Emotional day for ‘Dame’ Jan

Sydney
15 December 2002

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Emotional day for ‘Dame’ Jan

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Emotional day for ‘Dame’ Jan

Mrs Jan Ruff-O’Herne with Archbishop Philip Wilson after the presentation

By Marilyn Rodrigues

“I always felt there was a meaning in all this,” said Mrs Jan Ruff O’Herne after the “very emotional moment” of receiving a papal honour.

The medal that came with the honour of being created Dame Commander of the Order of St Sylvester is a joyful reminder of how she found meaning through suffering.

The Archbishop of Adelaide, Archbishop Philip Wilson, presented the honour (the second highest papal order) in a special benediction service at St Francis Xavier’s Cathedral in Adelaide.

Four other papal honours were presented during the service.

The Dutch-born grandmother Jan Ruff-O’Herne was a sex slave for the Japanese military during World War II; at the war’s end she migrated to South Australia.

In 1992 she agreed to be a witness at the international hearing on Japanese war crimes in Tokyo – the first European victim to speak out publicly about the war crimes – and helped make rape a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

“It was so difficult to speak of my experience, it was the hardest thing in my life to do, but I’ve been able to do something with it, and all that suffering has not been wasted,” she says.

“My suffering has given me the opportunity to speak, not only for the protection of women in war but of this beautiful faith that we’ve got and of forgiveness, at the international level as well as in Australia.”

Archbishop Wilson also presented the insignia of Dame of the Order of St Gregory the Great to Cathy Black, a former social worker, in recognition of her 27 years of dedicated service to Centacare Family Services in Adelaide.

And the Pope had appointed Mons David Cappo, Adelaide archdiocese’s vicar general, and two former vicars, Mons James O’Loughlin and Mons Robert Egar, Prelates of Honour.

“It is a special day of celebration for the local Church and the universal Church because these honours from the Pope are special,” Archbishop Wilson said.

“All who have received honours today recognise that the greatest honour is to carry the name of Christ and to be of service to others.”

Earlier, the archbishop had congratulated the recipients, saying: “I am very pleased that Mrs Jan Ruff-O’Herne, who has been honoured by the Dutch Government and recently with an Order of Australia, has also been recognised with such a high honour by Pope John Paul II.”

Mrs Ruff-O’Herne says she has found God in the wilderness of her life more than any other time.

“Even at the time (I was a prisoner) I always felt there was a meaning in all this – it was all in God’s plan for me and there was a purpose to this part of suffering in my life.

“It took a lifetime in the end for me to find out what it was. Sometimes God asks you very late in life to do something very special for him.”