Matthew Johns Reveals Own Dark Past with Catholic School System

Gold Coast Bulletin
February 8, 2017

http://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/matthew-johns-reveals-own-dark-past-with-catholic-school-system/news-story/b1ff17b5d2377275014cde076d71d4e6

NRL great Matthew Johns has been moved to share his own dark past as a student in the Catholic Church education system.

The popular broadcaster was inspired to share stories from his upsetting past by the evidence reported by the royal commission into the Catholic Churches’ response to child sexual abuse.

The host of Triple M’s Grill Team said he saw regular cases of child abuse during his time at Maitland’s All Saints College - St Peter’s — a formerly Marist Brothers run school from 1898 to 1984.

He said students celebrated the day the college was no longer managed by Marist Brothers educators.

“I didn’t see anything, as far as child abuse, of a sexual nature,” Johns told Triple M.

“What I saw was incredible cruelty. Some of the punishments they would hand out were full on. It goes without saying education was different in our days, but I’m talking about seeing people just get caned above what was acceptable.

“The (one) metre rule. We had a teacher who would tie your hands in a vice if you were doing the wrong thing. And he would crack them across the arse and things like that.”

“Their discipline was tough and it was over the top.”

He said he did not know if any of his fellow students were also sexually abused by the priests at his school.

“That catholic education was synonymous with violent discipline for whatever reason,” he said.

“It’s hard to know what’s in the mindset there.”

The Triple M Grill Team.

It comes after Johns on Tuesday said he was shocked at the evidence uncovered by the royal commission into the Catholic Church’s response child sexual abuse.

The study identified 1800 Catholic priest, brothers, sisters and lay people accused of abuse.

Seven per cent of priests serving in 75 surveyed authorities between 1950 and 2010 were alleged child sexual abusers, the royal commission heard.

More than 40 per cent of members of the St John of God Brothers between 1950 and 2010 were alleged abusers. Some 22 per cent of Christian Brothers were accused of being paedophiles.

“Some of the stories that have come out, horrific doesn’t cut it,” Johns said.

“Families out there trusted the local priest and the Marist Brothers and the Catholic Church more than anything. They handed their children over basically to an organisation that lets face it has been proven in some cases to be a paedophile ring.”

On Wednesday one of Australia’s most senior Catholic priests said bishops cannot “justifiably” ask clergy about their sex lives before allegations of misconduct had entered the public domain.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child sexual Abuse a bishop’s relationship with a priest is “delicate” and that there are “certain things” the head of the diocese would not be entitled to know.

He said on Wednesday it would be the role of a counsellor, spiritual director or confessor to ask about a priest’s personal life if he had been determined to not be functioning effectively.