Clergy sexual abuse survivors feel they have been heard in a report deeming Ballarat’s Catholic Church culture of cover-up as a catastrophic institutional failure.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Survivor Paul Levey, who features in the redacted report released on Wednesday, said there was a sense of vindication in having Australia’s most powerful legal body reinforce survivors’ stories.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was scathing in its findings of the Congregation of Christian Brothers and the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat responses to abuse allegations.
Mr Levey lived at the presbytery in Mortlake after his parents separated in 1982, where he was subjected to daily sexual abuse at the hands of notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale.
“It has really put everything in black and white, what we all thought and what we all knew," he said of the report.
“Because it was pretty bad what the (church) hierarchy did with it, covering it up.
“We’ve been saying it since the start and now we have that behind us, that’s a good thing, a really good thing.”
Mr Levey hoped the the royal commission’s strong stance and scathing language would have an impact and push the church to do all it could to ensure the abuse never happened again.
“Now that it’s (out there) like this, they’ve got to do something about it,” he said.
“Hopefully they start looking after survivors properly and knowing that it is a significant thing and it is not going to go away that easy.”
After so many years of silence, Mr Levey said being heard and believed through the royal commission had a powerful effect on survivors.
“For some of us we were told to leave it alone, to be quiet, to move on and forget about it,” he said.
“This has allowed us to not let it bottle up inside, to get it out.
“People will look at it now and say yes it was the churches’ fault, yes it was the institutions’ fault.”
Meanwhile, Ballarat survivors Gary Sculley, Tony Wardley and Paul Auchettl have said they are still waiting for the church to fully acknowledge its involvement in the abuse and the impacts.
“I think it is time to acknowledge that there has been a lot of damage done and to correct that we need to be able to come together and acknowledge the power of shame, the effects of abuse and how it lies in the families,” Mr Auchettl said.
“It was the mums that absorbed all the pain, the sisters, then in the future the wives and the daughters.
“This is where the real pain of sexual abuse lies, in those that absorb it at home.”
Survivor Andrew Collins echoed these sentiments.
“You've got all these people who have been abused and that ripple effect goes on throughout the community,” he said.
To contact CASA call 5320 3933 or free call 24 hours 1800 806 292. Lifeline can be accessed on 13 11 14.
