Peter Dowden shares his reaction to hearing the news of historic sexual abuse at his Dunedin schools the Christian Brothers' Junior School and St Paul's High School.

I discovered I was a victim of Catholic child sex abuse on 17 August 2018. I was working, helping to illustrate the following day's news at the Otago Daily Times (ODT). On the front page of the pre-production proof was the headline, "Brother blamed for death", and the cold stare of my former intermediate school teacher Desmond Fay looked out.

Suddenly I understood something I had not understood for 30 years. Gigabytes of data in my brain were instantly deleted and replaced with new files. Not surprisingly, my system crashed. I experienced a weekend of severe mood swings, which was like a fast replay of my early adulthood.

My employer was very decent about it, providing all the counselling I needed. Like any injury, psychological shock gets a bit better each day until weeks later it is almost healed. That's if it gets treated. I felt better the moment I asked for help, and better still just by making the appointment. I had a couple of counselling sessions and I was right again in some months. I'll get more help if I need it.

Dealing with Suicide

My friend's suicide in 1987 — he was 21, I was 20 — was the worst bereavement I had experienced in my short life, and it left me utterly baffled. The grief was agony, and dished up with dollops of guilt — that I had failed him as a friend. It is often said that suicide does not stop pain but transfers pain to others. I inherited a decent share of my friend's misery and it remained with me for several years. I had what I now know were classic symptoms of clinical depression. I lost confidence and with it the ability to get anything done. I drifted out of university and became a bit of a loser.

Things improved when an OE provided a change of scene and I took up a new skill in an industry with a constant, daily tempo of activity. To this day, I shun anything in the nature of a "project" — I don't really do deadlines.

Looking Back for Signs

My friend* was surrounded by good mates. He was easy-going and well-liked. He was a young man with potential and he had plans for his future. But there was a sadness about him that we, his friends, could never pin down.

At school, his reputation for throwing a major tantrum if baited was exploited from time to time by bored bullies. It is chilling to remember that we taunted him with the label "teacher's pet". How destructive that must have been.

I enjoyed smutty jokes about the Brothers as much as the next teenage boy. It never occurred to me that I might have been the next boy. I also never imagined that our sniggers were actually far short of the mark.

Desmond Fay is viewed by some of my former classmates as a vicious martinet. My recollection was of a sweet-old-uncle figure, but then I was a bit of a goody-good. He would straighten my collar or pick stray lint off my uniform. I suppose that is what they call grooming. I shudder now, remembering this.

Deception a Shock

When the survivor known as Patrick made his statements in 2018 to the ODT denouncing the abuser Max (Magnus) Murray, I thought: "Phew, that was close, I was at that school only eight years later."

So I was shocked to learn a few weeks later that abuse had been happening right around me, to boys I had sat next to in class.

The teachers discussed in the ODT were people I looked up to. A couple of them were accomplished musicians.

More stories followed over the next few weeks — like quake aftershocks.

These perpetrators were masters at concealing their offending. For every victim, they ensured they had a whole classroom of character witnesses, people who would say: "Oh, but the Brothers were great" and "It never did me any harm."

But I say that anyone whose Christian faith and love for the Church has been shattered is also a victim.

Distorted Teaching on Sexuality

Warped, weird Catholic attitudes to sexuality were ingrained into us. This is part of the abuse, enabling and facilitating it. The Church didn't even speak all that favourably of the sex done by nice married Catholic mummies and daddies. Any other hanky-panky was well out of the question.

The abusers used the Church's repression of healthy human sexuality as yet another layer of protection, another religious cloak to hide under.

Coming to Terms with Reality

I have been forced to re-evaluate my whole education. I am left wondering if the Congregation of Christian Brothers was in fact a religious order at all. In Australia, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that 22 per cent of all known Christian Brothers in schools there had allegations against them. I ask: why not round up that percentage to 100?

Did they teach abuse at Brother training college? I remember the Brothers' penalty of beating an entire classroom of boys to ensure a mystery miscreant didn't escape punishment. And then the Order's initial refusal to answer questions about the abuse.

It seems to me that the moral position of any member of the Order was precarious. Did those who were not perpetrators know about what was going on? They should have. These creepy monks are nobody's "brothers."

True Brotherhood

I contrast those criminals, protected by their bosses and PR staff, with the heroes of this story: the abuse survivor "Patrick" who was the first to speak out, my friend's mother telling the story of her son.

The ODT's phone never stopped ringing as more victims came forward. Gradually, as people feel safety in numbers learning they were not the only ones to be abused, the truth comes out. Truth is the only remedy that can dull this pain.

These brave men are the real brothers. I stand beside them as a fellow victim. I received no whispered threats. I require no asterisk next to a made-up name, because I feel safe. But nevertheless I am a victim of Catholic child sex abuse. It is a label I claim with pride.

Now in 2022 I have been accepted into the Dunedin abuse survivors' community. I appeared before the Abuse in Care Royal Commission early this year to give evidence on the effects of the historic, and more recent, instances of abuse in the Dunedin diocese. I am pleased with the announcement that Kavanagh College will be renamed. This has the potential for healing and reconciliation.

* My friend's name remains withheld in keeping with his family's wishes.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 270 May 2022: 18-19