AUSSIE CRUSADER:
the nun who sent her priest brother to jail
Margaret Harrod and her twin brother were inseparable as children and together they took vows and gave their lives to the Catholic Church. Then Margaret discovered her brother’s terrible secret, and her honesty and courage helped put him behind bars. Sue Smethurst reports.
There’s a special bond twins share, an unspoken connection, an intuition that can’t be easily put into words, a togetherness even when apart. Margaret Harrod shared that bond with her twin brother, Michael Aulsebrook. As toddlers they were inseparable, “joined at the hip” their mother would say. At primary school they sat side by side, as teenagers they shared the same friends and at 22, they gave their lives to the Catholic Church. Margaret became a nun and Michael a priest, bonded to God and one another for life.
Margaret cherishes those carefree memories because today her brother is in jail. Father Michael Aulsebrook is a convicted paedophile and the unlikely whistleblower was his courageous twin sister, who has spent the last decade fighting the Church and her family to bring her brother and other paedophile priests to justice.
The former nun has paid a heavy price, losing her faith, a brother she adored and her family who can’t accept their loved one’s crimes, but her only regret is that she didn’t find her voice sooner.
“Speaking up was the right thing to do – it was the only thing to do,” says Margaret, who is sharing the extraordinary story in her memoir, Blood on the Rosary. “It haunts me that if I’d spoken up when I first suspected something was going on, maybe I could’ve spared others abuse. I’ll live with that for the rest of my life, but at least I know he can no longer hurt anyone else.”
In March 1987, at age 31, Michael Aulsebrook was ordained in a lavish ceremony at a local church in Engadine, Sydney. Guests came from all over Australia to witness the weekend-long celebrations of dinners, special mass services and ceremonies. No expense was spared for the occasion and Michael was the pride and joy of his family.
“He was saintly in my parents’ eyes,” Margaret, 62, recalls. “They considered it such an honour to have a priest in the family. His ordination was the happiest day of their lives.”
Years later, as she sat with detectives from Victoria Police, helping them piece together the horrific web of abuse her brother had woven, Margaret realised that many of the young faces in the congregation that day were, in fact, victims of her brother’s crimes.
“We now know that, by the time he was ordained, he had already begun offending. These were children he taught, children of parish families, people whose homes we’d visited together. These parents trusted Michael with the lives of their children and he betrayed that trust.”
Michael Aulsebrook began clerical life years earlier, teaching at the
Salesian Order’s prestigious ‘Rupertswood’ College in Sunbury, Victoria. Brother Michael, as he was then, was a popular figure among students, often buying them treats from the canteen and spending his lunchtimes in the playground. He quickly rose through the Salesians’ ranks and was promoted to the role of vice-principal, but by then alarm bells should have been ringing.
During school holidays, Michael would visit his family interstate, often with a student in tow.
“He had a different boy with him each time,” Margaret recalls. “I was very disturbed by this. My gut instinct was that this wasn’t right, but Michael would tell us the boys were from troubled families and they needed a break. These families had given their blessing to their children going away on holidays with Father Michael. Who was I to question?
“My parents thought it very generous of Michael to take the boys away on a holiday. They’d stay at hotels, sometimes with family members. In hindsight, I didn’t want to believe what my gut was telling me. I couldn’t contemplate there was anything sinister to this and I convinced myself it was all fine.
I’ve carried guilt for many years that I didn’t speak up way back then.”
Sadly, Margaret is all too aware of the devastation of sexual abuse. From the age of two, until she was in her early twenties, she was abused by her devoutly religious father – the organist at the local church and a pillar of the local Catholic community.
She joined the convent to escape his abuse and free herself of the control he had over her life, but when she was at her most vulnerable, revealing the years of trauma her father caused, she was abused again by the priest to whom she finally divulged her darkest secret.
Like so many victims of sexual abuse, Margaret was overwhelmed with feelings of shame, worthlessness and the betrayal by those who were supposed to protect her, pushing her to the brink of suicide. Until one morning, when a colleague at the
local parish school where she was teaching, unwittingly saved her life.
“She said to me, ‘Did you see that program on TV last night about incest? It was about abuse victims speaking up. It really affected me. It’s just horrible to think that any parent could do that to their own child.’
“Those few words had a profound effect on me. Up until that time, I hadn’t told anyone about what my father had done to me. I’d pushed it all deep down inside and buried it away, but her words were an acknowledgement that what my father did to me was wrong and it was okay to speak about it. She unconsciously gave me permission to speak up and I believe she saved my life.”
Margaret left the convent soon after that and began what has been a lifelong journey of healing. She bravely confronted her father, who admitted his guilt, but argued it was his way of ‘expressing his love’. “I screamed at him that it was no way to show your love for your daughter.”
