: BLOG  For the love of God

25 November 2016:  Disgraced Ottawa priest accused of sexually assaulting yet another minor

10 October 2016:  Clergy abuse victim furious over diocesan ‘stonewalling’

10 June 2016:  Women demand police re-open investigation into Ottawa priest with history of sex abuse

21 May 2016: “Archbishop: Church must do better, help to heal” & related article

20 May 2016:  BLOG Thank you Colleen

19 May 2016:  Abuse victim speaks for first time, demands to know why priest not defrocked

19 May 2016:  BLOG Labels.  Who cares?

18 May 2016:  BLOG  Here we go…

17 May 2016:  BLOG  Ottawa Archdiocese scandals

18 May 2016:  Ottawa diocese repeatedly warned about local clergy’s most notorious abuser

17 May 2016:  Special report: Insurance lawsuit reveals secrets of Ottawa’s clergy abuse scandal

17 May 2016:  Special Report: ‘I’ve been given peace:’ Rev. Barry McGrory

17 May 2016:  “Priest admits to sexual abuse for first time in Citizen interview” here.

17 May 2016:  Editorial: Diocese silence on sexual abuse must end

23 August 1986:  Just ‘being themselves’ makes for good show

June 1990:  “Individualism and Commitment Amongst Canadian Catholics”: Father Barry McGrory, President of the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada, appeals for funds in the June 1990 edition of Home Mission, a quarterly publication of Catholic Church Extension Society

Easter 1989: “Greeting the Light That Fills The Earth”: Father Barry McGrory, then President of the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada,  writes of the Inuit culture in the Easter 1989 edition of Home Missions, a quarterly publication of the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada

Inquiry Classes in Archdiocese of Ottawa 1968 and 1971

Inquiry Classes in Archdiocese of Ottawa Fall 1968

29 September 1949: Barry McGrory elected Notary of Unity Circle No. 55, Columbian Squires, Ottawa

26 September 1949:  Barry McGrory member of Unity Circle No. 55, Columbian Squires, Ottawa

The following information is drawn from Canadian Catholic Church Directories (CCCD) of that date, the 1980 Ontario Catholic Church Directory (OCD) and media (M)

18 November 2019:  Failed to show in court for sentencing; warrant issued for his arrest

01 October 2018:  News that McGrory has been defrocked/laicized/reduced to the lay state/dismissed from the clerical state

10 March 2017 further charges laid:  2 counts of indecent assault on a male; 2 counts of gross indecency

25 November 2016new charges laid – two counts of gross indecency and two counts of indecent assault, in relation to offences alleged to have occurred in the late 1960s.

2016:  Interview

2011, 2010:  not listed (CCCD)-

until at least 2010 was living with the nuns who once occupied St. Joseph’s Convent in Morrow Park, Toronto.  The property was apparently sold but some of the nuns were allowed to stay on in the premises and McGrory stayed on with them – during his years with the Sisters he served as their chaplain – ‘saying’ Masses and ‘hearing’ confessions. (P)

2010:  not listed (CCCD)

2008:  Catholic Missions in Canada (Spring edition)

Memories of missionaries

I remember Father Barry McGrory attended a ceremony for a native community in British Columbia while he was with The Catholic Church Extension Society. A young man from the community was entrusted with an Eagle feather during the ceremony and, to everyone’s dismay, dropped it. There was a collective gasp as it fell to the ground because this was considered a terrible humiliation, given the significance of the Eagle feather. However, out of the crowd another young man rose up and went over to stand beside the one who had dropped the Eagle feather-and stood beside him so that he would not be alone. Fr. McGrory made the point that this is how Jesus befriends us also.
Inge Barthlomeiczik
Etobicoke, Ontario

December 2010: a Barry McGrory posted the following comment on  “The uniqueness of Jesus: Facing doctrinal questions, Peter Phan speaks his mind” (Thomas C. Fox, National Catholic Reporter, 28 December 2010 )

What a gift Phan is! May i

Submitted by Barry McGrory (not verified) on Dec. 28, 2010.

What a gift Phan is! May i meditate and integrate this teaching which supplements my own experience, and the ineffable sadness i’ve felt with people both holier and wiser than i, and who yet do not know Him; as well as the guilt i feel when i discern this greater spiritual maturity achieved without or beyond Jesus! May the Holy Spirit long provide light and courage to Fr. Phan, and may we all welcome his gentle proding towards a more universal faith!

19-21 May 2006:  Father Barry McGrory says Mass at Traditional Leadership for Future Generations Conference in Antigonish, Nova Scotia.  This conference was sponsered by the Mi’kmaq Maliseet Atlantic Youth Council

2003: volunteering at the Don jail in Toronto, Ontario (M)

2000, 2002:  c/o Chancery Office, Kilborn Ave., Ottawa, Ontario (CCCD)

1999:  c/o Chancery Office, Kilborn Ave., Ottawa, Ontario (CCCD)

1998:  75-206 Dunlop St., Richmond Hill, Ontario  416-737-2869 (CCCD)

1997, 1996, 1995:  not listed (CCCD)

1994:  75-206 Dunlop St., Richmond Hill, Ontario  416-737-2869 (CCCD)

1993:  c/o St. Joseph’s Convent, 35 Herron Ave., Scarborough, Ontario (CCCD) (Father Timothy Coughlin now listed as Acting Director of Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada (CCCD)

November 1993: McGrory seeking advice in court re his probation conditions.  He was warned that he would face jail unless he abided by the terms of probation

August 1993:  GUILTY plea  to sex assault of 17-year-old boy (M) Three years probation.  According to a media report the order “required the priest to refrain from contact with native groups and post adolescent youths and to continue taking psychiatric therapy. He was also prohibited from being in the company of any male under the age of 18 except in the presence of an adult.”

1992, 1991:  67 Bond St., Toronto, Ontario (CCCD)

(This is the address for the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada.  It is also the address for one of the Catholic Family Services offices in the Toronto Archdiocese.  It looks as though the CCCD went to press before receiving word of November 1991 resignation. )

December 1991:  victim charged after admitting he attacked McGrory  when McGrory made unwanted sexual advances (the boy was later acquitted)

November 1991: resigned from Catholic Church Extension Society.  The resignation came three months after McGrory sexually abused a 17-year-old native boy.

02 November 1989:  Father Barry McGrory and George Erasmus at Ottawa’s Saint Paul University to discuss concerns of the native peoples.  Erasmus was the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations from 1985 to 1991

28 October 1989: Concerns of natives response from church to be discussed

Late 1987:  assumed duties as head of Catholic Church Extension Society (head office in Toronto, Ontario) (John Stephen Knight, former Auxiliary Bishop of Toronto was a past President of the  Catholic Church Extension Society.  Knight resigned his position as Auxiliary Bishop after allegations of sexual misconduct were investigated by the Toronto Archdiocese.  Knight has never returned to public ministry.  Neither the nature of the allegations against him nor the archdiocese’s findings have been revealed.)

1986-87:  National Defence College, Kingston, Ontario

July 1986:  “participated in an annual Denendeh seminar which takes a group of people from southern Canada and exposes them to the social, political and spiritual realities of the native people of the Northwest Territories.” (M)

1974-86:  Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church, Ottawa, Ontario (Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church website

Since its beginning. Holy Cross parishioners have sought to express their faith in creative and concrete ways.  There has been an openness to a variety of liturgical expressions and ministries, due in no small part to the encouragement of Father Barry McGrory, pastor of Holy Cross from 1974-1986. A twinning relationship was entered into with a barrio in Managua, Nicaragua almost 20 years ago and has resulted in a number of supportive projects and visits by parishioners. {Planted by Flowing Water:  The Diocese of Ottawa 1847-1997, Pierre Hurtbuise, Mark McGowan and Pierre Savard, Novalis Ottawa, 1998)

1985-86:  Holy Cross (CCCD)

1980:  Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church (with Fathers A. Giopatto omi and A. Ostan omi.  Also listed is Sr. B. O’Neill) (CCCD)

1973-74:  P.O. Box 11, Lennoxville, Sherbrook, Quebec (CCCD)  (according to media, at some point  McGrory taught at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec.  This must have been a year he taught at Bishop’s U?)

