For decades, 53-year-old Bernie* kept the secrets of his childhood deeply buried.
As a boy growing up in a Ballarat orphanage in the 1970s, Bernie told the ABC's Revelation program that he was abused on multiple occasions by George Pell, then a priest in the diocese of Ballarat.
For years Bernie was convinced that if he reported the abuse, he would not be believed.
"I would hear Pell's become Bishop," Bernie says.
"Pell's become Archbishop. Pell's become a Cardinal. Who's gonna believe a little boy from a home against that conglomerate? You know against that bloody goliath?"
AMDG