Crimes of the Father

by Tom Keneally

  Giving evidence in the trial that day was to Shannon like being under anaesthetic yet at the same time setting himself to an automatic, nimble-footed deftness. It was time out of the normal world – indeed, it was timeless, for courts were obviously little moved by the pressure of clocks. But though the monsignor was removed from time, he was also acutely aware by the second of where he trod. He had learned these things by giving evidence in other matters, some of them commercial, involving third-party injury cases against the Church, or actions taken by the Church itself against unsatisfactory contractors who had left work unfinished.

  Callaghan had always told him, ‘Watch out for opposing counsel with Irish names. They’re often lapsed Catholics and want to get even with you and Catholic theology in one go.’

  Since Conlon was the opposing counsel’s name in this case, and the man’s demeanour was ironic, Monsignor Shannon already knew he had to be wary.

  The opening questions were harmless. His years as a priest. His work as a director of the Church’s insurance company – ‘In effect, you are the proxy for the cardinal, who is one of the defendants in this case.’

  ‘No,’ said Monsignor Shannon, who sensed he was on firm ground. ‘I give evidence on my own behalf and also on that of the Church. The cardinal has entrusted the work of In Compassion’s Name to me and others.’

  The judge confirmed this fact with a gurgle of approbation.

  ‘How does In Compassion’s Name work, then?’ asked Mr Conlon, the (perhaps lapsed) Catholic.

  Monsignor Shannon outlined it. ‘Those who have a justifiable grievance against a member of the Church come to In Compassion’s Name for a process of healing and, if their case is considered valid, they receive a confidential compensation payment and counselling.’

  Conlon asked why the settlement had to be confidential.

  ‘Many settlements are confidential,’ said Monsignor Shannon. And then, in a level tone as good as Devitt’s: ‘The Church is surely as entitled to such agreements as anyone else.’

  ‘How do you decide if a case is valid?’ asked the lawyer.

  ‘By the standard of the evidence, both psychiatric and circumstantial. We use the same sort of documentation as any enquiry would use.’

  ‘And the fact that, say, the abuse occurred in an institution – a home for boys, for example, where abuse has proven to be endemic – that would serve as part of the evidence as well, in terms of probability.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, though it isn’t always absolute proof. But we have our own psychologist’s report on the supposed victim, and we take that into account as well. There are many factors that add up to probability of abuse.’

  ‘And you come to these agreements because in the cases you settle, you consider the Church to be culpable?’

  ‘We consider certain priests to have violated their duty of care within the non-corporate structure of the Church and, being Catholics, we have a resultant responsibility for compassion – it is there in the name of the process, and it’s not mere window-dressing. As for confidentiality, let me say, back-tracking, that often our clients prefer confidentiality.’

  ‘I would have thought it was more in your interests rather than the complainants’ for there to be no reporting of settlements.’

  ‘We think it’s best that these issues don’t become overblown in the popular press or even, for healing’s sake, in the minds of the complainants.’

  ‘I see. And you face the complaints of a single victim, who has no legal representation, with an array of Church officials, secular and otherwise, some of them lawyers.’

  ‘Sadly,’ said Monsignor Shannon, confident now, daring to admire the silkenness of his answer, ‘these are cases that test the wisdom of more than one of us.’

  ‘But you accepted the case of Dr Devitt as a genuine one?’

  ‘Let me say that is a complicated question. I thought his claim was a valid one, and said so purely in terms of our giving him a confidential settlement. I thought it a valid one, I reiterate, in terms of the settlement we offered him, not in terms of his taking a court case like this.’

  ‘So you think that his having taken a legal recourse makes his argument less valid?’

  Shannon grew wary. He would be tested. There were no grounds for premature self-congratulation.

  ‘Well,’ he said, with consideration, ‘our evidence could show that his objection to our confidentiality requirements is abnormal.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Most victims are grateful for our terms of settlement, and they happily sign a deed of release.’

  ‘Do you think he is being greedy, seeking more than you offered him?’

  Monsignor Shannon had been warned by Kermode about this question. ‘I can’t say. I wouldn’t necessarily say so.’

  And a dreadful, scathing inner voice asked him, did he know his own motivation? He swallowed. Kermode had by now objected, but Monsignor Shannon had time to reiterate, ‘I can’t swear to Dr Devitt’s motivation.’

  ‘So in what way do you think his taking a court case makes the authenticity of his claim less clear?’

  ‘We offered him everything we had – compassion, a money settlement, counselling, expressions of regret. I thought that in terms of offering him what was valid and just, we had gone as far as anyone could want. Now that the court case has become a reality … I don’t know what to say about his situation until this trial is over.’

  Conlon half-smiled. ‘That is a fine form of casuistry,’ he said. Kermode had warned him of that too – that at some stage the counsel for the plaintiff would use the word casuistry. It was an anti-clerical insult from the secular arm of the law, and it must be borne.

  Kermode objected anyhow and the slur vanished into air.

