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Accusations of Abuse in Institutions

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The Dominion Post
September 13, 2002

Good clergy
Letter to the Editor
by Stan Manterys, Lower Hutt

In the publicity surrounding sexual abuse by some clergy, here is another side to the story. Like people in all segments of society, a disgraced minority of clergy has committed crimes, but the overwhelming majority of clergy has not.

Let's keep it in perspective and avoid tarring the majority, and their church, with the same brush, expressly or by implication.

Whole generations of New Zealanders have benefited from the clergy's mostly unpaid efforts to instil in their pupils a sense of duty to serve the community, and to lead useful and moral lives.

An orphan and war refugee, I was reared and educated by Marist priests and the Christian Brothers of the Catholic Church. A boy without a home and no place to go, I would be the sole boarder staying on during school holidays, when the resident clergy were the only caring family I had around me.

In all the years under their care, there was never any impropriety, nor even a suspicion of sexual abuse.

On the contrary, we were always made to understand very clearly the difference between right and wrong, and the very idea of sexual abuse was absent from our experience.