“I thought differently. I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you. But the boy died, Leo.”
“That is not a moral or legal claim on me,” said the monsignor.
“By the way, I also asked the cardinal if he would acknowledge receipt of the letter.”
“He doesn’t write letters to any old priest, you know. He doesn’t answer to threats. Or the demands of obscure men.”
“I believe enough in his courtesy,” said Docherty.
“Have you seen my sister? Have you told her?”
God forgive the casuistry of it, thought Docherty. But casuistry was the sole way out. “If she ever knows, it won’t be because I told her.”
“When are you going back to your bolt-hole in Canada?”
“In just over a week,” said Docherty, conceding the point. “Look, I don’t think there’s anything more to be achieved by my waiting here. If I could be bold enough, though: I think the tack the Church is taking in this Devitt case seems technical to ordinary people. It will do nothing to heal Devitt or erase the shame of the dead priest. From a psychological point of view, the process the Church has put in place around the world has negative impacts, on the victim and the institution itself. Isn’t that why Devitt pursued this case?”
The monsignor picked up and considered the death note again. “Fuck him!” murmured the monsignor. “Fuck Devitt and this little bastard and all the chancers like them. They are a cancer with their loose accusations. It’s becoming fashionable to single out any reputable priest and direct the poison at him. If I ever hear anything about you, any accusation, be assured, I’ll be on your doorstep.”
“Well, I hope I would be in a position to prove an accusation untrue. I hope you are in such a position, too.”
“Do you honestly think the director of public prosecutions will go chasing after these ravings?”
“I can’t say,” Docherty admitted. “In the meantime, as we say in fraternal greeting, you will be remembered in my Mass.”
“And am I supposed to say, ‘You in mine, Father’?”
Docherty could see no need to answer and had nothing more to say. He nodded, said goodbye, and left. He came out of the chancery into a perfect winter noon, trudged up the stairs outside the cathedral, past the statue of the Irishman Archbishop Kelly, past Cardinal Moran, who had been great on social justice and marched with the 1890 strikers. He had not got far when in the shadow of a raised car-park roof he began to shudder and give way to nausea. He reached a sandstone wall and was sick at the base of it. A woman approached him tentatively, her nostrils crimped by the vomit sourness, and asked, “Are you all right, Father?”
One of the faithful.
“It’s an old fever,” he gasped, feeling it no lie.
30
* * *
Docherty Meets His Eminence
July 1996
AS HE waited for the cardinal to contact him, Docherty meditated three times a day, read novels meritorious and flippant from the limited monastery library, and checked up on rugby league scores from Australia and cricket results from around the world. In the third Test at Edgbaston in Birmingham, England had been humiliatingly dismissed for 147 and 89 runs, and the West Indies had had to bat only once. They led the series 2–1.
Then Docherty received a call, this time via the monastery reception, from the archdiocese. The cardinal would like to see him at two o’clock the next day.
The next morning Docherty said Mass and, in turn, served the Mass of old Gunter Eismann at a side chapel. He did not eat breakfast but shaved most carefully, and donned his best black clerical gear. He was again, even more than last time, acutely anxious—not of the cardinal’s potential anger, but of not being believed—and, once more, consequently pervasively concerned for his mother’s hope that he might return home.
Again there was little joy in seeing the spray of the Archibald Fountain and the honeycomb Gothic of the cathedral beyond it. At the chancery, Docherty waited in the parlor, which had not changed much since the day Cardinal Scanlon had called him in to expel him. A different pope on the wall, and a picture of the late cardinal, his nemesis, had joined other previous archbishops of the city in their own frames on the wall. The same patient statue of the Virgin Mary stood on its plinth.
The sound of traffic came muted through the thick old walls. He waited. Well, he’d expected that. At last the cardinal’s secretary, a young man with a gleaming face, and wearing a clerical suit whose jacket was fawn, came up to him and said his name. The man extended a hand briskly, which Docherty shook with a show of unilateral enthusiasm.
When the young priest ushered Docherty into the tall office with its varnished wooden ceiling and pilasters, he found that Cardinal Condon was standing and looking directly at him from behind his desk. A stocky man, he was dressed in a cassock with scarlet piping, and a shimmering scarlet sash encased his middle. There was not going to be any show of distraction from him, Docherty judged. He would have the cardinal’s instant and full attention.
The cardinal told the secretary he was not required to take notes. The young priest nodded and left. When he was gone, Cardinal Condon raised his combative jaw and issued an invitation, through lips that exhibited a kind of pain, for Docherty to sit. Docherty obeyed. Then the cardinal took a husky little breath and began. “You still believe Cardinal Scanlon did you an injustice, don’t you?”
Docherty felt sick. The opening gambit confirmed to him that he would indeed be placed in the role of a suspicious informer. To make a quick answer to what they used to call an argumentum ad hominem, or, in rugby football parlance, going for the man instead of the ball, was beyond Docherty’s gifts.
“I think you heard the question, Father,” said the cardinal, still florid with prejudgment, to Docherty’s silence.