1971-72:  Pastor, St. Philip Roman Catholic Church, Richmond, Ontario (CCCD) with missions at St. Clare in Dwyer Hill and Church of the Holy Spirit in Ashton (Stanley Corners) , Ontario (Masses at Holy Spirit alternated between Ashton and Glen Cairn Community Centre, Kanata (then Hazeldean), Ontario

sex abuse allegations of two male complainants date to late 60’s and/or early 70s when McGrory was serving at St. Philip’s in Richmond

1968-69:  listed as on staff at the Major Seminary on Kilborn Ave. in Ottawa, Ontario

– Father Dale Crampton listed as “In Residence” at the Grand Seminary 1968-69 (CCCD) (according to McGrory, Crampton and McGrory were boyhood friends)

1968-69: listed as on staff at the Grand Seminary and also at  Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church in Ottawa (Pastor Father J. Lorne Reynolds)

-on  diocesan Ecumenism commission (Archbishop Jean-Marie Fortier)

– on Ecumenism commission for the Archdiocese of Sherbrook, Quebec

– charges laid November 2016 relate to allegations of sex abuse which transpired in the late 60s

 – charges laid March 2017 relate to allegations of sex abuse which transpired in the 60s at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church and St. Philips church

01 May 1967:  to take over duties as Assistant Director of the Episcopal Commission for Religious Education (Archdiocese of Ottawa new appointments  01 May 67)

1967:  working in Archdiocesan Catechetical Office (see above link)

Post ordination:  attained a Doctorate of Theology degree from St. Thomas Aquinas University, Rome

Theology graduate of Ottawa University, Ottawa (M)

Commerce graduate of St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia (M)

A perspicacious letter

Toronto Globe and Mail

06 November 2007

Barry McGrory

I particularly appreciated Loren Hicks’s letter, The Dalai Lama Does Ottawa (Oct. 31). The astonishing parallels Ms. Hicks observed between what Canada did in the 1800s, and what China is doing to Tibet now, reveal what we were like and, sadly, still are. Think Kelowna, think the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or our ludicrous land “claims” process.

Why don’t newspapers give annual awards for the best letter of the year? If you did, Ms. Hicks’s letter would be a contender.

Now if you would only be perspicacious enough to appreciate the wisdom in my own letters …

04 December 2004: On intimidating the intimidators: Fr. Barry McGrory goes south with peace group Pax Christi to monitor the U.S (Barry McGrory).

External link:  election

New First Nations Act more of the same

Letter to the Editor

The Sudbury Star

22 July 2003

Barry McGrory

To the Editor:

Re: Losing Ground — July 16.

Canada’s falling United Nations ranking is not only Jean Chretien’s failure, but Canada’s — ours. Chretien strove to reflect Trudeau’s earlier opinion that aboriginals should be Canadians like everyone else. Trudeau thought it ridiculous that Canada should have treaties with its own inhabitants.

When the Supreme Court split over whether the Nisga’a, who had no treaty, did in fact have title to their land, Trudeau was big enough to change his mind and had the 1972 White Paper retired. Chretien was unable to adjust and never forgave Trudeau for embarassing him.

But he was not alone. Frightened at the growing cost of keeping treaty obligations for native people we assumed would long ago have disappeared, the Ministry of Indian Affairs resolutely kept chiselling down on its obligations. Housing, infrastructure and education are glaring examples.

The 2003 First Nations Governance Act and the accompanying bills – – one limits land claims to a mere $7 million maximum! — keeps the same thinking.

We will not admit that we have stolen this land, that our title is based on the ridiculous right of discovery and that we want to maintain the colonialist thinking of bygone centuries. Yes, we Canadians! So good at exporting human rights for other countries to live up to. A Canadian even drafted the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Only when we go back to the beginning, admit what we have done, offer apologies, and make amends, may we gain genuine title to this land, and be able to hold up our heads in the international community. Suddenly we would have title, going right back to time immemorial.

Aboriginal elders say they accept newcomers are here for good, they only want recognition of what we did and are doing, and that fresh arrangements acceptable to all be arrived at, especially the return to them of the means towards sustaining economies of their own.

This is what the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples recommended, but Chretien and the Liberals have steadfastly ignored it. The UN keeps chiding Canada on that as it reviews our compliance with international covenants Canada has agreed to.

Some observers claim newcomers need some perceived lesser peoples in order to feel good about ourselves. Certainly that recent spate of Liberal legislation clearly indicates that newcomers think we know best what is good for the First Nations. It will be interesting to see how much energy Chretien will put into getting the rest of his four bills passed come September.

Barry McGrory

Not the worst hole, but Don jail’s close

Toronto Star

May 16, 2003 10:08:45 PM VET

May. 9, 2003. 06:24 AM

So, okay, maybe the Don jail isn’t the worst stinking hole in the world.

But that’s only because there’s no torture room.

There’s no “parrot perch,” or hanging metal bar that is a staple of most Brazilian prisons. Prisoners on the perch have been stripped naked, thrown over the bar, hands and ankles tied, then beaten and jolted with electric shock until they pass out, or die.

At the Don, there’s no saw-horse, a device similar to the parrot perch, except that torturers get the added kick of being able to submerge a prisoner’s head in water while administering shock treatment to the genitals and anus.

I’ve seen these torture chambers.

As the Star’s Latin America correspondent for many years, I have seen more than my share of Third World prison conditions. I have nightmares to last a lifetime.

But I came away from a tour of Toronto’s Don jail this week thinking the biggest difference with any Third World hellhole I’ve ever seen is the absence of endemic physical torture.

That’s it.

Otherwise, with the possible exception of Haiti, where I once saw prisoners, some of them clearly mad, sitting deep in their own excrement, the Don jail could just as easily be the Guerrero state prison in Iguala, Mexico, or fit nicely into the Vieira Ferreira Neto penal complex in Niteroi, Brazil.

A vermin-infested cell is a vermin-infested cell.

In some ways, living conditions at the Don are worse.

That’s because prisoners don’t have the same access to a tropical outdoors and frequent family visits. They also live with constant, mind-numbing din and the psychological tension it creates.

I’d never been in a prison with that kind of decibel level before my Tuesday afternoon tour of the Don with Brant MPP Dave Levac.

As Liberal corrections critic, he wanted to revisit the jail this week after yet another Toronto judge condemned “medieval” conditions that don’t meet minimal standards for housing prisoners laid out by the United Nations.

Now, I wasn’t there at Carandiru prison in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1992 when military police put down a prison riot over brutal conditions, killing 111 inmates.

Clearly, with the gunfire and screaming, it must have been louder than the din I heard Tuesday.

But is that really what we want in Canada?

It would take little Canadian flags stitched on orange jumpsuits to differentiate between some of the inmates I saw — drooling, toothless, hair matted, talking to themselves — and prisoners in Brazil, Colombia or Venezuela.

It’s bad enough prisoners are treated with inhumanity anywhere in the world.

But, as the critics of Ontario’s corrections system point out, this jail is in our very own backyard.

Right here in east-end Toronto, prisoners live with vermin, overflowing toilets and the same all-encompassing stench of human excrement that knocks you off your feet when you walk into Vieira Ferreira Neto prison, not far from Rio’s Copacabana beaches, where the tourists romp.

One prisoner at the Don talked about being “peed on.” Happens all the time.

“We Canadians view ourselves as a just society and we like to think of ourselves that way,” says Richard Coleman, co-ordinator for Toronto’s drug treatment court and a veteran counsellor of Don jail inmates.

“But we’ve become a very hard-edged people, and it’s been coming on for many years now.”

We are, he adds, “punishing people in the most brutal ways imaginable.

“It is social science gone horribly wrong, because the reality is that the criminal justice system was created to reform, not merely to punish.”

Father Barry McGrory, a retired Catholic priest and volunteer at the Don jail, says he weeps to see such “devastation of the weakest” in our society.

“They are still human beings,” he says. “They are not people from Mars. I hear heartbreaking stories from these men, and the thing of it is, we, any one of us, could end up in that place.”

He, like Coleman, bristles at what he views as hypocrisy. He cringes at the comfortable Canadian notion that things are so much better for everyone here than in the Third World.

“I hate it when people say, `Oh, they should go and see what bad conditions really are. Go to the Third World,”’ he says. “How much worse can it get for a prisoner than in the Don?”

For me, the cold-shower realization of the many ways in which, like it or not, Toronto wears aspects of the worst of the Third World has been the hardest part of my transition back to Canada, and home.

It was one thing to walk into a prison in Brazil and chronicle horrible conditions in somebody else’s country for readers of the Toronto Star.

But it was a shock to see it in my own.

And we’re not just talking about conditions in the Don jail.

