AUSTRALIA
The New Daily
December 6, 2017
By Lucie Morris-Marr
Witnesses at the Ballarat hearings will never forget the testimony of brave adult men as they recalled the horrific abuse they suffered as children in Catholic schools, choirs and orphanages.
Many shook violently and sobbed as they recalled in fine detail the beatings, the psychological terror and the vile sexual attacks all endured at the hands of the supposedly good men of the cloth.
Many old school friends in the town had already taken their own lives, they said, due to the unbearable memories and sense of shame and confusion about what was inflicted in dark corners of classrooms of St Alipius primary school, presbytery bedrooms and confession boxes.
Some later drove their cars into trees when they were adults.
Others spiralled into despair and depression, tumbling down into fatal hell-holes of drug and alcohol abuse.
The men who gave evidence in May 2015 were the survivors.
But only just.
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