Bishop Blames Addiction For Child Porn Stash

A disgraced Catholic Bishop busted at the Ottawa airport with a cache of 588 images of child pornography—some graphic images of nude boys wearing rosary beads and crucifixes—on his laptop told the court this morning that addiction to pornography was to blame. According to a report in the Ottawa Citizen, Bishop Raymond Lahey told the magistrate, “I have come to recognize that I became addicted to Internet pornography on a very indiscriminate basis. This was an addiction powerful enough that despite my own distaste for it and my own internal convulsions I could not break it.”

The prosecutor described in images and videos seized by police as Catholic imagery mixed with “disgusting” sado-masochistic scenes, including one of a male in “monk’s garb” using a paddle to spank a young boy. Lahey, who hasn’t been accused of molestation, is slated for sentencing on January 4. He faces a mandatory minimum of a year in jail.