For years, for example, I wrote about the murdered women of Juarez, Mexico, the disposable women whose corpses — often in pieces — have been turning up in the Mexican border town. It’s estimated that, since the early 1990s, more than 300 women have been killed a stone’s throw across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

Their deaths remain unsolved and, to be blunt, it’s not a big issue in Mexico, or anyplace else.

Who cares? These are faceless women, poor, indigenous and, too often, anonymous.

But I came home recently to a Canada where 500 aboriginal women have disappeared or been found murdered over the past 15 years in a similar atmosphere of neglect.

I was appalled.

In Canada, you say?

There’s more.

At any intersection in Acapulco or Cancun, Canadian tourists tsk-tsk — how sad! — at pregnant women begging for money, raggedy children holding their skirts or playing in the gutter.

A few years ago, a Canadian reporter wrote with disgust about a Mexican woman who agreed to sell her baby after his newspaper widely advertised for a child. He didn’t buy the baby, of course.

And, yet, in my city, this past January, a newborn baby was left to die, umbilical cord still attached, in the shadow of City Hall, left by a wandering, seemingly witless homeless woman, and found in the nick of time.

Every year, an estimated 300 babies — and probably far more — are born to women living in the streets of Toronto.

There are two ways, it seems, of looking at this issue.

You can say, “Oh, things could be worse. You could be living in Calcutta or Juarez. So get used to it.”

Or, you can say, as Father McGrory does, this is not acceptable anywhere.

But the problem is that Juarez is creeping closer to Toronto, and not the other way around.

“We are being swallowed by our dark side,” says McGrory.

The Don jail is Vieira Ferreira Neto — without the torture chambers.

And, without the Brazilian sunshine.

Therese’s `little way’

The Ottawa Citizen

13 June 1999

Barry McGrory

Thank you, Donna Jacobs, for bringing our attention to Patrick Ahern’s editing of the letters between Ste. Therese of Lisieux and Maurice Belliere (“The way of a modern-day saint,” Citizen’s Weekly Books, May 30). They will help us find the real saint. What a wise Mother Superior to have arranged that correspondence!

The reviewer has obviously been touched by Therese, and has tried to show us the genius of her “little way.” It was an unshakable confidence in a loving Father that she tried to pass on to the aspiring young missionary. Extremely loved by her family as a child, she intuited that this gift originated in God the Father. That opened a path to God free of guilt or shame or anxiety, or any need to prove her love. Like the Franciscans, she seemed to know that God was utter goodness trying to share itself, “nothing but mercy and love,” she said. Maintaining that trust in the face of her scandalous trials was heroic.

Her light shone all the brighter as it came out of a Jansenistic, harsh darkness that had bedeviled French spirituality with its fascination with victimhood. I was disappointed to learn that even she herself was not entirely spared some of that, and the reviewer is justly puzzled by it. But I find no evidence that Jesus, who rejected the ascetic ways of John the Baptist, valued suffering in itself. He accepted it only reluctantly, prayed to be spared it, and complained of being abandoned. She found her vocation in being the heart of the Church, burning with love, and I would like to think that suffering would have been for her a consequence of that passion, as it was for Jesus.

A friend of mine points out the contrasts in her life. Doted on as a child, she almost dies of depression at 9. Always a loner, she embraces the whole world and is embraced by it. With only a few years of rural schooling, she is declared a Doctor (meaning teacher) of the Church in 1997, and ranks up there with Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Always loved herself, she’s very aware that others are not. Contemplating a painting of Jesus on the Cross, and his blood dripping from one of his hands seemingly wasted onto the ground, she resolves not to let escape unnoticed anyone’s pain, to which she compared that blood.

A young Aboriginal friend assured me that he knew how to run a cumbersome rug-cleaning machine I had rented, then proceeded to spill the whole soapy tank on the rug. I was about to fly off the handle, but caught a glimpse in his eyes of such extreme hurt and failure that I winced and cooled off instantly. To this day I can feel his pain I was about to compound. In spite of myself, I had stumbled across her “little way.” (One day that man saved my life.)

She was so real to Father George Larose, my boyhood pastor at St. Theresa’s Church in Ottawa, that one day I said to my mother, “He talks about her as though she was his own sister.” “Well, she is,” came her reply.

Barry McGrory,

Coalition for a Public Inquiry into the Death of Dudley George

Father Barry McGrory

Monday 22 June 1998

Father Barry McGrory: Citizens have the right to bring their concerns forward on any matter to their representatives, but it is a privilege to be able to address members of the Legislative Assembly about such an urgent matter as how we treat our neighbours who are materially poor, and I thank you for this time.

I am Barry McGrory, a spokesperson from the Coalition for an Inquiry into the Death of Dudley George, formed last December on the anniversary of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. You will recall that Ann Pohl of the coalition addressed you on June 8 and explained the broad base we represent, including Dudley’s family, aboriginal organizations, faith groups, unions, anti-racism groups and others.

I am also involved with the Aboriginal Rights Coalition and for some years have worked on aboriginal issues in Canada. I am a Catholic priest of the archdiocese of Ottawa, currently living in Toronto. I have lived in this province all my life, except for two years’ graduate studies in Rome and three years as a teacher and chaplain in Quebec at Bishop’s University and Champlain College.

The present government has been slyly creative about the naming of its bills, usually trying, in the best Orwellian fashion, to euphemistically put as positive a light as possible on the matter. But in this case, it blatantly speaks of unionization as though it were a disease calling for eradication. That sounds foreign to me. The UN Charter of Rights, as mentioned, protects the right of workers to organize into unions, in article 23, section 4. It did that 50 years ago. Pope Leo XIII affirmed the same principle 108 years ago.

Priest given warning Judge clarifies sex-case order

Toronto Globe and Mail

20 November 1993

Toronto ONT — BY THOMAS CLARIDGE Courts Reporter

TORONTO The former head of a Roman Catholic organization that assists native Canadians in isolated parishes was warned yesterday that he will face jail unless he abides by terms of a probation order issued after he admitted to sexually assaulting a 17-year-old youth.

Mr. Justice Hugh Locke of the Ontario Court’s General Division issued the warning when Rev. Barry McGrory appeared before him seeking clarification of his terms of probation.

Father McGrory was given a suspended sentence and placed on three years probation by Judge Locke in August when he pleaded guilty to one of two charges of sexual assault involving the same complainant, an Indian whom he had befriended. At the sentencing on Aug. 27, the court was told Father McGrory resigned as president of the Catholic Church Extension Society in November, 1991, three months after the incident that led to the guilty plea.

The second charge was laid in December, 1991, after the same youth admitted to having attacked Father McGrory when faced with unwanted advances. Judge Locke was told the youth was later acquitted of a charge of assault causing bodily harm.

The probation order required the priest to refrain from contact with native groups and postadolescent youths and to continue taking psychiatric therapy. He was also prohibited from being in the company of any male under the age of 18 except in the presence of an adult.

‘Focus’ goes off the air but might return next fall

The Ottawa Citizen

02 December 1989

Tina Reilly

After more than seven years on the air, an animated and frank interfaith radio discussion on CJSB every Sunday morning is taking a breather.

Focus Religion was an informal, unscripted show designed to bring together different religious viewpoints on some topical and controversial issues.

Rev. Tom Sherwood, pastor at Orleans United Church, and Rabbi Arnold Fine of the Agudath Israel congregation in Ottawa, over the years have attracted thousands of devoted listeners.

Along with their guests, each week from 7:35 to 8 a.m. they discussed everything from sex and abortion to politics and clergy burnout.

But Fine is leaving soon for Israel on sabbatical, which will put the show on hold for several months. He said Focus Religion might return to CJSB in a reworked format next fall.

“All that is still very much in the planning stages,” said Fine.

Focus Religion was dealt a blow in 1986 when Barry McGrory, a Catholic priest, left the show, say Sherwood and Fine. If it resumes in the fall, the duo hope to find another priest who can join in on a permanent basis. The show’s audience hit a peak of 15,000 people in 1986. Since then, the audience had dropped to “a few thousand.”

“The original show worked so well because all three of us were there every week and got to know one another,” said Fine. “We really need that Catholic element to make the show what it was.”

Sherwood and Fine say Focus Religion often involved spirited discussion, but voices were never raised.

“We didn’t always agree, which was an important element to the program,” said Sherwood. “The point was to show that we could disagree, whether from a religious perspective or a personal one, and still be friends.”

And the show was always spontaneous, with a “two-minute meeting in the studio before flicking the switch,” he said.

The last show was broadcast Nov. 19.

