AUSTRALIA
The Courier
By ST PATRICK’S COLLEGE STUDENT LEADERS May 29, 2015
To all members of the broader St Patrick’s College and Ballarat communities, and especially to the many victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.
As a student body we are well aware of the events currently unfolding in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse being heard in Ballarat.
The details revealed in the hearing are simply unfathomable to the students of today. We are hearing of heinous and disgusting crimes to which nobody should ever have been subjected.
We offer our deepest sympathies for the truly reprehensible actions that have faced past students at the hands of those who had been trusted. It is truly impossible for us to fully comprehend the pain and grief that has fallen upon these individuals, and their siblings, peers, families and the broader community.
These crimes are something that should never be denied or excused.
Many boys have tied a ribbon onto the gates of this College to offer support, prayers and thoughts for the victims. It is a small gesture which says much. It says the current student community at St Patrick’s College is offering our deepest sympathies and assuring the broader community that the College, as it stands now, is an institution that is acknowledging and apologising for its past, but also hoping to assist in the healing process and then building from that.
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