I am sitting with Reporter Ramona Dearing at the Heritage Café on Duckworth Street in St. John’s. It is May 20, 1999, and the trial of Brother Ronald Justin Lasik is in its latter stages in the Courthouse across the street. Dearing and I have half an hour before the day’s session begins.

Sexual abuse trials of priests and Brothers were routine in Newfoundland by the late 1990’s, but when I heard that R. J. Lasik had been charged my ears perked up: not only had Lasik been one of my primary school teachers, but I had encountered him again after I myself had joined the congregation of which he was a member, the Christian Brothers of Ireland.

Some time ago I confessed to Dearing, who posts daily reports for CBC Radio, that I was finding it difficult to believe that Lasik could be guilty of the crimes with which he was charged. She suggested I come to the trial and observe the proceedings first hand. I was uncomfortable with that – maybe because I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know, maybe because I didn’t want to dig up memories of a long abandoned former life. She offered to shepherd me into the courtroom, if that would help. For weeks I procrastinated, but the case weighed on my mind and finally I accepted her offer.

Now at the Heritage she fills me in on the events to date, describing the men who have brought the charges, sketching their personalities, reviewing their testimony. The charges include common assault, indecent assault, gross indecency, and buggery, acts allegedly perpetrated at Mount Cashel Orphanage in the mid 1950’s. Lasik has entered not guilty pleas on all counts.

I try to explain to Ramona why it is difficult for me to accept the Lasik’s guilt. As my grade two teacher at St. Bonaventure’s College he seemed a decent enough young man. He was strict, but no more so than any of the other Brothers. I was impressed by the friendship he had with one of them, Brother Gerald Rohan, who had taught me in first grade. Lasik and Rohan socialized with us, taught us ball games, got out on the ice with us – they were the sort of Brothers who eventually inspired me to join the congregation.

Eleven years later I ran into Lasik again when he was visiting the House of Formation where I was completing my second year of religious training. He remembered me. He told me that he and Rohan were now teaching together in the city they grew up in, Chicago. I remember being proud that even as a junior member of the order — I was seventeen — I was now so much closer in status to these men.

Ramona has been listening patiently. I ask the question foremost in my mind: “Is it possible that Brother Lasik has been falsely accused?”

“The complainants seem credible,” she replies.

“So he will be convicted, you think?”

“On almost all counts, I suspect. But I’m guessing.”

I sputter, “Could the boys be wrong? How could a man like that be lying so boldly on the stand? And what if he is telling the truth – what would that say about our justice system?”

“It’s a flawed system to be sure. But in this case I predict you will get over your doubt,” Dearing says, even as she admits that some of the people accusing Lasik have been psychologically damaged enough that they could be exaggerating or, in a few cases, mistaken.

We leave the café for the courtroom, arriving in the gallery exactly at ten. There are about a dozen spectators, only one of whom, aside from Ramona, is female. Below us Lasik waits in the area reserved for the accused. Despite his age I have no difficulty recognizing him.

The court clerk speaks and we all rise.  Oye, oye, God Save the Queen and the Queen’s Judge. Madam Justice Maureen Dunn enters and installs herself on the high bench in Newfoundland’s largest and most impressive courtroom. She summons the jury. We wait in silence as they file in, eleven of them. The roll is called. Chaplin, Murphy, Peters, Stamp, Harries, Barton, Keilley…

Lasik stares, his expression grave, almost severe. He projects a dignified, slightly wounded, stoic air. Yesterday, guided by his legal counsel David Eaton, he gave testimony on his own behalf; today has been set aside for cross-examination.

The accused takes the stand. Crown attorney John Brooks reviews each complainant’s testimony, establishing that Lasik was present at Mount Cashel at the time and had the opportunity to commit the acts in question. Lasik admits he was there and that for the most part he remembers the complainants, but he vehemently denies sexual involvement with the boys he supervised at the orphanage.

