AUSTRALIA/ROME
The Age
February 29, 2016
Konrad Marshall
Senior writer
It was 8:46am when the crowd of more than 60, gathered in the Trench Room at Ballarat Town Hall, murmured with disapproval. They hung their heads, shook their heads, and looked up in disbelief.
Cardinal George Pell’s testimony had only been going 45 minutes when he acknowledged that his recollections would be imperfect – that his memory might fail him in this hearing.
“I can’t remember,” Cardinal Pell said.
“I’m struggling to remember,” he said later.
“I can’t clearly recall,” he noted.
The people there listening – a mix of clergy abuse survivors and counsellors and family members – had previously been silent. Now they offered a muffled collective scoff, and pained laughter.
Tim Lane, 44, had been waiting for this. Lane was abused in his home as a child – one of six Ballarat siblings to fall prey to Brother Grant Ross. Lane has followed the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, and been pleased with the result in his home town.
He has seen people throughout the city wearing “Some Don’t Remember – Some Won’t Forget” T-shirts. He has watched ribbons of support blow in the wind, tied to every school and church and tree. He has attended various civic receptions for survivors, and been listened to by his community. And it has been cathartic.
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