Ex-St. Joseph Parish priest named in sex allegations

Man who served Catholic church from 1998-2003 suspended from Alberta post

Allegations of sexual misconduct have been made against a former associate pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Vancouver.

Father Peter Hung Cong Tran has been working in Alberta since 2003, and has been suspended from his post by Bishop William McGrattan of Calgary while a church investigation is conducted.

His name was made public by Edmonton Archbishop Richard Smith at a news conference on Wednesday.

The allegations were recently made by two women in Vancouver, one of whom may have been a minor when the incidents are alleged to have occurred.

“He asked one of the victims to sit on his lap,” alleged Joseph Thoai Le, chancellor reverend of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vancouver. “Because someone was sitting on your lap, maybe there was some holding or touching involved. That was the nature of the allegation on the part of the victim. She said it involved some kissing, too.”

Tran was at St. Joseph from 1998 to 2003.

The second allegation came from a woman who said “he was holding onto her hand, and kissed her hand.”

The two women made the allegations individually.

“The second one actually didn’t come forward,” Le said. “I heard about her from the first one, and I contacted the second one and asked whether the allegation was true or not, and she told me it happened.”

The initial complaint came from a woman who thinks she was a minor.

“According to the victim she was a minor at that moment. But according to the priest maybe she was already 19 years old,” Le said. “So we are not able to find out yet whether the date was correct or not. This happened many years ago, so the recollection was a little bit vague.”

Le said the police have not been contacted.

“The victim is now an adult,” Le said. “She doesn’t want to pursue it. She had been advised of the right to go to the police, but she refused. Both of them (refused).”

Le said the women were offered counselling, but declined.

“They even advocated for the man not to be punished further. Because of the closeness of the Vietnamese (community), maybe that is what they think. They don’t want the man to be punished further, other than being removed from his post.”

St. Joseph is at 1612 East 18th in the Cedar Cottage neighbourhood. It has about 900 families, and caters to two communities, one English-speaking, one Vietnamese.

On Sunday, Rev. Thao Ngoc Dinh read a statement about the allegations in church. “At all the parishes where he served, a statement is being read publicly,” said Dinh, who has been at St. Joseph for a year.

Le said “the statement went out to try and find out whether there were more victims,” but no one else has come forward to date.

“The complaint came through another priest,” he said. “The priest called me immediately, and we investigated. We found that it was credible, and we contacted the Dominican.”

The Dominican is the religious order that the 62-year-old Tran belonged to, which has its headquarters in Vietnam. The full name of the Canadian wing is the Vietnamese Dominicans of the Regional Vicariate of St. Vincent Liem.

The allegations come after a statement in August by Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller calling on anyone who knows of abuse to contact the church or police.

Because someone was sitting on your lap, maybe there was some holding or touching involved. That was the nature of the allegation on the part of the victim. She said it involved some kissing, too.