A bombshell report by the CBC revealed that the Redberry Bible Camp employee, who has since been removed from the camp, has been very public about his history of domestic violence, pornography, drug addiction, and past firings from summer camps. It called into question how the camp, located in Saskatoon in the Saskatchewan province, hired the man in the first place.
A Canadian children’s Bible camp is under investigation after a worker performed an exorcism on a child who was in medical distress.
According to a government official who spoke to CBC News on condition of anonymity, the incident took place inside one of the camp’s cabins, where two witnesses reported seeing a child lying on the floor, bleeding from the nose, making sounds and twitching.
The exorcism in question allegedly took place on July 13. Witnesses told the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that the man gathered campers—made up of teens between 12 and 14—in a cabin for the ceremony. Once it concluded and the alleged demon was vanquished, the camper was still left twitching on the ground and bleeding from his nose, according to a government official who spoke to the CBC.
The man then allegedly handed out his business cards and ordered the campers to remain in contact with him for the rest of their lives, as only he knew how to exorcise their demons.
The man who performed the exorcism wrote in his Facebook page that he was exposed to sexual trauma at age eight and that pornography was his first drug from age 9.
“My family was scared of me, I had ‘friends’ that were scared of me and I had victims at school that were scared of me, I felt like I had turned into a monster, someone I at times could not recognize,” he wrote.
He said his drug use worsened after being diagnosed with cancer, and he admits to “regularly abusing my girlfriend at the time with venomous words of death.” One night, following a “drunken cocaine party,” he went to his girlfriend’s house, he wrote.
“In my drunken rage, I sabotaged everything, I physically abused my girlfriend, screaming so loud it woke up the neighbourhood, my girlfriend ran out of the house, banging on the doors of anyone who would listen and next thing I knew my parents and the police showed up,” he wrote.
The man’s struggles eventually continued through the spring of 2020 before he reportedly fell back into a relationship with religion. “God saved me from a life of debauchery. God saved me from a life of wickedness,” he reportedly said in a May video.
Some campers alerted other staffers and their parents to the alleged chaos, prompting many parents to take their kids home from the six-day camp. It was unclear how the man was allowed near kids, as his social media posts reportedly gave way to yearslong battles with personal demons.
“I will tell you that we are investigating the situation…I’m not prepared to discuss it at this point,” board chair Wayne Dick told the CBC. “I can assure you [the worker] is not at the camp.”