Former Holy Cross pastor works with native missions

The Ottawa Citizen

20 February 1988

Rev. R.G. MacNeil

Father Barry McGrory is no longer working in Ottawa and people miss his involvement in the Ottawa scene.

He was pastor of Holy Cross Parish for 12 years, active in ecumenical, peace and social justice causes and a member of the “Focus Religion” panel on radio station CJSB, along with Rabbi Arnie Fine and the Rev. Tom Sherwood of the United Church.

At the end of last year Barry became the head of the Catholic Church Extension Society of Canada. His new job in Toronto is to visit church missions to learn of their needs first hand. When I called his office this week, he was on visits to Ft. McMurray, Norman Wells, Inuvik, Coppermine and Yellowknife. Catholic Church Extension under his direction is expected to raise over $2 million a year to support church work with native people and in isolated parts of Canada.

The Canadian missions will have a capable spokesperson in Father McGrory. During a sabbatical year in 1986-87 he unknowingly did two things that prepared him for his future job. In July 1986 he participated in an annual Denendeh seminar which takes a group of people from southern Canada and exposes them to the social, political and spiritual realities of the native people of the Northwest Territories.

While there, he was asked to celebrate mass at a wilderness camp for some Dene families.

Following the mass, a native woman asked him to be their priest during his upcoming rest from parish ministry. “I was stunned and I gave a evasive answer with the intention of doing something about this ministry at a later date,” he said.

He was already committed for the year-long National Defence College at Kingston with 42 people from upper management.

His experience with the Dene people and the defence college, which visited every province and territory of Canada as well as 17 foreign countries, many of them in the developing world, ably equipped him for Catholic church extension work. His new job is to go to mission territories and see their situation in sufficient depth to bring the real needs of missions to the attention of Catholic Canadians.

“In this job I am giving at least half an answer to the Dene woman who asked me to be their priest.”

Father McGrory is a commerce graduate of St. Francis Xavier University, and a theology graduate of the University of Ottawa. After ordination he took a doctor of theology degree from Thomas Aquinas University in Rome, taught at Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Que. and at St. Paul’s University in Ottawa.

From 1966-86 he did pastoral work in Ottawa parishes, finishing with 12 years at Holy Cross where he initiated a twinning relationship with St. Francis Xavier parish in Managua, Nicaragua. Ottawa people made regular exchange visits Nicaraguans in a program of “people to people” Christian understanding.

Those wishing to help Father McGrory with Canadian missionary projects may contact him at 67 Bond St., Toronto. M5B 1X5. Telephone (416) 863-9550.

Kingston Whig Standard

18 April 1987

Barry McGrory

JUAN LUIS SEGUNDO, a Roman Catholic priest in Uruguay, advanced a startling argument during the Jimmy Carter presidency, with its focus on civil rights. At the time, Uruguay had the highest per capita number of prisoners in the world (according to Amnesty International). And though his own civil rights had been violated, he agreed with the military leaders then managing his country who rejected criticism from abroad concerning those same human rights abuses.

Why? The cause of the violations, he maintained, was the impossible financial constraints imposed by wealthy nations upon poor nations such as his own. It was therefore hypocritical for those wealthy countries to criticize regimes for oppression required to maintain the status quo. Why speak of freedom of the press, for example, in a country where 80 per cent can not afford a newspaper and 50 per cent can not read?

The anecdote is an example of the radical nature of liberation theology: here we see one of its foremost advocates adopting a quite illogical position. And yet it’s impossible to dismiss a movement whose influence stretches even to the Vatican itself.

Phillip Berryman, in his book Liberation Theology, gives us a sympathetic, but not uncritical, view of the theology typified by Father Segundo’s outburst. Berryman worked as a Catholic priest in Panama City (1963 to 1975), then as the American Friends Service Committee representative in Latin America (1976 to 1980). The author of two books on Central America, he is now married and the father of three, working in Philadelphia as a researcher.

Liberation theology emerged more than 25 years ago out of experience — an approach to God that comes from working within the struggle of the poor for justice. It is a disciplined attempt to explicate, defend and criticize that experience in light of the Gospel and to provide a basis for the pastoral methods that flow from it.

Exponents of liberation theology place the movement’s origins with the 16th-century Dominican monk Bartolome de las Casas, and the dozen or so bishops who stood with him in defending Central American Indians from Spanish colonial authorities. Then, as now, those clerics who confronted the powerful were often eliminated: the Bishop of Managua, Antonio de Valdivieso, was stabbed to death in 1550. But liberation theology more clearly emerged in the Latin American Church after Vatican II in 1963. This was a worldwide gathering of Catholic bishops in Rome that attempted to renew the Church. It was then that the Church began to shift from being a staunch supporter of the quasi-feudal establishment in Latin America — the oligarchies, the military and the United States were the three other pillars — to a more prophetic institution attempting to be on the side of the poor.

At Medellin, Colombia in 1968, Latin American bishops made a dramatic plea for the transformation of society. The bishops of the central-west region of Brazil minced no words in calling capitalism “the greatest evil, sin accumulated, the rotten root, the tree that produces fruits of … poverty, hunger, sickness and death.” By then, the richest one per cent of Brazil’s population controlled a greater share of the national income (17 per cent) than the entire bottom half of the population (13.7 per cent). How did they get so poor? More importantly, how do they escape their poverty? For poverty, even if it can bring an openness to God, is dehumanizing.

Liberation theology emphasizes the humanness of Jesus, who, they argue, aligned himself with the poor and was crucified for his stance. But he was vindicated in his resurrection. In liberation theology the risen Christ is more prominent than the crucified Christ: it is the difference between passive resignation to one’s fate and active steps towards change. This perhaps explains the more than 100,000 martyrs the Latin American Church has suffered in the past few decades. The figure, which includes teenage catechists and bishops, is only an estimate and is likely quite conservative.

Phillip Berryman outlines, among others, the work of Paulo Freire, educator; James Schall, Presbyterian missionary; and Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian priest who seems to have coined the term “liberation theology.” Berryman describes the fascinating struggle within the Church over this brand of theology — a struggle that may be as important and alas, as divisive, as the Reformation. But Berryman is at his best when he describes the pastoral practices that flow from such an orientation at the barrio level.

Pastoral workers moved out into the poor communities to form small action groups that came to be known as base communities. Led by lay people, they began to take on a life of their own and saw the Church existing not for itself but for the society around it. For perhaps the first time the dispossessed were urged to find their voices, to consider other possibilities. Profoundly egalitarian, the action groups never involved more than two per cent of the population in Latin American countries, yet they disturbed authorities more accustomed to an exclusively hierarchical power structure.

A theology for the poor gradually became a theology of the poor, as their views came to be known and appreciated. Even bishops claim to have been evangelicized by such groups!

Although liberation theology is actually very conservative in its doctrine (God is assumed to exist; what kind of God is another matter), it has nevertheless stirred controversy: in a 7,000-word Instruction on Certain Aspects of Liberation Theology, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Vatican agency supervising doctrine, called attention to certain “deviations.” He wrote that liberation theology made faulty economic and political assumptions, that it undermined authority, and that it falsified Christianity, reducing salvation, for instance, to the struggle for justice.

Berryman lets the reader decide if the charges are true. But he does point out that liberation theology’s supposed links to Marxism stem from the fact that Marxism, until recently, pervaded the intellectual milieux of Latin America, just as psychology and therapy pervade North America. The liberationists rarely face Marxism head on, but rather borrow from it critically and eclectically.

They might agree with Marx’s observation that under capitalism, money can become a fetish with more value than human beings, but they foresee no perfect classless society in the future. They present, rather, a socialist utopia that releases energies directed towards a more just society and that might come to approximate that utopia. They rarely speak of violence, but when they do it seems to be in search of a non-violent way to change society.

Cardinal Ratzinger says that hearts must change first, institutions later. A liberation theologian would reply that hearts change as institutions are changed. Inexplicably, Berryman only mentions Cardinal Ratzinger’s more recent document published in April 1986, On Christian Freedom and Liberation, in which he offers a more benign view of liberation theology. Its various adherents are now co-operating on the systematic presentation in more than 50 volumes of a complete liberation theology.

The liberationists, Berryman says, see themselves bringing to resolution the 19th-century independence struggle, and would situate themselves in the camp of the world’s excluded — the poor, blacks, women — now coming to the fore.