  ‘Well, let us get down to tin tacks,’ said Conlon. ‘Do you work for the archdiocese of Sydney?’

  ‘Yes. Apart from priestly duties, I am financial vicar.’

  ‘Are you subject to the commands of the cardinal archbishop of Sydney?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Is every other priest in the archdiocese subject to the cardinal archbishop’s authority?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is every church and school run by Catholic Orders subject to that authority too?’

  ‘They are subject to the authority of the superiors of their Orders as well, but in so far as they operate in this archdiocese, they are subject to the cardinal archbishop, yes.’

  ‘If the cardinal has authority over all these clerics and members of religious Orders, then he must also have responsibility for them, would you say?’

  ‘Yes. Within the bounds of what he can reasonably know of them.’

  ‘Explain what you mean by that.’

  ‘If a priest commits murder tonight, the cardinal archbishop could not be considered to be an accessory to his crime. The cardinal archbishop doesn’t approve of murder. He doesn’t approve of child abuse either.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Conlon, ‘but what if he knew the hypothetical priest suffered from homicidal impulses, and ignored this, or found out it had been ignored by others? Wouldn’t he have some responsibility, then?’

  ‘No,’ dared Shannon.

  ‘No?’ asked Conlon.

  ‘How could he know that homicidal impulses in the person existed before that person had killed anyone?’

  ‘Ah!’ Conlon told him with assumed admiration for his subtlety, and wagging his finger almost in warning. ‘May I suggest that Bishop Modena knew that Father Guest was a criminal.’

  ‘There is no note on Father Guest’s file about it, as there would have been had Auxiliary Bishop Modena reported it to the chancery.’

  ‘Don’t you think some other Church officials must have known about Father Guest, and been responsible for moving him around as his outrages in this or that place became obvious?’

  ‘It would depend on whether they were definitely aware of his problem and had an exact understanding of his …�
�� His what? Shannon was stumped for a while and then came up with a word which gave him no comfort. ‘His psychosis. It is difficult to eradicate such an individual crime,’ he continued. ‘It could be said that in founding In Compassion’s Name, we provided ourselves with a tool to receive clear knowledge of when abuse happened.’

  It is all true, Shannon reassured himself. All true!

  ‘But often the priests who were validly accused were allowed to retire or move elsewhere? Isn’t that so?’

  ‘That’s all gossip and hearsay,’ declared Shannon.

  ‘But Guest was moved on. What did the archdiocese do to make that possible?’

  ‘It kept a strict eye on these men, I can tell you.’

  ‘They must have gone to confession. Were they abetted by the secrecy of the confessional?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Shannon. ‘Since the confessional is secret, the matter is utter speculation.’

  He was relieved by his own recovered glibness.

  ‘Priests know better than anyone,’ he continued, ‘that the sacrament of confession always requires a sincere resolution not to sin again. Absolution is not automatic – as it is sometimes depicted by the ignorant. The priest any offender confessed to would demand that the sinner repent and take a new path. The confessional box … the sacrament of penance itself … is a brake on these crimes.’

  ‘Well,’ muttered Conlon, as if it were Shannon’s fault that they were speaking speculatively, ‘we must not be delayed by hypotheticals. So you will not say now whether you think the case of Dr Devitt is valid or not?’

  ‘It is not my job to say whether it’s valid or not. It may very well be. But that decision has now been removed from us and placed in the hands of the judge.’

  Conlon smiled in a way that said, ‘Here’s casuistry again,’ and then let it go. ‘When another victim of Father Guest, Mr Moore, first approached the Church some years ago, you arranged for a second meeting with him. Is it correct that you invited Father Guest to that meeting?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And did you tell Mr Moore beforehand that you were inviting his alleged abuser?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Why did you present the man with that fait accompli? Why did you not tell him beforehand that you were putting him in the same room as his predator?’

  ‘Rightly or wrongly, I thought it might inhibit him from coming to the meeting.’

  There were complaints from Mr Kermode about the direction and reason for this questioning, but it proceeded.

  ‘I suggest you knew it would inhibit him,’ said Conlon. ‘That you sprang it on him for that purpose.’

  ‘No. I welcomed Mr Moore into a sitting room at the cathedral and then called in Father Guest and left the two of them to talk together.’

  ‘That would seem an eccentric practice?’

  ‘I don’t think it was eccentric,’ Monsignor Shannon said ruggedly – he had been told by Kermode to be rugged.

  ‘Say, for example, a householder was burgled, and he accused, on good evidence, a certain other person of the crime, and the police invited both parties to a meeting and abandoned the householder in a room with the alleged burglar. Would that not be an eccentric procedure?’

  ‘The comparison is not exact.’

  ‘I would suggest it is, since in terms of your own theology Father Guest has been proven to be a burglar of young souls.’

  Again Kermode objected loudly, but Shannon answered bravely. ‘You’re speaking figuratively,’ he said, proud of the adjective. ‘Morality is exact, not figurative.’

