AUSTRALIA
The Age
[with video]
September 11, 2012
Jane Lee
THEY call themselves the Survivors.
The men, aged in their 40s and 50s, meet about once a month to support each other in a struggle against something they rarely discuss.
All have similar tales of a cycle of physical violence and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of clergy in Catholic schools in Ballarat in the 1970s.
Most of the group’s members were students of St Patrick’s College or St Alipius Christian Brothers Primary School or both, while Robert Best, Edward Dowlan and Gerald Ridsdale, all later convicted paedophiles, were employed there.
Some have received compensation for their ordeal, but many more are still in mediation with the Catholic Church, in a process they say has prolonged their trauma.
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