After 23 years as a teacher and principal, John Crowley took the reins at Ballarat's St Patrick's College in 2015, at a tumultuous time.
He led the school through the Royal Commission and took lasting actions to recognise the school's dark history of sexual abuse.
He remained steadfast despite criticism from the broader Catholic community in Ballarat as he took groundbreaking steps to apologise to survivors, create a permanent memorial, and prioritise the safety of his students.
"It was a very difficult scenario to come into as the new leader of the school," he wrote for Shaun Carney's The Change Makers, released in 2019.
"I concluded that ultimately it came back to who we said we were as gospel people. To me, there was no other choice for us: we had to walk with the victims and survivors, to support them.
"We had to own this. What gave me great strength through that period was that our staff and board felt the same way.
"It makes me sad that the Church continues to nitpick over its preparedness to stand in the ugliness of this and say, from the very top down, with one clear voice, "This happened, we're sorry, and we are absolutely, fundamentally committed to walking a journey of healing". Not defending the indefensible in court, not seeking to continually suggest that "we're only responsible as the Catholic Church for some of it but not all of it, and there's been an unfair obsession with what happened within our church".
"To me, that is just another betrayal of victims and survivors."