Joanne McCarthy: The irony of the past 40 years is that I'm a journalist because of the Catholic Church

I had a basket of washing in my arms and I was heading for the clothesline. I remember what I was wearing - underpants and an over-sized yellow t-shirt that reached midway down my thighs. My usual sleeping attire.

The place where I lived had a service station at ground level, with an airy and spacious home on the upper floor. The service station owners lived there until they bought a house nearby and their sons took over. It was a big area so a few of us moved in with them. I was 20.

The service station was on a main road that is noisy and busy now, but four decades ago was much less so. Another main road ran somewhat parallel out the back, and two other roads connecting them completed the wonky rectangular island where the service station, a community hall, a car dealership and a few shops sat.

On the next block north and a couple of minutes walk away was - and is - a Catholic church with a primary school next door. On the next block south of the service station was the house where I grew up. A couple of blocks east was - and is - a shopping strip. My childhood was mapped out by those streets and the waterfront I could see from my service station upper floor bedroom window.

On that Sunday morning I held the shopping basket in front of me at waist height, so I didn't see the man standing at the bottom of the flight of about 20 stairs, wearing his Sunday best.

Roy Dibben was the editor of the Gosford Star newspaper who lived in the street where I grew up. His house was on the corner of the next block from the house my parents built. I walked past the Dibbens' place every time I walked to school, or dawdled with some of my siblings on our way to church.

I knew him to say hello but that was about it. He knew my parents though - good Catholics who supported the church-endorsed rhythm method of birth control and had 11 children, as we like to say.

Roy was on his way back home from church. I'd given up church a few years earlier, but to Roy I was still Jim and Barbara's eldest who'd done well at school.

By the time I saw him all I could think of was the view he'd had of me descending - two legs, bare feet and the underside of a washing basket, and I sincerely hoped that was the worst of it. He said something to me when I reached his level but I missed it. I was confused as to why he was even there, and it turned even weirder when he said "Congratulations, you've got the job."

I was going to be a journalist.

There are days in your life that stand out because your future appears to be heading one way, and in an instant it's off in another direction and there's no going back.

We think of the tragedies first. The sudden death of a loved one. A car crash. An industrial accident. Then the good. Meeting a future partner. A welcomed surprise pregnancy. And sometimes a job can do it.

On that Sunday morning 40 years ago I was weeks away from starting a university degree. I'd left a trainee nursing job after 18 months at a large and busy Sydney public hospital because I wanted to be a librarian.

I had my university student pass. I'd signed all the forms. I was ready to go on what I know would have been a lovely life - surrounded by books all day, telling people to shush. I was made for it.

Then Roy turned up.

The person who's really most responsible for the dramatic U-turn my life took four decades ago was my boyfriend, who became my husband and then my ex-husband, who saw the advertisement for the Gosford Star's first cadet journalist and urged - actually, truth be told, nagged the hell out of me - to apply.

I wrote the world's worst job application and a few weeks later there was Roy on a Sunday morning on his way home from church telling me I was the Gosford Star's first cadet, and I could start the next day - Monday, February 18, 1980.

The 40th anniversary was - and is - Tuesday, as I'm writing this.

I've said before that the irony of the past 40 years, and this life I've lived, is that I'm a journalist because of the Catholic Church. I have absolutely no doubt Roy gave me the job because I was - to him - a good Catholic girl from a good Catholic family, unusual living arrangements notwithstanding.

I ended up being the journalist who campaigned for a royal commission into the Catholic Church and child sexual abuse after writing my first article on the subject in June, 2006.

This morning I've been writing an article about bishops refusing to respond to questions about a damning report into church knowledge of two shocking child sex offender priests. Tomorrow I'll be speaking with the head of the National Council of Priests of Australia, and every day, still, even after all these years, I have some contact or involvement with an historical child sexual abuse matter.

When people ask how I can still be so heavily involved with what is a very dark subject I point to history. I like seeing things in their historical context. The Catholic Church has had 2000 years to develop the cultures and traditions that changed the world in so many positive ways, but also the gross power that facilitated crimes against children on a shocking scale.

The church has had a long jump on journalists who've only been exposing those crimes for a few decades. An Australian royal commission and some very big prosecutions have forced the church to change. I think we're doing OK.

Then I read today that Australia's bishops - who are nothing if not predictable - have abolished the church's Office for the Participation of Women as a cost-cutting measure.

Why am I still a journalist after 40 years? Because men like the bishops need to be reminded what a woman can do when she puts her mind to it.