The sleep he gets is broken by nightmares, like the recurring one of paedophile priest Vince Ryan performing oral sex on him in a car near his home after altar boy practice when Mr McDonald was just 11. Except that nightmare was real.

"I remember this one time when my brother walked past and I was trying to speak and I couldn't," Mr McDonald said on Monday, before he appears in the three-part ABC series Revelation about the Catholic Church on Tuesday night, which focuses on the Hunter in the first two episodes.

The first episode includes extraordinary film and photos of Ryan's ordination in Rome in 1966 along with classmate George Pell.

Mr McDonald remembers his brother walking past Ryan's car and out of sight one day while the priest continued to commit one of his many sexual crimes against the boy, who was one of Ryan's many victims. Mr McDonald knows there are more.

There were seven altar boys at St Josephs Church, Merewether in 1975 when Ryan started talking about sex. Mr McDonald was 11. His friend Scott Hallett was nine. One boy ran away. Ryan performed oral sex on the remaining six before forcing them to pair up to attempt anal intercourse with each other. Ryan attempted anal intercourse with one of the boys.

Ryan was finally charged in 1995 - more than two decades after senior Hunter clerics knew he was a paedophile whose victims were very young boys - after Mr McDonald and Mr Hallett went to police. Two other men who were there on that day also made statements. The other two, still alive, have not spoken.

"When (Monsignor) Patrick Cotter and (Maitland-Newcastle Bishop) Leo Clarke were told what Ryan did to children in 1974 they sent him to Melbourne to get him away from here, then they let him come back. He should never have got to me in 1975," Mr McDonald said.

"I know there's more victims out there. Anyone who sees Ryan doing his fake tears for the television cameras needs to know he's been jailed for crimes against more than 30 boys, but there are many more out there who haven't gone to police.

"It makes me sick that he's trying to be the victim considering what he's done. He's a very, very dangerous man and he knows how to manipulate people."

Mr McDonald gave graphic evidence in 2016 to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about the crimes against him, including at the Merewether church. He agreed to be on Revelation, along with Scott Hallett and a third Ryan survivor, because the Catholic Church is yet to act on a majority of recommendations from the royal commission.

This is despite the Australian Government spending more than $500 million on the inquiry.

"The Catholic Church is still a men's club that has plenty of bloody money, because people are dying and still leaving the church money despite everything that's happened," Mr McDonald said.

One of Revelation's most poignant moments features Mr McDonald's wife Sharon, who spent the day in tears as her husband was interviewed by the ABC team.

"I've cried so many times," said Mrs McDonald, who supported her husband when he went to police and as he has struggled with the impact of severe and sustained child sexual abuse for the 35 years they've been together.

"I wouldn't be alive without Sharon," Mr McDonald said.

His left arm carries a tattoo of headstones of five boys who have died after being sexually abused by Catholic offenders, including Andrew Nash, 13, who committed suicide in 1974 after he was sexually abused by Hamilton Marist Brother Romuald, now jailed.

The Nash family will feature in episode two of Revelation.

Mrs McDonald is appalled by Ryan's view that "parents who knew what was going on, why aren't they before the court?"

"How could he think that parents should be in trouble too when they wouldn't even think that a priest was capable of committing the kinds of crimes he did. That's the point. These were priests people were told to trust. Hearing him say that just says to me that he will never accept responsibility for what he's done. He's still trying to blame other people," Mrs McDonald said.

"He has no remorse."

Mr McDonald said there were many people who knew in 1975 that Ryan was sent away from the Hunter because of child sex allegations.

He remembers the mother of one of his friends pulling him aside within weeks of the Merewether church incident, to tell him: "How dare you say that Father Vince did those things to you. Lies, all lies."

"The nuns knew. There were nuns who used to go up to speak to my mother before she died and I know they were checking on me. They knew what happened," he said.

"But they never ever offered to help or ask me directly how I was going. They asked because they were scared I'd say they knew about it. They all should be put in jail.

"I hope people watching this because I want to know why does the Australian public stand for the Catholic Church when it acts as if it's above the law. It's still acting that way. The royal commission said a lot of things needed to change in the church because of what happened, but what has the church done? Nothing.

"I hope they watch and see Vince Ryan and know that he raped me. He raped children, and he did it for 20 years after the church knew he was doing it. That's your Catholic Church."