Say Sorry - An Overview
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Say Sorry - an Overview -
The Story
Ann Thompson was an illegitimate child. Born in 1941, she was placed in the care of a catholic home for girls and raised by the Good Shepherd order of nuns at St Joseph’s in Christchurch. At the age of ten Ann was relocated to the Nazareth House orphanage where she became a ward of The Poor Sisters of Nazareth, Nazareth house order of nuns.
Despite their diminutive name, the sisters would preside over some particularly grisly events while charged with Ann’s welfare.
Throughout the two decades Ann spent in care she was violently beaten and psychologically abused by certain nuns and senior girls at both institutions. She was sexually abused from the time she was being potty-trained and at the age of fifteen she was raped by a priest while she was holidaying with a family in Timaru.
Ann was treated little better than a slave throughout her incarceration at both orphanages and her education was minimal as a consequence. Despite the cruelty she experienced in the early part of her life, however, Ann maintained her sense of spirit. Her horrific past also honed her sense of justice.
In 1997 Ann saw a television documentary exposing the decades of abuse by the Good Shepherd order of nuns at St Joseph’s Home for Girls where she’d spent the first ten years of her life.
The same year, at a reunion in Christchurch for former St Joseph’s girls, she began to understand - through talking to others - how the disastrous circumstances of her youth had impacted on her adult life.
On her return to Whangarei Ann sought legal counsel to challenge the Good Shepherd order of nuns for their past serious abuse. She went to five different solicitors before she finally found one willing to take on her case.
In 2001 Whangarei lawyer Stuart Henderson, of Henderson, Reeves, Connell, Rishworth, successfully represented Ann and several other former St Joseph’s wards, at a mediation with the Good Shepherd order of nuns. All of the women were financially compensated for the harm that had been done them.
In 2003 Stuart Henderson represented Ann and over a dozen other women at a second mediation; this one involving the Nazareth House nuns. The nuns’ legal counsel and Stuart Henderson negotiated a communal fund for claimants that would be topped up annually for the duration of their lives and distributed on application, provided claimants’ proposed needs met agreed criteria.
So many claimants’ applications have been refused subsequently and so many terms of the financial agreement have been breached by those controlling it that it’s now hardly worth the paper it’s written on.
The mediations aside, Say Sorry is not about eliciting financial restitution from the Catholic Church. Rather, Ann seeks reconciliation. She lost her faith when she was raped by a priest and each time she has attempted to go back to the fold she has felt the same rejection, the same inferiority and critical judgment she felt as an illegitimate child.
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The Title
Say Sorry is the story of Ann’s fight to elicit an apology from the Catholic hierarchy for the calamity that was her early life. In addition to a formal and heartfelt apology, Ann has asked repeatedly for an acknowledgment, on behalf of the nuns, that there was wrong doing and that she did not deserve the violence inflicted on her. Like many abuse victims, Ann often blames herself for what was done to her when she was younger.
Here she exposes the deceit and subterfuge she - and others - have encountered from agents of the Catholic Church in New Zealand while trying to get the powers that be within the institution to address past grievances, foremost of which is her lost faith. When she most needed the refuge and support of her church she was shunned and called a liar.
Ann has other crosses to bear as well thanks to her dysfunctional upbringing. Motherhood doesn’t come easy to her and she maintains she’s not good at forming relationships. Self-imposed isolation and incessant nightmares have made her life a living hell for decades.
The harm inflicted on Ann as a youngster has undoubtedly contributed to serious health issues as well, crippling headaches and arthritis amongst them. In 1989 she discovered she had cancer of the womb, the following year the cancer had moved to her right kidney. Simultaneous with the cancer, Ann was having to deal with the threat of losing her family home in a mortgagee sale.
Three years later - at the age of 49 – Ann’s familiar world was rocked once again by the discovery she had a clutch of half brothers and sisters. The news preceded by just a few short months, the sudden death of her 27 year old son Robert in a car crash.
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The Advocates
Ann began writing her life story some twenty years ago. In that time two men have supported her in her quest to prove she was raped by a priest. The first is her husband Brian and the other is her former neighbour Ron Hackett.