After leaving the convent, Margaret found love with naval sailor Rod Harrod, who has been her rock ever since, but at times the pain of her abuse has been too much. She suffered a breakdown and has undergone extensive therapy to deal with the psychological fallout.
In the process of coming to terms with her own abuse, the pieces of another sinister jigsaw puzzle began falling into place when a former student came forward with allegations of sexual assault by Michael in 1993.
“It was like a lightning bolt through my heart, and I knew that young man was telling the truth. I distinctly recalled this one particular day when Michael and I were visiting a parish family together and he encouraged their young daughter to sit on his knee. He was directly opposite me and I could see him rubbing her belly very inappropriately.
“At that time, I hadn’t told anyone what my own father had done to me and here I was watching my twin do it too. I was totally in denial and it was only after I accepted what happened to me, many years later, that I realised the significance of what I’d seen.”
With Rod by her side, she went to the Church’s Professional Standards Committee and reported her concerns about Michael and two other priests. They confirmed that her beloved brother was being investigated over several allegations of indecent assault, so Margaret and her two younger brothers confronted him and he admitted his guilt.
“The Church insisted they were dealing with it and Michael was sent away to a Church program for paedophile priests to be ‘rehabilitated’. I was appalled. Eventually, once he’d graduated from this program, he’d be sent back into the community. My blood boiled. All I could think about was the children. Who was protecting them?”
She refused to give up and insisted on face-to-face meetings with Church officials. It was then that she learned that Michael had been investigated on another claim – this victim was discouraged from going to the police and offered a confidential settlement on the grounds it was ‘his word against the Church’.
“Some of the allegations made against Michael were made before he was even formally ordained, yet he was still made a priest and promoted to vice-principal.”
Margaret battled Church bureaucracy for years, but heard nothing further until a friend phoned to tell her Michael had gone to jail. In August 2011 he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of indecent assault
against a 12-year-old boy and was sentenced to two years’ jail with a 15-month suspended sentence. He spent nine months behind bars.
In 2016 he was jailed again for offences against three more victims, and in August 2018 he was found guilty of raping an 11-year-old boy at Salesian College and sentenced to a further seven years and six months in jail. All of the offences occurred during the 1980s.
“The convictions are a formal acknowledgement that what he did was wrong. That brings me comfort that what I’ve been saying all these years is right and validates my fight. It’s like a grieving process though,” Margaret admits. “I am grieving for my lost brother. The brother I thought I had is not the brother sitting in jail and it saddens me deeply that I have lost the bond we shared. He is serving his sentence. He is living a life lost.”
Rod and the couple’s children, Jason and Nicola, are proud that Margaret has found her voice, but not all family members are happy she has spoken out. For some, her brother’s crimes are emotionally too raw to deal with.
“I’ve carried the guilt of not speaking up for more than
20 years. Survivors of abuse have no reason to feel guilty or ashamed of what has happened. It is important that we accept the past and speak up to ensure this doesn’t ever happen again.
“If I’d spoken up the very first day I saw him touching that young girl, then I may have spared others and I have to live with that. Now is not the time for silence, it’s the time for us to speak out.
“Telling my story has been challenging but it’s also been very cleansing and empowering. For many years I could not utter a word to anyone. The grief, shame and embarrassment was like an impenetrable concrete block that sat inside me, a blackness that almost consumed the light of hope within. I was overcome. But I won’t be shamed into silence anymore – it’s time for victims of abuse to reclaim their power and find their voices. I speak for those who haven’t found their voice yet and for those who tried to speak but were not heard.”
Margaret believes there is a reason she survived all those years of abuse, and that is to inspire and empower others. She has trained as a life coach and motivational speaker, and dedicates her time to helping women who have suffered abuse to build their self-worth and achieve their dreams.
“It’s been a long journey, but if my story can help one other person deal with abuse, then it’s all worthwhile. Most of all, I just want to encourage people to speak up.
“Sexual abuse is a scourge in our society, and I don’t believe we’ve really got to the bottom of the full extent of clergy abuse. It’s time for honesty, transparency and genuine remorse from the Church – victims deserve to know the truth.”
This new calling might seem a far cry from her early desire to serve God, but the former Sister Margaret says it is her most important mission yet: to shed light and bring healing to herself and others.
“I am strong,” she says finally. “I have been to hell and back and I have survived. I have fought damn hard all my life to survive, and I will go all out to continue healing. That is what I have to do daily so I can truly experience the excitement of living – to live beyond surviving.”
Margaret’s memoir Blood on the Rosary, written with Sue Smethurst, is published this month by Simon and Schuster, $32.99.
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