Today is St Patrick’s Day.

Around the world, the green beer will be flowing, corny jokes will be told and ridiculously tall, gravity-defying leprechaun hats will be worn.

It’s a day of silliness, froth and frivolity that has transcended its religious origins, and that’s not a bad thing. Fun is good.

But there are places where St Patrick’s Day has taken on a very different significance.

One of those places is Ballarat. Another is Goulburn.

Growing up, I always looked forward to St Pat’s Day. I didn’t know then what I know now.

A student at St Pat’s Primary for four years, and a further six at St Pat’s College, the day always started with a mass at St Peter and Paul’s Cathedral. Around six hundred kids from the college and another couple of hundred from the primary school crammed into the cavernous church along with the teachers, staff and a number of parents.

The cathedral is an awe-inspiring piece of architecture, no risk, but it’s more than just what you can see.

When all of those voices would combine and sing “Hail glorious St Patrick” and a series of other hymns, it was real shivers-down-the-spine material. I haven’t been to the former Cardiff Arms Park when the Welsh sing “Land of our Fathers”, or Murrayfield when the Scots belt out “O Flower of Scotland”… but I imagine it’s a bit like that.

When Mass was done and dusted, the College students headed back up the hill to celebrate the feast day. And St Pat’s Day offered a lot to appeal to any student… casual clothes, no classes, silly events… it was like a sanctioned muck up day.

On top of the obligatory Irish Joke telling competition, there was a game of something called “Kiwi Rules” football… which I think the school invented. It was a bit like Gaelic Football, using a soccer ball and standard rugby goal posts and hardly any rules.

Essentially a student team would play against a team of teachers and the result was usually mayhem, with a few get-squares thrown in for good measure.

The day rats would go home, the boarders went back to their dorms, and that was St Pat’s Day.

It seemed like fun.

There was a lot that I enjoyed about St Pats and, for the most part, I benefitted from my time there. I assumed most others did too. It took me many years to discover how drastically some other students’ experiences differed from mine.

My experience of the school was fairly benign. I got the strap a hell of a lot in the earlier years (for being a loudmouth and a smart arse mostly… imagine that). I had problems with a couple of teachers, experienced a bit of bullying occasionally (but not so much that it was ongoing or that I dreaded going to school), but mine was a fairly unexceptional experience.

My class started their time at St Pat’s back in 1978, and for those who stayed the whole six years, finished in 1983.

The boarders, something like a third of the students at any given time, came from across the length and breadth of Southern NSW. From the South Coast, the Snowy Mountains, the Riverina and the Central West, kids were loaded onto the Southern Aurora and the Inter Capital Daylight Express to be picked up at the Goulburn Railway Station by the College’s mechanically challenged bus… the “Titanic,” or arrived in their parents Land Rovers, utes, BMWs, Toranas, paddock bashers…  you name it.

It was a real melting pot. For every politician, captain of industry or member of the landed gentry that sent their kids there, there was someone else with the arse out of their pants scraping together the school fees in the belief that they might be giving their children a good, comprehensive religious education.

It wasn’t that the school was expensive by comparison with comparable Sydney based schools, but it did involve considerable financial sacrifice for some people all the same, my parents included.

Some parents sent their kids to St Pat’s because of word of mouth or as a result of the roll call of former students. Some had gone to the college themselves. In my case, my dad didn’t have the opportunity to go there as he took over the family farm from an early age, but four of his brothers went to the College.

For whatever reason they were there, all St Pat’s students found themselves making their way up the same front drive for their first day at school.

For some, entirely unknowingly, they were being delivered into the hands of a calculating pedophile like lambs to the slaughter. Like sacrificial lambs of God.

The horrors endured by these kids is not my story to tell. I didn’t experience it, and didn’t even know about it at the time. I’ve heard some accounts in detail and many others I haven’t heard at all, and the stories are horrifying.

These kids experienced tortures and betrayals that could undo grown adults and in time, some of those stories may be told.

And now, as grown men, many of them stood tall recently, ready to recount their absolute worst memories… retelling the stories they’ve rarely told to anyone and would love never to tell again… eye to eye with the bastard responsible.

Tears in their eyes. Lumps in their throats.

Recently, a Christian Brother pleaded guilty to multiple charges of child abuse and some time soon he will be sentenced. I don’t know how that conviction affected the victims of abuse but it was a very emotional moment for many people, even on the outer periphery.

Further charges have been laid against other Christian Brothers and those cases will take their course.

But for now, the victims of St Patrick’s College child abuse feel cast adrift. There is no longer a college to apologise to them and take responsibility. St Pat’s Old Boys look to the buildings and sporting fields they know and remember so well, but they now bear another name.

Their world has moved on. Their past has been redacted.

Trinity Catholic College is now the name on the signs. It had no involvement with these events, and it isn’t their place to apologise or make amends, although a public statement of sympathy to victims who shared those same buildings, those same environs, wouldn’t go astray.

But from the Catholic Church locally… silence.

The world has washed its hands of the Old Boys of St Pats.

Just last week an Institute for Professional Standards and Safeguarding was launched by the Canberra Goulburn archdiocese, tasked with responding to complaints of child abuse. This new Institute says it will start with a presumption in favour of the complainant – in stark contrast to the treatment received by many victims historically.