Ron, an ex-policeman, helped locate Ann’s missing family; he helped her in her search to find the house in Timaru where she was raped as a fifteen year old and he has been her advocate in dealings with Barry Jones, Bishop of Christchurch, and John Jamieson, Director of the National Office for Professional Standards.
Ron has also been instrumental in bringing Ann’s story to public attention because, although it is only one story, it is the story of many.
As for Ann herself, she says: “I have written this book because I believe those of us who have been abused by the nuns and priests need to tell our stories so this abuse of children never happens again. This crime and our shame will never go away until we stand together as one and say to the Catholic Church, ‘No more abuse; no more lies; tell the world the truth’.”
Meanwhile, police investigations in Christchurch are underway to
identify the priest who raped Ann. Once their investigations are
complete, Ann would like his name included in her book so others, who
may have been abused by him as well, will come forward and speak of the
experience. Only then, she believes, will they begin to address the
shame and hurt of their ordeal.
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Timely and Long Overdue
In recent decades numerous cases of paedophilia and homosexuality involving priests and their male wards have made headline news while the women’s stories have remained hidden.
In the wake of the pope’s recent apologies to abuse victims in the United States and Australia, and in light of the June 2008 convictions against Brother Rodger William Moloney for sexually abusing boys at Marylands special school in Christchurch, Say Sorry is timely.
As for exposing the deprivation and abuse of females that went on within Catholic institutions in New Zealand Ann’s story is long overdue. It also raises questions of how many other women in this country have been sexually violated, raped and impregnated by priests.
Nobody will ever know the answer. Women seldom complained or disclosed instances of sexual abuse and/or rape. It was the cause of shame, not just for the victim but for the victim’s entire family, and that’s only if the rape victim was believed in the first place.
In Say Sorry, for instance, we also learn how the circumstances
surrounding the alleged rape of a girl by a priest at Nazareth House is
kept within the fold; much to the frustration of a Christchurch man
purported to be the priest’s illegitimate son.
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The Readership
Although some will find the content disturbing, everyone who has been abused - and those fortunate enough not to have been - will benefit from reading this book.
Victims will recognise the symptoms of low self-esteem, fluctuations in confidence and the constant self-blaming Ann expresses so poignantly. Others will find themselves revising their understanding of the systemic repercussions of abuse and the effects of religious indoctrination and institutionalism in moulding the perfect victim: that is, one who is subservient and trained to keep their mouth shut.
Chillingly, it’s likely every New Zealander, whether they know it or not, has made the acquaintance of somebody who has been abused at some point in their life in this country. Say Sorry is designed to shed some light on how insidiously abuse can come about and the toxic legacy; not just for the victim but for the victim’s family and friends.
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More than ‘a Victim’ Story
What sets Ann’s story apart from those of other abuse victims is its childlike candour, unselfconsciousness, simplicity of style and humour. While violence and sexual abuse permeate the narrative like sickly incense, the reader is rarely in doubt that Ann will pull through; such is her indomitable spirit.
Spirit or no, Ann’s story raises obvious questions. Why were some of the Irish nuns who came to New Zealand so cruel? Why is the Catholic hierarchy so slow and obscure in dealing with those of its agents who have sexually abused minors and others entrusted to their care and guidance? Why are victims of sexual abuse by catholic clergy still made to feel they are in the wrong particularly when they articulate their stories and concerns publicly?
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The Epilogue
Father Tom Doyle, O.P., J.C.D., a Catholic priest based in the United States has been an outspoken advocate for the victims of sexual abuse since 1984 and he has been engaged as a consultant and or expert witness in a number of cases involving catholic clergy sexual abuse in the US, Canada, Ireland, the UK, Israel, Australia and New Zealand.
Father Tom Doyle has been invited to pen an epilogue for Say Sorry. We trust he will have some answers to the big questions that crop up while reading Ann’s story.
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The Writer
Say Sorry is a true story penned by Ann Thompson over nearly two decades. Biographer Fiona Craig has helped edit and compile Ann’s manuscript into a publishable format.
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Ann has now written another Book which she has titled
They Promised Heaven But Led me To Hell
Years in Two Catholic Orphanages Left Their Hidden Scars
Out in E-Book late February 2018