The Crown names a specific incident, something that allegedly occurred in the boy’s shower room. Lasik had admitted he inspected the naked boys to assure they had washed themselves properly. A complainant has testified that sexual touching occurred.

“It never happened,” says Lasik. Brooks asks him if it could have happened so long ago that he might have forgotten it.

“Absolutely not,” says the accused. “Ask me if I’ve been to Montreal. I say yes. To Niagara Falls? Yes, I’ve been there, too. But have I been in South America? No. I know I have never been to South America. Some things you know you didn’t do. I have a vow of chastity. It is inconceivable for me to have molested these boys. It never happened.”

I listen in fascination, thinking this is exactly what I would say if I were falsely accused.

At the Mid-Morning Break I stand outside with Ramona and ask her about the gallery spectators. “Oh, the cast of characters,” she says, and identifies the ones she knows. There are two other reporters besides her, and three complainants. There is the policeman who co-ordinated the investigation of the abuse cases, Sgt. Mark Wall of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. The older gentleman is a senior Christian Brother reporting to the congregation, presumably in case internal disciplinary measures are called for. The tall, good looking chap is a former Mount Cashel boy named Nels Palfrey and the little guy he is talking to is J.J. Byrne.

I know J.J., who in his time has been both an abused orphan and a Christian Brother. In a separate action he himself has brought abuse charges against Brothers – unsuccessfully it turned out – and as a result of that experience he has become an advocate for complainants in other suits.

And I remember Nels Palfrey, too, though I would not have recognized him. He resided at Mount Cashel but played with me in the St. Bon’s concert band. At the time he was considered a musical genius, even a prodigy.

One of the men whose identity Ramona didn’t know approaches me, calling my name. I recognize him only vaguely until he introduces himself – Dick Farrell, with whom I taught at Brother Rice High School in 1969. He lived at Mount Cashel when Lasik was there and was called as a witness in this trial.

The crowd filters back into the courtroom and the interrogation resumes. Brooks is a rat terrier, ragging and worrying Lasik from every angle. The accused, however, proves to be smart, articulate, and not easily manipulated. Wisely he does not deny that he was a stern disciplinarian, as many of the Brothers were in those days. “I make a distinction between disciplinary issues and sexual issues,” he says.

I glance around. I spy a television producer I know. I notice that the inspector Christian Brother, supposedly taking notes, is actually doing a crossword puzzle. Nels Palfrey is paying rapt attention to the proceedings. J. J. Byrne nods to me.

There is no way I can be fly on the wall in this particular courtroom.

The gallery spills out into the noonday sun on Duckworth Street. At a distance from the main steps I resume my conversation with Dick Farrell. He tells me that although he is not a complainant in the Lasik case he could very well have ended up being one. Suddenly he interrupts his story to look over my shoulder. “Look at that,” he says.

I turn to see Lasik emerging from the courthouse. He pauses on the top step, blinking in the bright light, then descends the stairs and walks directly toward us. I steel myself for the moment, prepared to speak to him if necessary. I look straight at him, curious to find out if he will recognize me. For an instant our eyes meet, but to my dismay – quickly followed by relief – he averts his gaze and continues on, eyes front, his face a mask of pride and pain.

Dick and I share a look. “Bastard,” he grunts, clearly assuming I would agree.

More cast members arrive. I am introduced to two of the complainants, John Thomey and Billy Evoy. Thomey is rotund, smiling, wise, friendly. Evoy, shy, looks for the world like someone about to ask for spare change. They are men my age, men in their fifties who were boys at Mount Cashel while I was a boy at St. Bon’s, men who claim they were abused in the orphanage in ways unimaginable in the bourgeois day-school environment in which I thrived.

I listen to the banter. These are veterans of the orphanage and of the court wars. I have questions to ask, but now is not the time…

[Written January-February, 2002, from notes taken during the 1999 Lasik trial. Courtroom statements have been altered slightly from the trial transcripts. The names of complainants and jury members have been changed.]