Five short handwritten paragraphs were Brendan Smyth's act of contrition to his 20 victims yesterday. Smyth, who has not uttered a word in court, wrote and signed the short statement. His counsel, Ms Gemma Loughran, read it out.
The victims, seated in two elevated rows behind the rounded figure of the man who has visited enduring trauma on them, could only stare silently at the back of his white-haired head as the apology was made.
Later, when the court rose for lunch, one of the Smyth's male victims stood bolt upright and glared down at the priest's retreating figure with ragefilled eyes.
The look said much. It said no amount of public remorse by Smyth can relieve that man of the deep pain which prompted him to say in court the previous day he would kill his abuser.
It said that whatever sentence Smyth receives next Friday, that victim will forever reserve the right to be his private judge and jury.
Earlier, another male victim calmly told the court how he had been helped to deal with the hurt through counselling and through confronting Smyth.
The man said it had taken him a while to have the strength to speak to his abuser face to face in 1989. "That was a major hurdle and a threshold I had to get over and I managed to do that."
This man was the first of the six victims who testified to call himself a survivor. And despite his disruptive teens, his broken marriage and his angry feelings for his parents, whom Smyth had befriended, he talked of a new life.
"I have had extremely good counselling which has put my life back together. I very much wanted to be here today to acknowledge the opportunity and to be with the other people who had the courage to come."