Boys with everything to live for ... A community betrayed ... The
whistle-blower priest who paid the ultimate price
Glen Walsh and Steven Alward were childhood friends in their tight-knit
working-class community in Shortland, on the outskirts of Newcastle, New
South Wales. Both proud altar boys at the local Catholic church, they
went on to attend the city's Catholic boys' high schools: Glen to Marist
Brothers and Steven to St Pius X.
Both did well: Steven became a journalist; Glen a priest. But when Glen
discovered another priest was sexually abusing boys, he reported the
offending to police, breaking his vows to the Catholic 'brotherhood' in
the process.
Just weeks before he was due to give evidence at a key trial against the
highest cleric to ever be charged with covering up child abuse, Father
Glen Walsh was dead. Two months later, his friend Steven also died, only
weeks before he was to marry the love of his life. Ensuing
investigations revealed that at least 60 men in the region had taken
their own lives. Why? What had happened, and why were so many from the
three Catholic high schools in the area?
By six-time Walkley Award-winning investigative reporter Suzanne Smith,
The Altar Boys is the powerful expose of widespread and organised
clerical abuse of children in an Australian city, and how the cover-up
in the Catholic Church in Australia extended from parish priests to
every echelon of the organisation.
Focusing on two childhood friends, their families and community, this
gripping and explosive story is backed by secret documents, diary notes
and witness accounts, and details a deliberate church strategy of using
psychological warfare against witnesses in key trials involving
paedophile priests.
