AUSTRALIA
Truth Justice Healing Council
Francis Sullivan – 27 November 2015
We are now at the end of the first week of the Commission’s hearing into the way in which the Archdiocese of Melbourne dealt with years of abuse that took place in the Doveton Parish in outer suburban Melbourne.
This week has focused for the most part on the appalling behaviour of a Parish Priest call Peter Searson who seems to have been some sort of psychotic monster who used the primary schools he had control of in the 1980s as a personal fiefdom.
This week we heard about his perverted activities in the confessional with little children, his brandishing of a hand gun in front of little kids, his killing of a cat, showing children a dead body in a coffin and much more.
We also heard from teachers and a local principal at Doveton’s Holy Family Primary School about the frustration and struggle they endured as they tried to get the Catholic Education Office and Archbishop Frank Little to do something about Searson.
What we heard during the week was the story of a complete failure in administration, a refusal of church leaders to face up to the bleeding obvious and, yet again, the tragic and lifelong damage child sexual abuse has on innocent people.
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