AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times
Francis Sullivan
Not long after starting with the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, which has been set up to provide the Catholic Church’s response to the royal commission into child sexual abuse, I spent a day in Melbourne meeting a group of victims of clerical sexual abuse.
For more than four hours I sat and listened to their stories, the horror they endured, and the betrayal they felt.
It was harrowing and confronting and it brought home to me how removed I was from their experiences.
After the final person had finished their story I was asked what I had to say.
I look at the group and said I didn’t know what to say – that I had no answers.
All I could eventually say was that I would do my best.
After a long pause, a 50-year-old man looked at me and said: “Don’t you dare let us down again.”
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