by Tom Keneally
The interest of the audience was restored. There did not seem to be many cynics here.
‘It has been my task,’ continued Docherty, ‘as a clinical psychologist, to treat men who, to use shorthand, lack that maturity; who had it blocked by a number of factors. One could argue that a by-product of celibacy is the admission into the seminaries of a number of psycho-sexually immature men, who are encouraged by an outdated system to maintain such immaturity as a defence against homosexuality. And within the traditional system, the sad truth is that adult women were too easily dismissed as a mere temptation, an occasion of sin. Fifty-one per cent of the population, that is, written off as an inconvenience to celibacy. Not only does this offend the instincts of democracy, but it immediately turns the entire gender into a series of volatile objects. Further, the acute, often conscientious, sensibility of Catholic confessors to the sin of masturbation created a milieu in which “the objectification of women”, as modern gender studies calls it, prevailed, giving false encouragement to those who were incapable of mature relationships or sexuality.
‘This is the seminary environment in which we were all educated. I look out at you and see honest faces full of commitment and humanity, and it shows me that the innate virtues – call them sanctifying grace, if you like – can survive what many experts are now calling a bad education.’
Docherty could see many of the priests taking notes. One cried heartily, ‘Hear, hear!’ He hoped the others were not taking notes in the same way as his right-wing parishioners in Sydney used to record his ‘political’ sermons in order to undermine him to the cardinal archbishop.
‘Herein, incidentally, we have a case for a new kind of education. It is easy to be celibate because of a fear of women. We remember from our earliest instructions St Kevin, that good Irish mystic at Glendalough in Wicklow, who, when approached by a maiden, cast her over the waterfall into the waters below. If St Kevin could maintain his virtue only by homicide, better he had given himself to her. The minority of abusers, some of whom were themselves abused as children, suffer from the St Kevin syndrome: they are attracted to children or the young; they find it licit to use their power to compel them, and at the end they throw them over the waterfall.’
The best message I can give is near delivered, Docherty thought with relief.
There had been scandals everywhere, he continued. His audience knew that, and did not need an enumeration of the horror stories. Researchers – and Docherty named several psychologists and social scientists from Europe and the US – predicted that the majority of cases were still to emerge, and that the numbers would astound and humiliate the Church – priests and laypeople. The damage done to the repute of priests by the four per cent of them who were guilty of these crimes, and the further unknown percentage who sheltered them, could be catastrophic if bishops and their superiors continued to pursue a policy of denial, secrecy and legalism.
There were two options, he said. One was to try to silence victims while compensating them in a limited way. This involved the victim signing a confidentiality agreement and guaranteeing not to seek further legal redress. That is, the corporate church could defend itself against the victim the way mining companies frequently tried to do, most notoriously in the United States. The second was for the Church to make peace, as far as it could, with the victims, and to make no attempt to limit their rights. In dioceses in North America, confidentiality agreements were being broken, in any case, and when they were revealed by the victims, they made the Church look niggardly, legalistic and shifty.
‘I believe that confidentiality agreements, and documents seeking to bind victims to no further action, should be cast aside because they limit the rights of those wronged. And all priests should be entitled to make their feelings known about the Church’s processes, since it is their priesthood that will bear the odium if appropriate healing is not undertaken. Classically, it has been the mystique of the priesthood that has made it possible for predators to operate under its cover.
‘In my studies I have been the beneficiary of the conviction of my Order’s superiors that the discipline of psychology can provide tools that are of use to the Church. One is to screen applicants for the seminary. It is not desirable anymore that young men should flee to the seminary because they’re suffering emotional instability, developmental problems or traumas from abuse in their own childhood. I note without prejudice that even my bishop in Ontario required such screening. The process involves an interview and a questionnaire, and I have attached to copies of this lecture the journal in which these can be accessed.
