By RACHEL BROWN.
A group of church abuse survivors will take off from Melbourne today for Rome, to be in the same room as Cardinal George Pell as he fronts the child abuse royal commission.
They had hoped the Cardinal would visit the Victorian city of Ballarat, a site of clerical abuse in the 1960s and ’70s, but a heart condition has prevented him leaving the Vatican.
For some, travelling 16,000 kilometres to watch what will be broadcast to Australia via video-link is about taking some power back.
Others feel it will be harder for the Cardinal to fudge facts if victims are staring him in the eye when he faces the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Especially David Ridsdale, who told the royal commission he phoned Cardinal Pell in 1993 to tell him that his uncle Gerald Ridsdale was abusing him, but that the priest tried to silence him
“What we’re hoping for is the same we’ve given, which is just truth,” Mr Ridsdale said.
“I guess it will with a part of the story, because it was the phone call I made to Cardinal Pell which set my trajectory on this very public path I’ve found myself, which was never my intention and something that was very difficult for me to have come to grips with.
“But there’s a bigger picture, we’ve seen in the media people accusing it of a witch hunt of Cardinal Pell and it’s not, it’s a truth hunt.”
A campaign to crowd-fund the Rome trip, with help from proceeds of a charity song by Tim Minchin, tripled its target in just two days. It stands at more than $200,000.
Survivors ‘prepare for the worst and hope for the best’
Four victims have already left, and 10 more fly out today, along with a support team of psychiatric counsellors and a doctor.
The victims themselves do not know how they will react, admitted Peter Blenkiron, who was abused by a Christian brother when he was 11 years old.
“Walking into Catholic central is going to be very triggering for a lot of us. That’s why we’ve got a lot of support staff coming,” he said.
He said part of the healing was the reshift of power.
“Let’s hope George puts his hands up and says, ‘we’ve got this wrong, what do we need to do, how can we keep children safe tomorrow, and those who were affected in the past, well today’,” he said.
Mr Blenkiron said he was going to Rome with an attitude of: “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”
“I’d just like to thank everybody in Australia who’s contributed,” he said.
“Some of those donations were very large so I’d imagine there’s a lot of survivors out there that have never spoken about it, and I’d say to them, just reach out and talk to a counsellor at least once or twice, so that if ever you do start to get a little bit wobbly you can defuse that time bomb before it goes off.”
Some survivors doubtful Pell’s testimony will help
Stephen Woods, who was raped and abused by three clergymen, will not be going to Rome, citing some divisions within the victim’s group.
“I was meant to go, but I was not well. I had some medication problems last week, and that made me a little bit fritzy (sic) on the edges,” he said.
“There was a bit of a blow-up among victims and they said, no, I shouldn’t go.”
Mr Woods said the commission sitting in Ballarat had stirred up a lot of pain and anger, and he was doubtful the Cardinal’s evidence would be a tonic.
“I don’t think we’ll get much out of Cardinal Pell. We know that he’s been highly lawyer-ised,” he said.
Last year one victim, Philip Nagle, told the royal commission he had lost a third of his grade four classmates at St Alipius to suicide.
Those who have held on have batted substance abuse, mental health issues and homelessness, and have lost businesses and relationships.
Hopes Ballarat can become a global centre of healing
The excess money from the crowdfunding campaign will go towards a healing centre in Ballarat, for those survivors described as “ticking time bombs”.
“Ballarat has been called the worst paedophile cluster in the world,” Mr Woods said.
“The money will go a long way, victims are struggling, and unfortunately, tragically, there are victims still taking their own lives.”
Mr Ridsdale said he hoped Ballarat would become a global centre of healing.
“I think it’s a much better way for Ballarat to be recognised than the scar it currently has,” he said.
This post originally appeared on ABC News.
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Top Comments
Strange that Pell would think God would let him die if he tried to give evidence in Ballarat. Not much faith.
Would that be David Risdale the convicted paedophile?