“Yes, Your Eminence,” he said in a tongue-tied way. “I thought I was unjustly treated then. But I’ve made a life elsewhere, and it has been an honorable life. And I would be very grateful if on the basis of it the archdiocese took me in again in my mother’s declining years. You have a letter from me on file that says as much.”
“That has to be seen,” murmured the cardinal. “You’ve made quite a particular kind of life for yourself, haven’t you? You spoke at the conference of the clergy last week, I believe—controversially.”
“I do my best to sound reasonable,” said Docherty. “I don’t set out to aggrieve the Church.”
“Don’t you?” The cardinal laughed in a skeptical way. “I suppose your studies dispose you to see vileness everywhere, in every cleric. People in the press talk about gay-hating gays and Jew-hating Jews. Are you a priest-hating priest?”
“No. The attitude you suggest would be grossly improper. Professionally, I mean.”
The cardinal picked up documents that could only have been Stephen Cosgrove’s letter and Docherty’s covering note. “We have in this case a boy deranged enough to take his life.”
“That’s right. And, I regret to say, I have come across another individual, not mentioned in that letter, who also claims to have been abused by Monsignor Shannon. This second informant wants privacy at the moment, though he or she may come forward in the end after having had counseling.”
“My God. Legal counseling, I suppose?”
“Psychological counseling,” said Docherty. “And can I make the point, Your Eminence, that insanity was not the cause of Stephen’s suicide? Despair was.”
“Thank you for the professional note, Father . . . Doctor Docherty.” He paused. “The monsignor is my right-hand man. You must know that.”
“I was aware you relied a lot on him, Your Eminence.”
“Come on!” warned the cardinal, his suntanned face, square like James Cagney’s, reddening. “I’ve been filled in about you. Don’t pull that Gandhi trick you brought back from India. You hate Monsignor Shannon. Why don’t you admit it?”
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“I don’t hate him, Your Eminence. I am friends with members of his family. The accusation brings me no joy at all.”
The cardinal held up Stephen’s suicide letter and Docherty’s own letter, as if they both bespoke criminal intentions.
“This is inadequate evidence, Father Docherty. And, believe it or not, your word is not of prime value in this archdiocese.”
“I don’t want Monsignor Shannon to be condemned,” Docherty said. “But I think he should be asked about the matters and, insofar as any investigation can occur, be investigated. There are many people still alive who might have witnessed something between him and young Cosgrove. And, as you know, Stephen’s letter would have been sent by the police to the coroner, and may ultimately be sent to the public prosecutor.”
“Who will very properly find it flimsy evidence and lock it away. And as for you, I’m ordering you to destroy all copies of it you possess.”
“I don’t need to do that, Your Eminence. I am no longer under your authority.”
“But I’m archbishop of this diocese. And you want to rejoin us?”
“Very much so, if you would allow it. But it isn’t the point here. Could I plead with you, Your Eminence, just to look into the matter? Simply to question the monsignor, in confidence?”
The cardinal, whose father had been a Darling Downs farmer—tough, enduring, of possibly limited but courageously definite ideas—surveyed him in that vein. It did not seem to Docherty a promising survey. “May I tell you straight,” the cardinal said, “that I’ve thought over my approach to your supposed evidence, and I dismiss that evidence. The monsignor is no more guilty in these matters than I am. These claims are a symptom of old-fashioned anti-Church, anticlerical feeling. I intend to report this intrusion, this foray of yours, to your bishop in Canada.”
Here was the habit of total authority that resided in the cardinal. At one time it had existed in the civil sphere. It was a professional trap for any bishop to be tempted to become the commissar.
“I ask you to consider whether that’s a just decision,” said Docherty, angry and with a sort of disbelief. The hostility he sensed in the room seemed reckless, unintelligent, absolute, and it surprised him insofar as he knew that no one who was appointed a cardinal lacked institutional sagacity. Yet there was already enough evidence that true wisdom abandoned so many of these Church leaders when it came to this matter and to these crimes. Worldly utilitarianism clicked into place in this matter, involving lawyers and the sort of raw prohibition the cardinal had just tried to bring down upon Docherty. And a bishop, an archbishop, a cardinal took on for a time the stewardship of a measurable, quantifiable, and physical inheritance. Institutions, real estate, holdings. These men could be panicked by anything that might erode that inheritance, suggest their incompetence, leave more powerful clergy muttering on their death that they hoped this time round they would get someone competent.
“In your jaundiced way,” the cardinal now accused him, standing to signal the end of the interview, “you probably think all of us guilty of baseness. But I have worked with and trusted Leo Shannon for years, and I know his caliber. I would prefer to trust his reputation than a demented last scream of some drug addict.”
“Will you let me mount a counterargument, Your Eminence?” asked Docherty.
“Only if you feel you have to. And be brief.”
“I’m sure you can understand how wary I have been about drawing your attention to this material. I knew I was under a shadow, and that it might seem I was being vengeful. I do not seek to be vengeful. I want to return here, to my home city and archdiocese, but I am willing to take the risk of rejection—not because I wanted to do harm, but for the sake of any potential victims. Forgive me, I know you understand this. May I ask you to maintain at least some belief that the people who have spoken to me, and given me this terrible document I’ve now placed in your hands, might not be lying.”
