AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
David Marr
theguardian.com, Monday 18 August 2014
It’s a telling detail: when the abused come to the witness box of the royal commission, they affirm.
They were born deep inside the church to families that never missed mass and sent their kids to the parish primary school over the road. But they don’t swear on the Bible when they come to give their testimony.
Chrissie Foster affirmed. She was the first witness on the first day of the first Melbourne sitting of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. She deserved her place at the top of the billing.
Two of her children were raped by Father Kevin O’Donnell, not in the dark ages but in suburban Melbourne in the 1990s. One is dead, the other is permanently incapacitated. The church, though it had known about O’Donnell’s criminal ways for at least 30 years, tried to fob off Chrissie and her husband Anthony with pastoral rhetoric and a few dollars.
It’s hard to imagine this commission ever having been called but for the Fosters’ implacable and dignified pursuit of the church. They never lost their tempers. Their good humour has somehow survived. Their judgment has seemed impeccable at every turn.
Twelve years ago, when their campaign began, they went shyly on television in disguise. But the resistance of the church compelled them to put their names and faces to the story of their daughters’ abuse and their own mistreatment. They have told it so many times but what they always wanted was a royal commission and now they stood side by side in the witness box to tell their story all over again.
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