AUSTRALIA
Bega District News
By Ben Smyth July 9, 2014
A BEGA Valley man who bravely shared his story of childhood abuse at the hands of Catholic teachers with BDN readers, has also had his traumatic past heard by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
John (not his real name) spent 10 days in Canberra as commissioners held private sessions and public hearings into the Marist Order as part of a sweeping inquiry into child sexual abuse and seemingly institutionalised cover-ups.
In 2012, when then Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced the Royal Commission, John said despite the anger, guilt and depression that has haunted him since his schooldays at Marcellin College in Randwick, he felt “joyful in the knowledge a day of reckoning was coming” (BDN, 16/11/12).
While the Royal Commission is in the process of requesting additional funding to continue for another two years, John believes that day of reckoning has arrived and now some semblance of healing can take place.
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