  ‘Is it now? But if you reacted to Mr Moore in this way, doesn’t it suggest that Dr Devitt knew from this quaint example that there was little to be gained from speaking up early, before he had achieved the maturity and composure to do so?’

  There was a loud protest from Mr Kermode.

  ‘What were you thinking of?’ Conlon shouted over the top of it.

  ‘No,’ Monsignor Shannon asserted, making his own protest. ‘I believed that it would lead to reconciliation, to an apology by Father Guest, if he were guilty – and he was the one who best knew whether he was or not – and that they would pray together.’

  ‘Dr Devitt and Mr Moore started praying together with the priest when they were children, and that didn’t work out so well, did it?’

  Shannon found the strain of being direct and unapologetic was considerable. When he went to the men’s toilet at the end of the day, he found that though it was winter and the air in the courtroom had been temperate, the underarms of his vest were sodden with sweat he had not even known he was emitting. And there was still a test to come – the evening meal with the cardinal. As the cardinal’s steward and paladin, how had he performed? He had no way of knowing. But he was more constrained than secular men in that to him perjury was not only a civil crime but the loss of one’s soul.

  As for the rest, he clung to Christ’s utterance: ‘Blessed art thou when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my name’s sake.’

  He washed his hands and went to have a whisky with Kermode.

  The Church’s psychologist was more sympathetic to Devitt, but that was inevitable, and Kermode knew there was no sense in trying to change his professional opinion. The psychologist made the point that his assessment of Devitt was based on Devitt’s hope of achieving a settlement, and his recommendations at the time had that quality. Nor, he said, would he have expressed himself in the same way had he known that what he had written would be required as evidence in a court case.

  Monsignor Shannon left the court that afternoon in good spirits. ‘Only one thing,’ murmured Kermode as a warning. ‘Best not to complain publicly of the press building things up. Always best not to mention the press. Especially when they’re not on your side. Just a hint, Monsignor.’

  26

  Docherty Attends a Funeral

  July 1996

  Each morning Docherty read in the Herald about the progress of the Devitt hearing, which had moved to a technical issue: could the Church be sued? He did not know that to Leo Shannon this was the more admirable and less painful phase. People always complained to the monsignor that theology and the law were concerned with the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. To Shannon that was precisely their attraction. If a human was mentally enfeebled by such concepts, he was not worth knowing.

  In court, challenges were made to various sections of the Trustee Act; to the clauses that conferred upon each body corporate, or trust established under it, the right to acquire, hold, rent, surrender leases, raise money on the security of its property, and dispose of it. Did the body corporate, however, have the capacity to sue, and be sued? That was the great question. The statute vested Church property within each diocese in the body corporate to that diocese. The diocese would have power to take on lease bequests; purchase real or personal property; and to sell or exchange it, or to rent it. It also had the power to declare trusts, which would cover any religious Order or community of the Church, or any association or members of the Church, for their use or benefit; and have the power either to retain the property in relation to which these trusts were so declared, or to vest the property, or any estate or interest so created in other trustees. Wonderfully dry, fire-extinguishing stuff.

  The newspaper reports also described how Shannon had sat in court while various priests who had served with Father Guest were summoned by the plaintiff to give evidence of their ‘friendship or association with the man’. Kermode had objected that one of the problems of the plaintiff’s claims was that most of the persons whom one would expect to throw some light on them were dead or had no relevant recollection.

  Even as Docherty read about the hearing and Monsignor Shannon’s part in it, he had yet to receive any acknowledgement from the monsignor or the cardinal of his messages, or one from the mysterious Brian Wood. But he did get a call from Maureen. She seemed tense and in no mood for pleasantries,
even with him.

  ‘The news is,’ she said, ‘that the coroner has released young Stephen’s body for burial. I know that if I turn up at the funeral it will only make things worse, but I think you might be able to comfort Liz – yes, despite indications to the contrary. Father O’Hanlon from the parish church has agreed to bury Stephen. Why don’t you give him a call? Perhaps you could officiate.’

  Docherty explained quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Maureen. I don’t have New South Wales certification to conduct burials anymore. I’m not even able to say public Mass.’

  She absorbed this. ‘That’s appalling,’ she said.

  ‘Partly my fault. I let my certification lapse.’

  He had a sense she was weighing it, deciding whether he had been neglectful or realistic.

  ‘I could have been more proactive,’ Docherty admitted, ‘in getting some of those functions restored to me. But it’s a fair guess the cardinal will be loath to let me preach in Sydney in any church in his archdiocese.’

  Maureen was silent so Docherty continued. ‘I’ve tried to contact Wood, but he hasn’t returned my call. I’ve sent the cardinal a copy of Stephen’s letter, with Wood’s name blacked out. His Eminence might try to sort things out secretly with Leo, without telling us. But at least he knows now.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Maureen. ‘You know, Leo has always seemed to travel smoothly until now. Whereas you’ve always had a sort of ecclesiastic “Kick Me!” sign on your back.’