Liberation theology has irreversibly marked at least the Catholic Church, for even the Pope and the Canadian bishops give evidence of adopting their viewpoint at least partially. As the debt crisis worsens in Latin America, and as the cry from the poor for “bread, a roof, a job and dignity” intensifies, we will have to listen to these theologians more than ever. Phillip Berryman has given us a good place to start. Barry McGrory is a Roman Catholic pastor based in an Ottawa diocese and now studying at the National Defence College in Kingston. He has traveled throughout Latin America..

Listen to the Natives

Letter to the Editor

The Ottawa Citizen

19 September 1985

Barry McGrory

CBC Radio has decided to eliminate particular interest programs such as “Identities” and “Our Native Land,” not because of financial restraints – they are very inexpensively produced – but because focusing on such groups is no longer favored by Vice-President Margaret Lyons. It seems that these groups are to be heard from within mainstream programming.

It was precisely because they were not being heard from that such programs were originally conceived, and are still enthusiastically supported. The mainstream needs to hear minority viewpoints if it is not to become smug, stagnant, and stultifying. The Canadian mosaic does not want to give in to the melting pot thesis.

This comes at a time when the federal government is taking measures to remedy the fact that, while four per cent of the labor force is composed of visible minorities, only 1.7 per cent of federal public servants come from them.

“Our Native Land” was my only opportunity to really hear what Indians and Inuit had to say. I want to keep hearing it.

Barry McGrory

 Anne Roche (The Split Shaking Catholicism’s Foundations – Dec. 19) has never forgiven us for Vatican II. Even Pius XII, who introduced the biblical and liturgical renewal, and who spurred the critical examination of sexual ethics by permitting natural birth control, is not spared her ire.

Toronto Globe and Mail

24 December 1980

Barry McGrory

Ottawa ONT — I don’t begrudge her own craving for tough discipline and sacrifice, but why must she, in the best pharisaical tradition, so relish imposing it so harshly on others? Why so mean?

Her style doesn’t seem to reflect the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But neither did 19th-century Catholicism! John XXIII tried to restore the Gospel as the heart and soul of Catholicism. John Paul II would hardly want anything different.

Barry McGrory, Holy Cross Parish, Ottawa

58 Responses to McGrory: Barry McGrory

  1. Anonymous says:

    Barry McGrory is a pedophile — articulate predators are the most dangerous. I civilly sued The Ottawa Diocese in 1997 for sexual abuse. The priest who abused me was Barry McGrory. I know of at least 5 other people he abused and I am sure there are many more. I was assured by the Diocese that he would not be allowed to call himself a retired priest nor ever work in a counseling capacity again. All lies. He continues to call himself a retired priest, work with others, and I am sure abusing them — he is a fraud and a very disturbed man. The Canadian press does not do there vetting on this man — he is a convicted pedophile — that is the only thing that should be written after his name, NOT retired priest.

  2. Gail says:

    To Anonymous: your statement is just as serious as the case of Raymond Gareth Stanford (GARY), a Convicted St. John’s school teacher. Check it out in the ‘Of Interest/Non-Clerical post. This doesn’t suprise me.

  3. Leona says:

    To Anonymous,
    I’m wondering how we can hold the Ottawa archdiocese accountable for protecting these priests who they know were convicted? I sense your anger and frustration with the church regarding McGrory, I felt revictimized last spring when I discovered that the priest who’d been charged and convicted in British Columbia in 1992 for assaults against myself and another victim, (Fr. Jack McCann) had been given permission to work in Ottawa since his release from prison. I still don’t trust that he’s fully been removed from any type of contact with children.

  4. Sylvia says:

    Anonymous, would you email your phone and first name? I would really like to talk to you. Send to:

  5. Sylvia says:

    I have been contacted by Father Barry McGrory. He advised me that he was shocked to see you allege that he is a paedophile. He wants me to remove your comment.

    I suggested to Father McGrory that he say what he wants to see to you here as a comment, and I offered to post his comment if he doesn’t know how. He declined. He believes the onus is on me to remove your comment.

    We have had a few more exchanges. He is using words such as “slanderous” and “libelous and actionable in law.” I decided to bring it to an end by posting this comment.

    As everyone who follows this site knows I decided long ago to refer to those who sexually abuse children – teens included – as sexual predators or molesters. The decision came after learning that no matter which classification was used it created an uproar somewhere, and that the “experts” regularly disagree on definitions.

    As I told Father McGrory, and as I said many years ago, most people refer to molesters as paedophiles. They just do. They always have, and, I believe they probably always will. The average person does not know what an ephobophile, or hebophile or pederast is – they just say paedophile. However, I suggest to you Anonymous, and to one and all, that unless a clerical molester has been formally labelled a paedophile in a court of law they may take exception and there may be legal ramifications.

    I have no proof that Father Barry McGrory is a paedophile. He tells me he is not. I do have proof that he, a Roman Catholic priest, molested a 17-year-old native boy. And I do have proof that he was convicted in a court of law for molesting that boy.

    Anonymous, if you have proof that Father McGrory is a paedophile, then away you go. If, however, you don’t have documentation which proves he is a paedophile then best to use another word.

    Choose your words carefully people. If you have no legal proof that an individual is a paedophile best avoid use of the term completely. That it seems is where we are at. We seem to have reached some sort of threshold where the ultimate insult to a clerical sexual predator is to be referred to as a paedophile. I don’t pretend to understand it, but I do know that that’s the way it is.

    Nearly a year ago I blogged “Watch the language.” I think of that now. It seems we are entering an era where there is other cause to watch the language – legal cause. So please, a reminder to one and all, watch the language. They are watching.

  6. Michel Bertrand says:

    Well lets go with sexual predator and criminal.

  7. JG says:

    Personally, I am offended by “Father” and “priest”…he should be able to pick any of the others suggested…make it “Barry’s Pick”…to be fair. It was his choice then and it still is his choice now.
    Sylvia, where did he fit the presence of Christ in this “conversation” from the “steam roller” of the Legal kind???…
    He knows what he is when he looks in the mirror…and the crack is not in the mirror!
    Extremely pitiful, whatever definition is attached to the condition…

  8. Fr. Tim Moyle says:

    Sylvia: Is this man still a priest? If he is, then he shouldn’t be. All such perverts MUST BE EXPELLED from the priesthood! Every single one of them have lost the right (IMHO) to remain within the ranks of the clergy.

    Let me know if this develops to a point where it requires you to obtain any legal help. I will start a fund raising drive for you!!

    Fr. Tim

  9. 1yellowknife says:

    Sylvia: that sounds like threats and intimidation from Barry McGrory. Bullies threaten.

  10. Cheryl-Helene Thomson says:

    January 28, 2012 at 10:34 am presents the record of the online comment from Tim Moyle in which he is using the phrases “such perverts” and “must be expelled from the priesthood”. A few minutes earlier at 10:30, Moyle commented for the record on the “No shame” thread that these adjectives for McGrory “perfectly apply to this man”: namely “perverted,” “predator,” and “criminal.” It is very likely that Moyle had already read Sylvia’s warning advisory about language which she posted Friday evening, January 27, 2012 at 8:57 pm. Sylvia clearly directed: “watch the language” and “choose your words carefully.” Now I find it disturbing that first thing on Saturday morning, Tim Moyle launches into inflammatory language, and then offers to “start a fund raising drive” – “if this develops to a point where it requires you to obtain any legal help.” The question is how the situation could “develop” if people making comments to this blog would simply respect Sylvia’s wishes. It seems to be that the proper cautions to take in discussing McGrory in future would be to acknowledge that his criminal conviction for sexual assault was in the past, namely August 1993 – over 18 years ago. Therefore to refer to McGrory with epithets ‘in the present tense’ could indeed have legal ramifications. I specifically address my concerns to Tim Moyle. I myself would never want to pour oil on a fire, would you?

    • Fr. Tim Moyle says:

      Cheryl: I understand your point. However his objection was to the use of ONE word: ‘pedophile’. He is still a convicted sex offender. He stands proven to be a predator priest. He is demonstrably a pervert. These are titles that he has earned by his misconduct and abuse. The passing of time has not changed this.

      My note was to encourage Sylvia to stand up to a bully. She does not stand alone. As to the ‘oil on fire’ remark: suffice it to say that sometimes a little fire fueled by the fire of indignation in the response to the threats of a bully can be the best response there is. Fire can be antiseptic when trying to rid the Church of such criminal individuals. I appreciate that you might disagree, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am wrong. If my remarks caused any menace to Sylvia, or if she thinks my comments inappropriate, she is free to (and would not hesitate to) remove them. I trust her judgment.