The cardinal sat down again with a skeptical squeak of the lips. “I have investigated this to my satisfaction. I know the man. I have spoken to him. When these accusers come forward—I mean, the second one you mention, because I know the other one, the dead boy, won’t and can’t present himself—maybe then we’ll look at it again. But why should I spar with shadows? Because, Docherty, you might have noticed the palpable devils of secularism are abroad. Moral relativism and opportunism prevail—some Catholics treat doctrine like a delicatessen, where you buy only the olives and sausage you want and leave the rest. And we want more priests. Yes, that’s the problem! We don’t want to investigate the good ones we already have, to be punitive with them. Until vocations to the priesthood revive, until we turn the corner, why would we be a Star Chamber to those who are still laboring in the vineyard?”
Docherty said nothing and dared think little. He should have known that the Church always fought this matter with a passion, impelled by their anxiety about institutional survival, as well as by a fear of the ignorant malice of a pluralist community all too ready to believe the worst.
He declared, “I may have a duty as a citizen under the reportable offenses legislation. To take the allegations to the authorities.”
“You must follow your conscience, Father,” said the cardinal. He picked up the phone and told his priest-secretary that Father Docherty was going. “Happy return to Canada, Father Docherty,” he said as he turned to work on a laptop.
* * *
AS SOON as Docherty got back to the monastery, he called his cousin, Mark Docherty, who was a solicitor in North Sydney, to check on the nature of the law in New South Wales regarding reportable offenses. His cousin was a happy, gruff sort of fellow. As a child he had come down from Brisbane in the school holidays to stay with Docherty’s family, and had been more than willing to inform them of the superiorities of Queensland over New South Wales. Indeed, many of the little fellow’s dictums were quoted whenever the question arose of Brisbane’s attractions and supposed sophistication relative to Sydney’s.
“How are you?” asked Mark when Docherty announced himself. There was the normal trace of familial reproach that Frank had not been in contact for a long time.
After polite inquiries, Docherty explained apologetically that he should like to come up to Mark’s office. “I shouldn’t have to use more than a few minutes of your time.”
“You can stay half an hour if you like. Or come to dinner at my place, if that takes your fancy.”
Docherty said that he might have difficulty, given that he was going back to Canada soon.
“Don’t know how you take that place!” his cousin said, and began to sing. “O Canada, glorious and free, up to our arse in snow we stand on guard for thee!”
“When it snows, it snows, and when it shines, it shines, and often it does both at the same time. Look, I can’t offer you the normal fee for advice.”
Mark said, “Don’t be ridiculous. Family rates. Sweet bugger all. I’ll see you when you get here.”
So out of the monastery and onto the bus to North Sydney. Docherty wore his clericals but with a sports coat—the sort of thing the clergy wore when they’d resigned from being too authoritative.
When he got to the address, his cousin emerged immediately from his office to greet him. “The missing cousin,” yelled Mark, laughing at the wall in front of him on which hung photographs recording his exploits as a leading rugby referee. He took Docherty inside. “I do have a client coming at two,” he said. “Sorry about that. The invitation to dinner stands.”
“When I’m back. I hope to come back for good.”
They exchanged more pleasantries, and his cousin whimsically told him that he was still a member of the Holy Roman Apostolic and Alcoholic Church. He’d even had a bit of practice in representing drink-driving charges brought against members of the clergy.
“When I started it, I thought I was doing God’s work. I thought that a good man wo
uld not repeat a vice which could place other members of the public in jeopardy. But I was wrong. An ordained drunk driver has the same mental habits of recidivist drunk drivers everywhere. So I went and saw the cardinal, and I explained that I could no longer connive in giving the signals that garnered lighter penalties for the clergy. And he sensibly told me not to. He sent a directive out to his priests reminding them that in court, as in the confessional, a sincere purpose of amendment was necessary. This directive gave those who were charged a certain air of remorse, and it served them nearly as well as my pleadings. So they still bring these cases to me. Of course, there are some police who let them go anyhow. So we still have to depend on good Protestant cops or disgruntled Catholics to lay drink-driving charges against the Catholic clergy!”
This was a story meant to amuse, but it was too familiar to Docherty to allow him to manage much jest. Docherty thought, to him I’m still the family prude, and I’ve just proven it again by not laughing along.
Indeed, his cousin saw his levity had backfired and asked soberly now, “What can I do for you, Frank?”
“I want to know,” asked Docherty, “what my legal duty is in this state in terms of reportable offenses. I have professional immunity in Ontario, but not here. I’ve been made aware of credible accusations of abuse against a particular priest, and I emphasize that word. They are credible accusations.”
“What sort of abuse?” asked Mark.
Docherty looked at him.
“Oh,” said his cousin, “That kind. Jesus Christ, Frank!”
“So what’s the law now?”
“I’m not an expert on this,” said Mark. “Thank God, I’ve never encountered a case. I got through the Jesuits without encountering anything like that, and my kids, I am certain, have been fine, too.”
“Is there someone you can send me to?”
“There is a man I know who works on this stuff. He joined a firm that dumped abuse cases on him to the point that he became an expert. I can call his office to let him know you’ll be over.”