MONTREAL -- A group of people who say Quebec priests sexually assaulted them are speaking out.
They filed on Thursday four separate lawsuits against two dioceses: Joliette, Saint-Jean-Longueuil, and two religious orders, the Frères de Saint-Gabriel du Canada and the Society of St-Vincent de Paul.
All refused to comment or did not respond to CTV News' requests on Thursday.
Gaston Dumas claimed a priest sexually assaulted him.
"I've been in silence for 65 years, never talked to anybody about it. My family was really Catholic, and I couldn't speak too much with them on account of what happened to me," he said.
Brian Ford is a police officer in Terrebonne. He said a priest abused him as a child, and ever since, he has been trying to help others.
"What I had lived I didn't want other people to live, so I said I wanted to go into a job where I could help people that don't necessarily have the opportunity or capacities of defending themselves," he said.
The class action requests seek up to $600,000 in damages for every plaintiff. A judge has yet to approve the lawsuits, and they will likely take years to wind their way through the court system.
"Any sexual assault on a kid has enormous consequence, and when it's someone in authority, someone you trust, someone who's a role model, it's even worse," said Virginie Dufresne-Lemire, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs.
The lawyers who filed Thursday's class-action suits said that 14 other class action suits are already underway against other priests and religious orders in the province.