      Final point: This blog is an act of profound love for the Church! Sylvia thinks enough of it that she demands clergy of every rank to do better; to expect it to act justly in reaching out to those most wounded – the victims; to better resemble the Bride of Christ that the Church is called to be by God himself. ANYONE and EVERYONE (pardon me for shouting) that claims to love the Catholic Church should rush forward with whatever is necessary so that Sylvia’s voice continues to sing out until the institutional Church finally reforms its policies and practices in these matters. If this blog were threatened by legal action, damned right I would organize in its defense and contribute with whatever I could collect and offer. I have told Sylvia many times that I believe she is a modern day Catherine of Sienna. Like that sainted woman, she is calling the hierarchy to turn away from a sinful path and return to being a vehicle of virtue for the world. Her voice should not be silenced. It should be amplified so that it is heard in every corner of the Church. I only wish that I could do more… and Sylvia knows that as well.

      Fr. Tim

      • 1 abandoned sheep says:

        It must be the week-end! Here is Fr. Moyle shouting again, and being so indignant. It seems to happen every week-end.

  11. Anne C says:

    Fr Moyle’s words are disturbing? Really? Here is what is disturbing: predator priests. Convicted clerical sexual abusers of minors. Perverts who stalk our children and violate our trust. And then – incredibly – have the gall to threaten Sylvia with legal action. And that is a tactic of bullies – by the way – to get the spotlight off them and onto someone else’s supposed errors.

    Sure, we can watch our words. I agree. But let us keep the spotlight firmly where it belongs. Many of us are ‘mad as hell’ about these cases and the important thing is to keep speaking up, and not be scared into silence. We know from reading cases on this site that sexual abusers rely heavily on silence, and, on webs of silence.

    Personally I like reading Fr Moyle’s postings as it brings me some comfort to know that there is someone from the church who shows sincere and appropriate anger about these sexual abuse cases.

  12. Glen says:

    The term ‘pedophile’ is properly used when referring to someone sexually attracted to a child. A seventeen year old isn’t the same as a seven year old. A homosexual man is attracted to a seventeen year old boy, a pedophile to a seven year old.

  13. JG says:

    …and nobody would be terribly offended if they developed a sick attraction to a dictionary in their spare time! …and damaged the pages of that book!
    Defend everything and anything you wish to somehow justify or qualify…for whatever reason or rational, Glen…and this is a recurring concern of yours on various posts!
    Try to defend the children and not play the linguist! …or keep skirting this issue that is obviously “occupying” your thoughts…
    It makes not the slightest difference.
    Both morally wrong and profoundly condemnable. No shades of grey unless your lights are turned off!…
    7 years old and 17 years old are the same to me: children!

  14. Anne C says:

    I agree. A 17 year old boy has no power in the world. There are a few exceptions, but, he typically has no long-term work, decent income, or family of his own – and still largely depends on the advice, mentorship, and, needless to say, decency of adults. In my mind, and in my experience as a high school teacher, he is not far from being a 7 year old with regards to his social and psychological dependency – though he has physically matured. Adolescents have a great deal of confusion in their lives – predators take advantage of that confusion. We should not even have to make the distinction between children and young adults. To use powerless youth of any age for their bodies is to damage them for life. It is therefore immoral and unethical – against church teaching – and against the criminal code of Canada.

  15. Sylvia says:

    I response to Father Tim Moyle’s blog of 28 January 2012 at 1:54 pm, yes, Father Barry McGrory is still very much a Roman Catholic priest. I know that referring to him and other convicted clerical predators as Father annoys many, but, as I have said in the past, to me it is a constant and sad reminder that, despite their criminal convictions for predatory behavior, these men have been allowed to remain in the priesthood.

    Father, I am flattered and humbled at the comparison to St. Catharine, but I have a long long way to go to come close to that great Saint. But, I thank you 🙂

    Re 7-year-old or 17-year old victims – I think all of this is red herring business. True, there are now legalities involved, but, beyond that, does it make one iota of difference to the victim? does the victim of a clerical predator heave a sigh of relief that his/her molester is NOT legally defined as a paedophile? I really don’t think so.

    Are we to believe that the priest who preys on and molests/abuses/assaults a 17-year-old is a few moral notches above the priest who molests the 7-year-old? I don’t think so.

    Are we to believe that the loss of faith incurred by the large majority of victims of clerical sexual abuse is any different be the victim 7 or 17? I don’t so.

    Are we to believe that the anguish of parents who find out they were betrayed by their parish priest is greater if the priest’s victim is 17 vs 7? I don’t think so.

    Finally, as far as I’m concerned the priests who preys on a 17-year-old has shown himself every bit as unfit to be a priest as the priest who preys on the 7-year-old.

    • Fr. Tim Moyle says:

      Sylvia: When we consider as well that the stages of maturation have been pushed far further than they were before. (2 generations ago, if you were approaching your 16th birthday, you were likely preparing to leave home and start a family.) Today, rare indeed is the case where a child would be prepared to face independent life at such a young age. Most 17 yr old kids are still children in terms of their social and emotional maturation, even if their bodies may say otherwise. You are absolutely correct to state that there is no difference in genus, kind or degree between sexually abusing a 7 or a 17 year old. That’s the reason why the Criminal Code prohibits such adult/child acts… because it is so harmful to children who are not prepared to defend their own best interests. Given the biological onslaught of adolescence, one would think that a 17 year old is even more in need of protection from the law. Their judgment is most certainly impaired by a powerful cocktail of hormones – a situation that a predator takes advantage of usually by grooming the victim from an early age and thus able to manipulate them for their own pleasure.

      Fr. Tim

  16. Cheryl-Helene Thomson says:

    If anyone were to compare me, yours truly Cheryl, to St. Catherine of Sienna, the last thing I would ever do – the last thing I would ever do – would be to say I am “flattered and humbled” and then say “thank you.” I am certain such a compliment will never come my way, and that fact prevents me from the obligation I otherwise would have to denounce the person who made that mistake, in no uncertain terms. In fact, making excessive compliments of this kind, and receiving compliments of this kind, are exactly among the behaviours which saints throughout the history of the faith have abhorred. I have studied the life and writings of St. Catherine of Sienna, from direct historical sources. Using her name here would be funny, if it were not so pathetic.

    Getting back to McGrory, whether he gets a lawyer to write a nasty letter threatening a lawsuit, or not, he is an old man pushing 80 by now, who seems to have sublimated his yearnings for handsome, Geronimo-teenagers into fashionable leftwing activism on behalf of native issues. Of course, he really hurt his victims just as much as if they truly were children. But he is also entitled to our acknowledgment that he has already been punished by the legal system, has not repeated his offence(s) apparently, and is entitled not to be the brunt of taunting invective on this blog.

    The modern Church chose not to remove him from the priesthood. The modern Church is not one I support monetarily or in any other way, for this and other reasons…. such as throwing the name of St. Catherine of Sienna around. The only reason on earth why people stick with this modern Church is that they are evidently so irretrievably committed to remaining ignorant. Their sensibilities regarding moral imperatives have been eroded, so that it is permitted for the sin of pride to be fed because the modern Church has taught all little boys and girls that we ‘must accept compliments gracefully’, instead of being horribly ashamed at them, as is proper. The whole problem now can be justly called ‘bad will.’

    No souls are being saved here. In fact, hell is enlarging itself. And on that note,
    I write my final comment on this blog, as I understand now its reason for being.

    • Fr. Tim Moyle says:

      Cheryl: Excessive compliment? I hardly think so. The principle difference between the two is essentially technological. Catherine was severely limited in how she expressed he call for the Pope to return to holiness by leaving Avignon. If she had had the internet at her fingertips I have little doubt that she’d be blogging just as Sylvia does.

      The fact that you (an others) cannot see that both women are doing the same thing, (calling the Church to holiness) each using the tools of their times saddens me. I interpret such blindness to mean either one has given up entirely on the Church, or is so dedicated to it that they cannot acknowledge its failure when she fails to act as it preaches. In the long run, neither will be good for the Church. As +Fulton Sheen preached, believes need to live with mercy and truth. If we are blind to one, we cannot clearly see the other. Catherine then and Sylvia now firmly fix their focus on both. This is why they are successful.

      Discount my analysis if you wish, but you have neither right nor reason to question Sylvia’s intent, any more than you could for others who called the Church from its sinful ways before her.

