Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
DESPITE three separate hearings in Ballarat and Sydney into abuse across western Victoria, the commission acknowledged the figures accrued were likely well short of the true scope of the damage.
The commission heard from several survivors who “believed a number of their classmates from St Alipius (Christian Brothers School) and St Patrick’s College (in Ballarat) had died by suicide or died prematurely,” never given the opportunity to tell their story before a federally-sanctioned inquiry.
While a remarkable 78 claims were made against Ridsdale, the story of Jean Dumaresq’s son was not one of them.
An altar boy at Lake Bolac in the 1970s, Ms Dumaresq’s son did not reveal the abuse he suffered while his mother was “standing in the churchyard” until he was almost 50.
A lethal concoction of prescription medication and alcohol in January 2016 led to his untimely death before he ever reported the abuse to the church or police.
His mother, to this day, does not know if the tragic loss was suicide. She remains a dedicated member of the Ballarat diocese.
“My son did ask me once why I was still going to church after what happened to him but I said my faith is in God, it's not in some priest,” the 72-year-old affirmed. “People think the church is the hierarchy, but the church is a people. We're the church, it's not a building.”
While almost a quarter of Ballarat’s population might still class themselves as Catholic, the anecdotal evidence from the pews paints a bleaker picture – particularly among a younger generation struggling to connect with a once revered institution.
While in part this reflects an almost eight per cent spike in Australians removing themselves from religion across the past half-decade, neither modern clergy or parishioners are denying decades of abuse and secrecy has tarnished the Catholic Church’s moral authority.
“The older generation have come through and their faith is so strong so they’re hanging in there,” Warrenheip parishioner Liz Hanrahan said. “But I have come across a lot of people who have been really strong church goers who have just walked away, some of them you would never expect.
“It’s very hard to get the kids interested in religious education anymore. I think (the abuse) has had an effect on the way they think about the church. I just feel as though the church has to go down to rock bottom and emerge as a new way of operating as a church – a grassroots church.”
The commission will soon deliver its final diagnosis on the state of the Catholic Church when it hands down its recommendations.
Ballarat Diocese Bishop Paul Bird said the church would be judged by its actions to protect children into the future.
His junior, vicar-general Justin Driscoll, says while churches dotted across western Victoria affirm the continued presence of Catholicism, the trust in the church which was once taken for granted had vanished.
“I still see there would be individuals in the church who would want to pack this whole experience away and move on as though it hadn’t happened,” Fr Driscoll said.
“But the ground has so significantly shifted from beneath our feet that what was before won’t be regained.”