‘Lastly, may I quote fellow priest and psychologist Friar Austin Carter, an American Franciscan. He writes: “Should the Church pursue legal arrangements instead of compassion and generosity, within two decades it will face legal sanctions from civic authority. I can foresee that in Ireland, for many of us the source of our faith, the government will soon be willing to react to a church that has operated by authoritarianism towards the victims and protection for the culprits.”
‘By the time we have been called to account in courts and secular enquiries, we will have scandalised those who believe, and created scorn in the hearts of those who look for an excuse to belabour us. Our priests will be under suspicion for crimes they’ve had no part in, and will be making restitutions into which they’ve been allowed no input from their bishops. The shame we already feel, even if some of us have tried to hide it, will be hammered to the door of every church by secular authorities, whereas we could have prevented and healed the harm by our own efforts and by listening not to lawyers but to the generous instincts of the spirit.’
Applause in the hall stuttered at first but quickly a number of people were on their feet, nodding in Docherty’s direction. The laypeople at the back of the hall were loudest in their agreement.
A young priest, a potential careerist, thought Docherty, stood up with his hand raised. Here comes my chastisement, he thought. But the man was conciliatory and asked about false allegations. Didn’t Docherty think that the Church’s method of settling these matters helped to limit false accusations? And was it not appropriate that the complainant be denied the presence of a lawyer, who was not as concerned with reconciliation as he was with maximising a settlement?
Docherty argued that by now protocols had been developed to show accurately which allegations were real, the signs and symptoms of an authentic case. The question able psychotherapeutic practice of retrieving lost memories should not be admitted, he argued. Most clinical psychologists had great concern about these techniques and felt they had in the past led to unjust accusations, often of the subject’s parents. But experts in this area were familiar with the symptoms that typified the victims of sex abuse. Those present could see notes on these manifestations in Docherty’s addendum to the lecture.
It was true, too, that legal processes were very blunt instruments in delivering justice and in appeasing the feelings of misused humans. But the victim should surely be permitted to bring a representative to his or her meeting with the Church, whether it be a lawyer or not. For the Church had recourse to lawyers, and sometimes they were on the panel that negotiated terms with the victim.
To this point of history the discrediting of those with true cases against clergy, rather than the reverse, said Docherty, had characterised the whole relationship between Church and victims. Nonetheless, he conceded, the possibility of false accusation was justifiably every priest’s nightmare.
Some priests stayed in knots, chatting, but the hall soon emptied except for one group. A young priest amongst them, with a lustrous black beard of a kind that would not have been allowed in Docherty’s day (in case the Blood of Christ got caught in the facial hairs), approached him. He introduced himself as a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
‘Are you free for morning coffee on Friday, Dr Docherty?’ he asked pleasantly. ‘A few of us would very much like to talk to you further.’
Docherty was used to a recepti
on of repressed hostility to his message. He had experienced it in Canada and the US when he had been invited to speak; those who could sense the impending storm of scandal, retribution, compensation bills, and resented it all, as an Australian farmer might resent a drought. Or else they thought it an overblown issue. But there were always a troubled few who wanted to talk further. He could guess by now what they would tell him: that they had seen what could be called suspicious signs, and they had reported them, and they had been ignored.
That, Docherty knew, as he said goodbye and agreed to the future meeting, was a common story too.
6
Monsignor Shannon Fights the Good Fight
March 1996
At end of the summer, a few months before Docherty’s visit to Sydney, Monsignor Leo Shannon enjoyed his morning swim at the Boy Charlton Pool near the Art Gallery of New South Wales before strolling across the greensward of the Domain to the Cathedral House gates. The statue of Michael Kelly, a former archbishop who had once argued with guards to let him into the Quarantine Station so he could give last rites to those dying of the Spanish flu, pointed towards a sky of the most superb blue.