      Fr. Tim

  17. JG says:

    This sure went from bad to worse! We started with a threat of legal action by McGrory to a banishment to hell by Cheryl…who by now should know to ignore at least some of the comments by Tim Moyle. When things deteriorate to this level, his interventions are never far away…whether he makes sense or not. Maybe because for most it is hard to believe he is sincere…like a double agent…a traitor…a snitch…I sincerely don’t know why except that he should have the insight to realize this.
    I too felt some discomfort at his sugar coating but sometimes if you can’t say anything good you may as well shut up…So I kept my discomfort and tried to understand…

    The last time you went on like this, C-H, you thought only victims were given any credibility so you made the statement that you as well had been abused at 6 yrs old, I believe it was. Then you went away for a while, never to return…maybe you needed to return?…
    Now what is most striking is your statement that one should be “horribly ashamed at compliments”…”as is proper”…???!!! I for one would greatly appreciate if you spoke with your heart and not from all the clutter in your head…all the accumulation of facts from history, from your perspective of the world as it should be or what it should return to…
    Self-esteem, pride, recognition, appreciation or sometimes just the plain will to get out of bed in the morning and continue…needs a little nudge from a friend.
    Moyle went overboard… Sylvia with her continued faith in the Church and her desire to be a good Catholic, still, answered politely. As Christians, we are all imitators at different levels, or we should be. It would keep us humble!…with a light on the shore when the sea gets rough, to return home…
    Cheryl-Helene, we are here to help save a child…one child to call this a success. If you came to save souls, be gentle and it “Will be” …If you have Faith, hold on to it and banish the “Anger”…because you carry it like a cancer!
    You don’t need to be “better”…just do your “best” like the rest of us in this imperfect world.
    Have Faith and loose some of the information overload…
    A gentle boot in the “ars” from a friend! Take your time…

  18. Glen says:

    It disrespects victims of pedophilia and distracts from the seriousness of that crime by referring to seventeen year olds as children. A seventeen year old has much more knowledge of himself and sexuality in general than a seven year old. They are two different subjects. As Fr. Moyle pointed out it wasn’t too long ago someone of that age was married and working full time. If at that age you have consensual sex with someone of the same gender then you’re a homosexual. A seven year old does not have consensual sex with anyone. The majority of incidents in the Church have been homosexual, not pedophilia. However, both need to be dealt with.

  19. JG says:

    So, Glen, how many biological children ,of any age, call you Father??…or Dad!

  20. Michel Bertrand says:

    Do not minimize the act, the child by legal definition is not the predator nor is he the person who should be focused upon as being to blame or responsible to blame. The decision to act on his sexual impulse and convicted of such was the adult in a position of trust. Rodeo or Rodao still the same outcome, a crime was committed and the onus was on the adult to not be in such a position. As result the person’s credibility has been and should remain in question.

  21. Alan Sabourin says:

    As a former employee of Holy Cross Parish in the 1970’s, I would like to add to the comments concerning Barry McGrory. My comments are from a secular or Non Catholic point of view. They may offend some. I mean no offense to anyone and hope people will take them in the proper context.
    My comments are twofold, concerning McGrory in particular and the Catholic Church in general. As an employee of Holy Cross, I noticed that he spent a lot of his time drinking and playing hockey with his buddies. But hey there is no law against that. I found Barry McGrory very rude and arrogant often belittling others and taking credit for actions and ideas often initiated by others. Therefore it comes as no surprise that he would attempt to charge a person who resisted his sexual advances and tried to defend himself. I am also not surprised that he would bully Sylvia from the comments that were made on this blog by Anonymous. (Anonymous: You may remember me from Holy Cross Parish)Whatever term that is used to describe him is completely irrelevant. Whether he forced himself on boys, men, girls or women; whether he is heterosexual, gay or bisexual, it does not matter. It is wrong and a criminal act for him to force himself on anybody and I believe he should be punished by mandatory time in prison. If Mcgrory wants to argue that he is not a pedophile but a molester, it makes absolutely no difference to his victims. What I noticed about McGrory was that he tried to appear liberal and open minded, using the trust put in him by impressionable youth (especially those from broken and problem homes) to become close to them. Lots of my friends thought it was cool to hang out and drink with a “cool” priest. I have both male and female friends that are now scarred for life and were frightened to say anything at the time because of Mcgrory’s position in the community. I hope my parents understand now when I told them I was safer playing music in a bar then working at Holy Cross. But the problem still remains that Mcgrory still sees himself as a victim and has no compassion for the true victims. I call on him to surrender himself to the police, accept to spend the rest of his days on earth in prison and beg his creator for forgiveness. We can go back and forth on this blog forever but until McGrory changes, it means nothing at all. I ask him to make an example of himself and show the world and his victims that he is truly sorry and accepts his punishment for all the pain he has caused. It would be a great chance for the Catholic Church to change their policy from protecting criminals to caring for their victims.
    The second part of my comments concerns the Catholic Church in general. If a secular person would have been charged with the same crime as Mcgrory they would not have received the protection of the Catholic Church. Or the financial support that the church has spent on lawyers to protect Mcgrory from the law, prison and the truth. This money could have easily been spent on feeding the poor, consoling the victims or providing education and counseling for victims of this sort of crime. I can understand why these people have lost faith in an institution that speaks one way and acts in a totally different manner. Theo Fleury(former NHL hockey player) has said that Canada is a Disneyland for these type of criminals. The actions of the Catholic Church prove him right. I surely do not want to offend any Catholics so my apologies if my remarks do. I mean no offense. I know of many good Catholics who are now clinging to their faith. They deserve much better leadership than they are getting from the church. Canadian society is changing and now views these crimes as very serious. If the Catholic Church keeps protecting these criminals, they may have to accept the fact that the majority of Canadians may want the Catholic Church to be declared an unlawful organization where members will be tolerated not encouraged. This will hurt the majority of Catholics who are completely innocent of such crimes but must accept the fact the Canada is a secular democracy. I would hate to see this happen. While I am not a Christian, I have to agree with the message of love and compassion that Jesus Christ spread. It appears that Barry Mcgrory and the Catholic Church hierarchy have not received this message yet.

  22. Artist3d says:

    You can imagine my surprise at coming across this blog and revelations of Barry McGrory’s 1993 admission and subsequent conviction for sexual assault. I sympathise with the victims in these cases. I was 17 myself at the time when then ‘father’ McGrory took me in and helped me get my life back on track, homeless, I lived with him for the better part of a year. Not being a Catholic I can remember some great existential debates and humourous asides that always revealed a man of great committment to his faith and yet a surprisingly open mind. At no time was I approached inappropriately or made to feel uncomfortable with my sexuality or Agnostic perspective. Sometimes I regret not having attended any of his sermons on Sunday even out of curiosity but back then I sensed that I was to be more inspired by empirical evidence than anything else. When John Lennon sang “nothing’s gonna change my world” Barry was quick to quip, “that’s ridiculous!” and so I began to question even the Beatles! I think I understand where Sylvia’s blog here is attempting to maintain a sense of humanity and purpose in asking such high authorities as Churches, to take a stricter responsibility for their deviant priests. I suppose the convicted ones, even if they are not jailed, should do the right thing and resign, celibacy is obviously not a healthy life choice for them. The question is one of actual circumstances, in any legal case as seen through third party eyes and having not maintained any contact with Mr. McGrory over the years I know nothing of the case, only a deep disappointment that he was yet another priest involved in one these abhorant cases. Nevertheless the case was settled over 20 years ago and did not allude to a repeating pattern of behaviour so I wish him well as I still keep fond memories and a special appreciation for his help when I was a teenager in those days. The Catholic Church itself should get a psychological grip on this problem and reform the strict celibacy rules imposed on their exclusively male priesthood. Repressing healthy sexual activity is likely the prime reason so many cases of deviant behaviour crop up. It is an inhumane modus operendi to impose on a human being and I am not surprised at the ugly ramifications we see particularly regarding priests. In the end, Barry McGrory’s or anyone’s life’s work should not necessarily be characterized in a cavalier way regarding momentary lapses of reason but rather by the grander sum of a life’s albeit imperfect best intentions. If there is a god then I am sure it’ll all work out as one is free to imagine because; as a thing is viewed, so it faithfully appears. Peace and love.

    • MLAC says:

      EXCUSE ME!!!! Peace and love?!?!!!?? McGrory sexually and mentally abused a young girl from the age of 13 for years. He raped and abused a young boy and how many more young people we don’t know about. And then the man has the gall to not only blame it on some addiction called hebophilia but to actually sound proud that he is such a man of the church and has been cured and is at peace is absolutely f*****g ridiculous. What about those he abused? How do they find peace? Artist3d and the rest of the Archdiocese of Ottawa can all commune together. Peace and love.

