ROME
The Advertiser
Charles Miranda in Rome
AS HE lined up to join a guided tour of the Colosseum in central Rome, Paul Levey got to talking with the ticket seller about tattoos.
They compared their inks, shared a laugh then spoke of the stories behind them.
Paul’s yarns were dark, darker than the skies threatening to erupt overhead.
They spoke of unimaginable childhood horrors of abuse at the hands of the clergy in full view of others who actively chose to turn their backs; the physical trauma lasted years but the mental heartache much longer.
“No more silence,” one tattoo says, on the need to speak out about child sex abuses that have gone on within the Catholic Church in Australia.
On this particular stormy day Paul confined his description of them to just a few sentences along the lines of why he and partner Michele East were in Rome.
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