Monsignor Shannon went to his rooms in the Cathedral House and, after a shower, changed into a light, fawn suit, such as would not have been considered appropriate in the old days, put his purple stock over his chest and adjusted his clerical collar. His black hair was thinning but still an evident feature, and on his lapel was the membership badge for the Order of Australia, for which he had been successfully nominated by his contacts in the business community.
He went downstairs to his office – he was the Financial Vicar and Business Manager for the archdiocese – collected from his secretary the file he needed, and was in the meeting room in the chancery ten minutes before the appointed time. There he found Peter Callaghan – a retired silk, ruddy-faced and wise, a sun-kippered Celt – studying a folder full of the same documents as those in Monsignor Shannon’s dossier. The former deputy commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force, Nick Erasmo, a thin-faced, defined sort of fellow, reliable, son of the Church, was also at the table. He was a young man compared to Callaghan, extremely athletic, even ascetic, with an appropriately hawk-like, inquisitorial face. Yet he had been a wonderful cop, certainly not one to refuse enhanced police powers, but scrupulous in their administration. The normal Australian balance, this committee: a balance between law and order and savoir faire, as Monsignor Shannon thought of it.
‘Do you have the cheque, Monsignor?’ asked Callaghan, sounding a little stressed.
‘All drawn up,’ said Shannon. ‘How are you, Peter?’
‘This one worries me,’ said Callaghan, who did look worried, though he was blessedly better at looking it than actually being it. ‘This one is a highly educated man. He has a doctorate in laser physics.’
‘But I don’t think that changes our approach, does it?’ asked Shannon.
‘No. But it might influence his expectations.’
‘Well, as you know, we have authorisation from the company to go to seventy-five thousand dollars in this case.’
‘Given that Father Guest died in prison serving a sentence for paedophilia, it is hard to deny the likelihood of this claim. The man’s evidence is internally coherent.’
‘Yes,’ Shannon admitted. ‘We know Father Guest was a delinquent.’
‘The account of what happened is true to the way Guest operated.’
Monsignor Shannon said nothing. He was given to counsels of reticence. He did not pour fuel on fires. The note-taker came in. Pleasantries were exchanged and then, ‘Gentlemen,’ said Shannon, ordering his papers, ‘tell me when you’re ready for him.’
‘I’m ready,’ said Callaghan. ‘What about you, Nick?’
‘I agree he’s not a typical case,’ said Erasmo. ‘But I’m ready.’
Shannon saw Callaghan adopt a non-committal, professionally sceptical face, the one he brought to all his encounters with those who claimed to be victims of clergy or of members of religious orders. Erasmo was studying the file. Shannon called the receptionist and asked her to escort Dr Devitt into the meeting room.
The door opened and Devitt entered, in a good if dishevelled suit, carrying an attaché case. He was a square-jawed man with the tan and condition of someone who surfed or cycled. His eyes were, however, fraught. The monsignor was half-amused at the way the ecclesiastical atmosphere, the austere grandeur of the cathedral chancery, got to people. That is, a conditioned awe from childhood came into play. That dread we thought we had left when we grew up could rise again in us.
‘Please sit down, Mr Devitt,’ growled Callaghan. ‘Or I should say, Dr Devitt.’
The chair for Devitt was at the end, beyond a swathe of polished wood. He would face Shannon, Callaghan and Erasmo.
Devitt said, somewhat sceptically, ‘Thank you.’
‘Dr Devitt,’ said Callaghan absently and not looking up from his papers, as if Devitt was merely one of a string of claimants and they were all being dealt with today, ‘did you know that I am the commissioner of the Church’s process named In Compassion’s Name?’
‘Yes, Mr Callaghan,’ said Devitt briskly, but the unsettled look was still in his eyes. He cannot be calm about the Church, felt Monsignor Shannon, with fraternal tolerance.
‘I’ll leave it to my fellow board members to introduce themselves,’ said Callaghan.
‘I am Monsignor Shannon, Dr Devitt. I am financial vicar to the cardinal archbishop.’