  23. scott spurgeon says:

    I feel bad because back in the late 70s my friends and I were in our 20s maybe a little out of his comfort zone but we knew he wasn’t right and he was after us a couple times for poaching some of his girls. I know he tried a couple times to get a friend of mine that was male but nothing obvious only the start I guess and being rebuffed stayed away. We didn’t say anything and I feel now like we should have. I feel bad for those that were hurt and now wish I had done more than just write him off as a weird guy.

  24. Sylvia says:

    The next court date for Father Barry McGrory is:

    21 December 2016: 08:30 am. “to be spoken to,” courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.)

    Please keep the complainants in your prayers

  25. Sylvia says:

    The next court date for Father Barry McGrory is:

    11 January 2017: 08:30 am. – he is to show in person – “to be spoken to,” courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.)

    Please keep the victims and complainants in your prayers

  26. Sylvia says:

    The next court date for Father Barry McGrory is:

    01 February 2017: 08:30 am. “to be spoken to,” courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.)

    Please keep the victims and complainants in your prayers.

  27. Sylvia says:

    The next court date for Father Barry McGrory is:

    15 February 2017: 08:30 am. “to be spoken to,” courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.)

    Please keep the victims and complainants in your prayers.

  28. Sylvia says:

    The next court date for Father Barry McGrory is:

    08 March 2017: 08:30 am. “to be spoken to,” courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.)

    Please keep the victims and complainants in your prayers.

  29. Sylvia says:

    News from court this am…

    It is anticipated that further charges will be laid against Father Barry McGrory this coming Friday. After charges are laid a court date will be set to address those new charges. The hope is that this will have been taken care by 23 March 2017 in order proceed with a judicial pre- trial hearing on that date. This would NOT be open to the public.

    Please keep the complainants in your prayers.

  30. Sylvia says:

    The next court date for Father Barry McGrory is:

    04 April 2017: 08:30 am, “to be spoken to,” courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.)

    Please keep the complainants in your prayers.

  31. Sylvia says:

    The next court date for Father Barry McGrory is :

    12 April 2017: 08:30 am, “to be spoken to,” courtroom #5, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.).

    Please keep the complainants in your prayers

  32. Sylvia says:

    Today’s court-date for Father Barry McGrory has been adjourned to 31 May 2018:

    31 May 2018: 9 am, “to be spoken to,” courtroom #2, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.). .

    Please keep the complainants and all the McGrory victims in your prayers

  33. Sylvia says:

    The next court date for Father Barry McGrory is:

    26 June 2018: 10:15 am, pre-trial discovery, Ottawa courthouse

    He has been committed to stand trial on the charges related to all three complainants – that includes the allegations from the one complainant who did not testify at the preliminary hearing.

    He has opted for trial by judge alone.

    Please keep the complainants in your prayers.

  34. Sylvia says:

    The rendering of the verdict for Barry McGrory has been rescheduled to Monday:

    24 June 2019: 09:00 am, VERDICT, Ottawa courthouse (161 Elgin St.).

    Please keep the victims and complainants in your prayers

  35. Cairine says:

    The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that McGrory missed his sentencing hearing this morning (Monday November 18th) and that an arrest warrant has been issued.

    • bc says:

      No wonder McGrory was recruited for the priesthood: he is a natural born criminal. Most priests need to go to the seminary to learn how to do it.
      I think he was flown out diplomatically. He`s probably in Rome drafting Pope Francis` next encyclical on Surrendering to God… or at Little Angels; the Vatican`s open bar and grill.

      • bb says:

        Little Angels Bar and Grill…or in San Salvador, or trolling for teens in Northern Canada. I hope he is located and sentenced with additional time for his crimes. He does not earn forgiveness so easily by thinking he is above the Law.

  36. Anonymous says:

    Beyond frustrated by this entire process. How high of importance do you think his arrest warrant is? At 85 his likelyhood of reoffending is not high but his victims deserve justice. Avoiding sentencing shows only that he has absolutely no remorse for his actions. Can we rally as a community and find him? #findbarry

  37. Ron says:

    He was picked up in Toronto last night by the police. Not sure what’s next, but they apprehended him last night.

    • bc says:

      I hope this info. is correct.
      What`s next is he should be someone`s Christmas turkey dinner. There will be enough of him left-over into the New Year. Mr. McGrory isn`t showing any remorse for his crimes. Clerical perverts and/or defrocked clerical perverts are careless. I can already hear his apologists testifying at his sentencing hearing that McGrory is an outstanding humanitarian…

  38. bc says:

    Poignant victim impact statements at former priest McGrory sentencing hearing:
    Crown asking for a six- or seven-year prison term. Defense playing old age; health card.

    • Cairine says:

      I was horrified to read in the Citizen article that someone was willing to be a character witness for McGrory after hearing the hell that he put his poor victims through. This person talks about the wonderful community that McGrory was creating at Holy Cross and how he could pack the church with his sermons. First, how can anyone think that his being a charismatic speaker makes up for being a predatory abuser. And second, how can they not recognize that that was his plan: he used this charisma to entice the parents into the church and use their trust to prey on their kids. Our family was part of Holy Cross parish at the same time as this character witness. My parents thought that McGrory walked on water and would not listen when I told them as a teenager that there was something really wrong with this man. Thankfully, I did not pay the price for my parents’ blind adoration that others did. But how can the character witness not recognize at this stage that McGrory is not just a man with a dark side but a man that is pure evil. What the sentencing judge should be asking is: if the Catholic church hadn’t hidden his crimes and McGrory was being brought to justice when he was a young man, what sentence would I give. There should be no leniency for his bad health since he got to live free during his healthy years due to his and the Catholic churches lies to his victims.

      • bc says:

        At the risk of an appeal; McGrory will have to be sentenced as per the sentencing guidelines and criminal codes that applied at the time he offended. I don`t think it`s gonna look anything like seven years (although I do hope it will).

        You are right Cairine it is mind blowing that there are still Catholic apologists of clerical abusers out there. Whether it`s McGrory, Father Lucky Joe Leclair, Jean Vanier etc. being a popular priest and/or clerics seeking public attention (which is what ultimately got McGrory re-charged) is definitely a risk factor on the checklist.

  39. Cairine says:

    The Ottawa Citizen published another first hand story from a McGrory victim today. It is terrible the number of lives this man tore apart and mind boggling how easily the Catholic church was able to cover it all up. Barbara Erlandson is telling her story publicly to regain the voice she lost by signing a non-disclosure long ago and to help stop the cycle of abuse that permeates the world that we live in. Well done, Barbara.

    The article talks about McGrory’s sentencing next month. Given the current covid 19 situation, this is unlikely to happen. But at least he is behind bars.

    • Phil Johnson says:

      Cairine, thanks for sharing this article…for many of us, this website and it’s contributors are the only way we can keep up to date on all the pervert collar stories. Hopefully the disclosure orders will someday be lifted on all abuse cases. Parishioners would be shocked to learn how much of their donations are spent on settlements and legal fees. Stay safe in this very trying virus time as well.

    • bc says:

      Mysterious ways indeed:
      Had McGrory not skipped his sentencing hearing last fall he’d probably be under house arrest in a condo in Toronto’s fashionable Distillery District. That wouldn`t have been much of a sentence given that we`re all in confinement anyway.

  40. Cairine says:

    The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that “at a hearing Tuesday, conducted by teleconference, court heard that McGrory recently completed a five-day psychiatric assessment at The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. That assessment, by forensic psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Wood, concluded that McGrory “meets the test” for being unfit to be sentenced. It’s a rarely used legal designation since mental fitness most often is a question at the time of an offence or at the time of a trial. According to the Criminal Code, an individual is unfit if they can’t understand the nature of legal proceedings, their possible consequences, or communicate with a defence lawyer.” So the church hid McGrory’s crimes until he was so old that he could “pretend” that he was senile. This is a very intelligent man (yes evil men can be intelligent). I have no doubt that it is a pretense. A fitness hearing will take place at the end of July.

    The article says that Crown attorney John Semenoff has asked for a six-or seven-year prison term in the case given its many aggravating factors, including the age of the victims and McGrory’s position of trust. There is truly something wrong with our justice system when 6-7 years for what McGrory did is considered a heavy sentence by the Crown.

  41. Cairine says:

    McGrory has died in custody at the Ottawa Hospital. An evil man who never took responsibility for his actions. My thoughts are with his victims.

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