Blood on the Rosary By Sue Smethurst and Margaret Harrod Published by Simon & Schuster Paperback RRP $37.99 Reviewed by Paul Brooks
This must have been a difficult story to tell, for apart from the main story of a woman condemning her twin brother, she had to relive a time in her life thatwas wrong, shameful, brutish and terrible.
Margaret Aulsebrook grew up in what most people considered a fairly normal Australian family. They were Roman Catholic, so Margaret and her twin brother Michael, as well as the rest of the family, grew up in the enveloping nature of the Church. Her father was especially religious and he was renowned for his good works and pious attitude. What people did not know was that he was regularly sexually abusing his daughter from when she was very young until the day she left home to become a nun.
Her brother Michael also took holy orders, becoming a Salesian priest. But, like father, like son. Michael was a serial sexual abuser of children. He should have been removed from temptation and society altogether, but, as Margaret found out, he and others like him were protected by the church. They just confessed their sins and they were washed clean in the blood of the Lamb, ready to go out and abuse again.
It was Margaret who discovered the truth and spent years trying to get justice for the children by informing on her brother and the church's large paedophile community. She renounced her vows, married and had a family of her own, while courageously condemning those who did to others what her father had done to her.
It's a hell of a story, told in a way that those awful, dark goings-on are presented in the context of everyday life. It didn't make them normal: it made them all the more horrifying. Margaret suffered, and because she suffered she was able to see and understand the stark truth of the wrongs that her brother and his colleagues had wrought on a generation of children. She had the guts to risk all, including her marriage and her mental health, to bring the truth to light. This book needs to be read. Highly recommended.