Dr Devitt shook his head marginally, anti-clerically – so Shannon decided. Something within Shannon had been wearied by the old white-hot slurs; claimants yelling, ‘Who was Christ’s financial advisor?’, after which, if there was opportunity, Shannon would spread his hands and say, ‘Times change. Indeed, our Divine Lord and his apostles were all volunteer workers. But the Church was small then.’
Devitt, however, went for none of the normal abuse.
Erasmo introduced himself. ‘You were referred to us by your lawyers?’ he asked.
Dr Devitt nodded. ‘And I have to say, Mr Callaghan, it seems inequitable to me that my legal representation was not permitted to accompany me. Yet I believe I should hear you out. And discover what, in your terms, “reconciliation” means.’
‘Well,’ said Callaghan, ‘we fear that lawyers, bred to confront, might inhibit the spirit of our process.’
‘Yet the Church engages you, Mr Callaghan. A justifiably eminent lawyer.’
‘Yes, but I work pro bono, as a volunteer and son of the Church, on these matters. That alters my participation. I am not involved in a confrontation. I trust I am involved in a form of peace-making.’
Monsignor Shannon thought that he now perceived what Callaghan had been uneasy about: frequently, in a process of reconciliation, which this was above all meant to be – a process of consolation – victims (and people who were merely victims in their own mind) were healed by allowing themselves to go through the process without legal intervention, that is, without the ceaseless interruption of lawyers on picayune issues.
‘This is a matter,’ said Peter Callaghan to the young man, ‘of the Church genuinely trying to make peace with its own and to address their valid concerns. We hope it is a mediation in which all parties feel they are well served. Please feel free to make any notes you choose to.’
Devitt unpacked his attaché case and took out a notepad. ‘Now, what precisely do you mean by reconciliation, Mr Callaghan?’ Devitt asked.
Callaghan said, in a practised manner, ‘Well, first, of course, before reconciliation, we mean to protect the Church from false accusations, a consideration that does not apply in your case. Following your assessment by our psychologist, we wish to utter our regret and to offer you a warm and fraternal re-entry into a community of mutual trust.
‘We are here, too, to offer spiritual counselling, if you believe you need it. We wish to mark our concern for you, and our regret for the crimes of the deceased offender by making an ex-gr
atia payment – a mere gesture, I know, but something adequate to prove goodwill and compassion. A payment made on the basis of mutual respect, that is. Not wrung out of us by any arduous or antagonistic process.’
Devitt said nothing for a time, then chose the moment Monsignor Shannon was drawing his breath to speak. ‘I’ll pass on the spiritual counselling, thank you, gentlemen.’
Again, he spoke levelly. There was barely a sign of pent-up fury, or, if there was, it was a new kind of fury, a matured, subtle one with a steely density. It was far easier to deal with those who raged until it ended up chastening them. This brought them to a quick resolution, either through embarrassment at what they had said, or their relief at saying it. They took the $50,000, signed their binding confidentiality statement and often could not leave soon enough, having got out their anger. They had been believed, and thus were convinced they might now face a renewed life.
‘The trouble with counselling,’ Devitt continued in that even tone, ‘is the brand of it I got from Father Guest.’
‘Yes,’ said Monsignor Shannon, and wraith-like images of Guest, whom he had known, flickered about his memory. ‘Your interview with our psychologist makes that clear.’
But Devitt would not be prevented from telling his story. ‘He began quizzing me in the confessional, asking me if I’d committed sins I had not yet even thought of. I’ve heard from others – I don’t like the word victim, but I’d better say victims for clarity, anyhow – that the confessional has played a big part in child abuse. That’s where these predators start working on a kid. You might remember that in Father Guest’s cases … the five he went to gaol for, two of them being suicides … they all said that. It started with that bloody confessional box. Maybe you fellows should have a look at that. It was a dating agency for Guest. It is for other monsters, too. And one with a high success rate. If you consider raping a child a success.’