ORGIES involving up to 60 schoolboys, priests and teachers are among allegations leveled at former staff members of an NSW Catholic boarding school. The Seven Network reported that nine former teachers and priests from St Stanislaus College in Bathurst, in eastern NSW, had committed sexual abuse on students during “hypnotic” night prayer services in the 1980s.
An victim, whose identity was withheld for legal reasons, said the number of victims involved in the encounters had grown over time. “It started out on a one-on-one basis and then in small groups of between eight and 12, and then on one occasion there was a large group of at least 60.”
This brave young man who used the internet to expose the abuse revealed the full extent of the horror at the school. He is one of two victims who have told The Daily Telegraph how they were herded into a prayer room by a priest chanting “hypnotic” spells in tongues. Inside the prayer room, the boarders who attended the school in the 1980s said they were subjected to horrendous sexual abuse or forced to assault each other.
Hard to attract local students after scandal, the school now focus on international exchange.
Eureka Q / Australia
He started at St Stanislaus in the ’80s because it was the only private school in the area his family could afford. He alleged the abuse began after a priest took him aside for private tutoring about the Catholic Church and God two months after he arrived at the school and the horror turned into a twice-weekly event. “They got a group between eight and 12 of us together and they’d just start chanting and I would wake up during these sessions and see what was going on,” he said. “It was like an orgy.”
After publishing his story on internet, his memoir provoked some spirited abuse on his website over the next few weeks. “This is absolute bullshit,” posted one anonymous correspondent. “I go to Stannies now and my dad went to Stannies back then and he thinks u r a f—wit.” But as far as Nielsen could tell, his claims were not provoking any official action. So he took his bundle of leaflets to Bathurst. He said: “It was my last resort.”
The second victim, who declined to give permission to be named, described the horrific night-time prayer sessions in the staff’s quarters under candle light. “You’d pass out … they spoke in tongues … another element was called laying on hands, that was the basis on which he would engage in physical contact,” the victim said. He said the students were all small in stature and many of them emotionally troubled. “I know of people who have been contacted, they said, ‘Yes, you’re right but I haven’t told my wife what happened to me I’m not going to tell you guys (police),” he said.