It’s something, but still… where’s the apology from the church?

There are literally thousands of former students, many of them Catholics, or former Catholics, whose faith is hanging by a thread. For many, the thread has snapped. That number increases massively when you include their wives and families and friends.

For the survivors, and for the classmates of survivors, to buy the narrative that these instances of child abuse were isolated and intolerable to the church, they need to hear more anger from church officials that there are child abusers amongst their ranks, and they need to see more action from the church to route them out.

While this new investigating body is a positive step, it falls woefully short of a commitment to oust all perpetrators and those who assisted them.

From my discussions with classmates, there are two things the church NEEDS to say, and the first one is a simple motherhood statement that would cost them nothing:

“We abhor these violent and disgusting acts committed by people the children trusted to protect them, and apologise profusely to those who suffered at the hands of members of the church.”

Why there hasn’t been a local statement of apology mystifies me. It better not be fear of payouts… the church – any church – is meant to put people ahead of money and you only have to watch Kevin Rudd’s apologies to the Stolen generation to witness some of the healing properties of a heartfelt apology..

The second statement that’s needed, however, is much more important… and it needs to be something like this:

“The Catholic Church is committed to not only finding those who committed these acts, but also removing from the Church anyone who assisted in silencing and covering up these acts.”

A statement like that is crucial. It’s impossible to believe anything has changed or that the church can be trusted while ANY of those who turned a blind eye to these acts are allowed to retain their positions. And not just for the faithful. Those who never believed in the church, and those who have lost faith, deserve an apology and commitment to remove the guilty.

I said before that this isn’t my story to tell, but this next bit is. This is the reason I felt a need to write something.

From a fairly early age I was a fairly devout Catholic. For reasons of my own, I sought solace in my faith in my younger years and it helped me through tough times. I was an altar boy for many years and had a lot of interactions with brothers and priests, both in and outside of schools, and didn’t experience any abuse at their hands.

I didn’t hear any accounts of abuse during my school years, aside from comments about this brother being a bit strange or that brother being a bit pervy.

When I left school I remained a cheerleader for the church, for the Brothers and the school.

I didn’t realise how callous that must have felt to those who’d suffered during their time up there, to hear someone singing the praises of their abusers and the institution in which it happened.

I didn’t realise how much I’d let my classmates down.

One former classmate, who is no fan of mine, accused me of being a large part of the problem for continually praising an institution in which abuse flourished, and for defending a church that took no action against abusers and those that allowed the abuse.

The guy also said a lot stuff about me that I strongly disagree with, but in that first respect he was right.

If I remain in the Catholic Church and don’t demand action, then I am a type of conspirator. And bear in mind, I’m a VERY lazy Catholic.

If it came to a legal case, there would be very little physical evidence to convict me of being a Catholic, and aside from Christmas and funerals you probably have a better chance of finding me in a health food store or a gym than a church these days.

But the Church isn’t just the buildings and the office holders, it’s the community of people that belong to it, and that includes poor practitioners like myself.

That community needs to defend those who have suffered and needs to remove from its number all who offended and allowed these acts, or we are ALL guilty of turning a blind eye.

Funnily enough, the champion of the piece has been a guy about the same age as my classmates, but who didn’t even go to St Pat’s.

This guy, who I won’t name in case it interferes with his work, played a prominent role in Strike Force Charish. Along with his police colleagues, he has worked doggedly and diligently to bring justice for the victims who have all expressed a great sense of gratitude to him. It’s meant a lot to them that someone in a position of authority finally had their back.

But for some even that support is too little and way too late.

So where does that leave the former students of the former college?

For those who were abused, there are painful memories they wish they could forget. For those who weren’t abused, our memories have been built on ignorance and more than a few falsehoods.

What can we hold on to? What remains real?

Much of what will happen next is at least partially outside of our control.

There are more legal proceedings yet to come, and they will pan out how they will.

The church may or may not make a comment or take action. We can (and should) campaign for the church to become proactive, of course, but in the end that too is in the hands of others.

What we control is ourselves.

And in a strange way, what starts with Brothers, ends with … brothers.

Since the building isn’t ours any more, and the organisation no longer exists, our school is the people who went through the place, and the guys either side of us are our brothers.

The kids you mucked up with and wagged with, the ones you had duster fights with, the ones you branded on the handball court and crowpecked in the back row of the choir in Eisteddfod practice. The kids you liked and the ones you couldn’t stand. The guys who experienced the same things you did, and the guys who didn’t. These are our brothers.

We’ve grown older and fatter but it’s just been an eye blink since we were the goofy teens that did the stupid, sometimes dangerous, often hilarious things we did.

It’s ok to remember good times and good friends without denying or forgetting these horrific abuses.

We can hang on to the bits that we enjoyed or that made us proud.

We can look up to the people we still believe in and reach out to the ones we still trust.

For those in a position to, they can follow through the legal procedures still pending.

And for those out in the periphery, we can just be there for a chat.

St Patrick’s College is gone, but we remain.

And maybe that’s a victory of a kind.

Today is St Patrick’s Day.

Sláinte.

Originally published online on the Goulburn Post website.