CW: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault. Take care when reading.

Canadian Catholic priest Thomas Rosica — founder of Salt + Light Television, former Vatican spokesman and World Youth Day organizer — has been accused of sexually assaulting a younger priest more than two decades ago. 

The unnamed plaintiff, to whom Rosica served as a mentor, alleges the abuse occurred over the course of several months beginning in summer 2000, according to a lawsuit filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in March and obtained by Catholic news outlet The Pillar. In his statement of defence, which OSV News obtained, Rosica, 65, denied the allegations.  

Rosica’s faculties for priestly ministry were withdrawn in March after the lawsuit was filed, The Pillar reported.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiff alleges that Rosica’s advances began with long, unwanted hugs and touching the plaintiff’s body and arms. But in 2000, the elder priest allegedly repeatedly fondled and groped the plaintiff’s genitalia and exposed himself to the plaintiff.

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The plaintiff alleges that Rosica abused him “under the guise of his role as teacher, priest, and guidance counsellor, and further with a view of implicitly or explicitly helping the plaintiff’s career within the church in return for Rosica’s sexual advances.” 

The alleged abuse also included Rosica making inquiries about the plaintiff’s sexuality and using sexually explicit language, according to OSV News, which also obtained the lawsuit. 

Rosica and his priestly order, the Basilian Fathers of Toronto, both argued in separate statements that the civil suit should be heard in a church court instead of an Ontario court, and that the plaintiff had waited an unreasonably long time to bring the allegations forward.

The now 55-year-old plaintiff, named in the lawsuit as M.B., said the alleged abuse led to “mental anguish,” alcohol addiction, as well as relationship and job problems.

The younger priest alleges that the Basilian Fathers of Toronto knew about Rosica’s interest in young men and his “sexual propensity with other male students” but ignored previous complaints.  

Rosica founded Salt + Light Television, the Canadian Catholic TV station, but left his role as CEO of Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation in 2019 over plagiarism allegations, the Catholic Register reported. 

He was the national director of World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto. World Youth Day is an international event for Catholic youth held every few years where the Pope makes an appearance.

He was the English-language liaison at the Vatican’s summit on sexual abuse in 2019, according to the Register, and served as a media advisor at Synods of Bishops in 2008 and 2018. He was also an aide to the Vatican’s press office after Pope Francis was elected in 2013. 

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Emma Prestwich is the digital and United Church in Focus editor at Broadview.

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