"I'm struggling to remember," he said later. Abuse survivors Gerard Morrow (left) and Tim Lane (right) in Ballarat. Credit:Konrad Marshall "I can't clearly recall," he noted. The people there listening – a mix of clergy abuse survivors and counsellors and family members – had previously been silent. Now they offered a muffled collective scoff, and pained laughter. Tim Lane, 44, had been waiting for this. Lane was abused in his home as a child – one of six Ballarat siblings to fall prey to Brother Grant Ross. Lane has followed the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, and been pleased with the result in his home town.

He has seen people throughout the city wearing "Some Don't Remember – Some Won't Forget" T-shirts. He has watched ribbons of support blow in the wind, tied to every school and church and tree. He has attended various civic receptions for survivors, and been listened to by his community. And it has been cathartic. But he wanted to hear Cardinal Pell on Monday just as he wanted to hear Bishop Ronald Mulkearns last week. He wanted to know what they knew. All of it. "I was four when I was abused. I'm now 44. And I remember it vividly," Lane said. "I remember every detail. And they were grown men but they remember nothing? I don't accept that." When the hearing began earlier, Cardinal Pell was asked to swear on a bible to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and a group of men in the back row – Lane among them – laughed quietly. They whispered as his patchy testimony unfolded. I have no clear recollection of my knowing.

It's difficult to answer that absolutely. My memory is not infallible. Gerard Morrow, 59, sat with Lane. Morrow was first abused when he was 11, at De La Salle College in Malvern. He never lives a day without his memories. He is upset when those in power have none of their own. "They just keep giving us continual denials and 'I don't remember' and 'I don't recall'. And what drives me nuts is we've gotta recall it," he said. "If they put us on the stand, we've gotta remember what the dates were, what happened, how did it happen. They just go, 'I don't recall', 'I'm too old', 'I'm having a senior citizen moment'. It's pretty much what I expected. Which wasn't much."

The hearing was put up on three large screens in Ballarat. When abuse was described as "misbehaving", dozens shook their heads. When one older father's habit of kissing boys on the way out of classes was characterised as "eccentric", the audience sighed with bitterness and incredulity. Edward Dowlan. Photo: G. Ampt When Cardinal Pell touched on the notorious Edward Dowlan and remembered how the church once believed "the brothers have got the problem in hand", various men in the audience looked ready to breathe fire. But they looked angrier still as the gaps in memory continued.

I don't have perfect recall. My level of recall is not sufficient. It's over 40 years ago and I can't recall. Despite this Tim Lane says his faith grows stronger every day. He mourns though for the other souls tortured by criminal priests and brothers. "They didn't just rape their bodies," he said. "They raped their faith." Standing on the steps of the town hall at noon, he said he did not find the hearing surprising.

"It's everything I expected. The memory loss. The little tricks to get away with it. They haven't gotten away with it though, because even if man misses it, He doesn't," Lane said, looking through the top floor skylight of the Ballarat Town Hall, up at the heavens. "They can hide behind his word and scripture, but He had no part of it. He's with us." The hearing will continue to be screened in the Trench Room at Ballarat Town Hall from 8am to 12pm on Tuesday and Wednesday (with a possibility on Thursday).