Stolen · Spotify Studios

Don't Play With This

May 24, 2022·48 min·3 clips

A 1989 Edmonton Journal profile of Father Gilles Gauthier, accused of sexual abuse at St. Michael's residential school, quoted him saying: 'Maybe I should be in here also, but I never got caught.'

The warning comes first. Listeners hear plainly that the episode includes references to violence and sexual abuse against children, and the show asks them to take care before the story continues. Then the past comes back. The host returns to Uncle Ivan's account of being sexually abused by a priest, tying his memory to St. Michael's and to the fear children may have carried there. She holds the place in careful detail: hallways, a dining hall, a dorm room, the sound of a priest's shoes. It makes the terror feel real without turning it into spectacle. The investigation narrows. A 1989 article quotes Father Gauthier saying that maybe he should have been in the penitentiary too, because he was never caught. The host does not claim to know exactly what he meant. She knows the line matters because Uncle Ivan accused this same man of sexual abuse. So she looks for what happened to Father Gauthier after the article, moving from her phone to old details and then to an Oblate newsletter. A new trace appears. In 2019, Father Gilles is shown celebrating his 87th birthday on May 16, in a photo that looks like it was taken in a rec room. The discovery changes the room. There is no obituary, and the host starts to think Father Gauthier may still be alive near Edmonton. St. Albert stops being just a place name. It may be where a man tied to her family's pain still lives, and the episode's careful pace hardens into resolve. She wants to go see him. The close returns to care, with resources for listeners dealing with physical or sexual violence.

As heard by us

A searching episode that turns archival digging into a portrait of memory and harm.

This episode follows the host as she tries to piece together the life of a priest accused of sexual abuse at St. Michael's, moving through family memory, archival digging, and the uneasy question of what can still be known.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want a calm, relentless search for buried truth, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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