A Priest and A Boy

By T. J. Lovat

A Priest and a Boy is a work of fiction reflecting real-world events. In 1956, Peter Madigan is an eight-year-old altar boy in a Sydney parish. Bernard Cassey is the parish's assistant priest. The story recounts the growing relationship between the two key characters, one that begins with grooming and culminates in sexual abuse. It tells of the confusion and struggles that both characters suffer across the twelve years that the story covers. Peter endures a troubled adolescence and a fractured early adulthood, haunted by the abuse. Cassey progresses through the church's ranks, protected by the church, while burdened by continuing personal struggles. Attempts by Peter and his family for justice are met with stonewalled resistance.

The setting is the Australian Catholic Church of the 1950s and 1960s. Catholicism is an exclusive culture that determines all matters of faith and morals for its members. Following the dictates of the Church offers eternal salvation. Straying from those dictates promises eternal damnation. The Pope, together with his bishops and clergy, are the gatekeepers of the path to salvation. Their word is law and their personal lives beyond reproach. It is in that setting that the story deals with the impact of institutional sexual abuse on victim, perpetrator, and the standing of the institution itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Sep 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9780228866633

T. J. Lovat

T.J. Lovat is a retired Australian academic. His scholarly interests have been mainly in education and religion, principally Islam. He has travelled widely across all continents. His two novels, Son of a Jacobite (Matador 2019) and this one, capture his distant heritage between Scotland and Australia, and also his interest in Islam. 

Book preview

PART ONE

1956

1

‘Look at Jesus and tell him you’re sorry.’

The words were ringing in Peter Madigan’s head as he waited in line to enter the confessional.

‘I was rude, Father.’

‘Do you mean impure, boy?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Say three Hail Marys. Ego te absolvo …’

Peter knelt in the church with his classmates, all of them doing their penance. Three Hail Marys was standard fare regardless of the sin.

The sense of relief was like nothing else. If Peter could avoid temptation from the devil in the future, he might make it to heaven. He walked back to class wondering if his mates felt the same.

The relief lasted ‘til the wee hours of the night.

‘Peter, shh; go to sleep,’ his sister, Kate, was calling from her bed.

Peter woke from the nightmare, the same one. The devil was laughing, prodding him with his pitchfork as he hovered over hellfire.

‘For eternity,’ he heard Sister Theophilus saying. ‘No escape.’

*

Peter was eight years old. He was short for his age, a little on the skinny side, light brown hair, and brown eyes. His delicate skin reddened too easily on hot days. Kate was nine. She was even shorter and a little plumper, with blue eyes and long, blonde, curly hair. They’d shared the smallest bedroom for as long as Peter could remember.

There were two older girls as well. Bernadette, thirteen, was quite tall for her age, had long blonde hair and blue eyes and was showing the first signs of womanhood. Lucy, also tall, was twelve, with dark brown hair and deep brown eyes. Unlike her very feminine sister, Lucy was a tomboy. She’d been the most excited when Peter came along, having long bemoaned Kate’s uselessness as a sister. Bernadette and Lucy had their own room, not much bigger than Kate’s and Peter’s.

These were Kevin and Mary Madigan’s four children. Kevin and Mary had the largest bedroom, though it was a squeeze once the double bed, wardrobes and tallboys were in there. Their dark-stained timber made the room look even smaller than it was. The loungeroom, across the hallway, was also crammed with a lounge suite that was a hand-me-down from Mary’s parents’ much bigger home. Its charcoal and tan floral pattern howled at the dark navy carpet square, also a hand-me-down from a deceased aunt. The arms of the lounge were big enough to sit on, which the children regularly did, especially if Mary wasn’t looking.

‘Don’t sit on the arms,’ she would say. ‘What will Granny and Granddad say when they see what you’ve done.’

Add a small kitchen-cum-dining room at the end of the hallway and an even smaller bathroom jutting out into the backyard and that was the extent of the family home.

They lived just down the road from St Therese’s church in Burnley Street, Merivale, one of Sydney’s western suburbs. The house, still under mortgage, was built in the years after the Second World War. Like most homes in the area, the outer walls were made of fibro, the roof covered in tiles. The tiles were permanently red, but the colour of the fibro changed every couple of years, depending on the cheapest paint available. The Madigan house was green this year because an uncle who owned a hardware store had recently done a deal on cans of cast-off green fibro paint.

‘Looks fantastic, don’t you think?’ Kevin said, admiring his handiwork.

‘Now it’s definitely the ugliest house in the street,’ Mary replied.

*

Kevin was twenty-two when he married Mary Kelly, just nineteen. The Madigans and Kellys were pillars of St Stanislaus church in an adjoining suburb. The two young people met through the parish CYO (Catholic Youth Organisation). It was at a dance or a picnic that they first saw each other. They could never agree which. Kevin was eighteen at the time, skinny as a rake, tall with lots of pimples, dark brown eyes and brown hair sleeked back with brylcreem. He was working as an untrained teaching assistant in a neighbouring Catholic school. Mary was fifteen, a short, blue-eyed blonde and working in the local chemist.

‘The prettiest girl in town,’ some of the women said.

‘Stuck up little piece,’ others opined.

‘She’d make a good wife,’ the men often said, sharing a knowing look.

‘What’s a good-looking sheila like that see in you, Madigan?’ Kevin’s mates would chide.

They started seeing each other, mainly through the CYO, and everyone was expecting an engagement. Then Japan came into the War and Kevin enlisted. He was in Signals in Darwin and, for a short time, in New Guinea. Mary was devastated she had to wait for marriage and children.

Kevin was badly wounded in one of Darwin’s bombing raids and shipped back to Sydney. It was late 1942. During his long recovery leave, they got engaged and were married a month later, in March of 1943. They lived in the garage in Mary’s parents’ backyard until Kevin returned to Darwin in mid-1943. Bernadette was born in December.

Kevin was on leave again in January of 1944. Lucy was born in October. Then came the first of three miscarriages that straddled the end of the War and the beginnings of peacetime. Kate came along in 1947, just after they moved into the house in Merivale. Soon after, there was another miscarriage before Peter was born in 1948, just sixteen months after Kate.

Finally, came the miscarriage that finished Mary’s procreating. Marriage was never the same again for either of them. For Mary, it was all about having children. That’s what the church said, so for Mary, like most Catholics of the time, that was that. As the nerves she had always suffered from became worse, her solace in the church only increased.

‘I can’t dear. I have to be in the state of grace for Mass.’

Kevin would turn over and try to sleep. Saturday nights were always the worst.

He had gone back to teaching after the War but found it too hard. One doctor put it down to shellshock, suggesting he take up a good hobby, smoke more cigarettes and resort to a Bex and a good lie-down if he was feeling unwell. He got a labouring job with the local Council where several of his old army mates worked. They would drag him along to the RSL (Returned Services Leagues) Club, where he preferred to spend Saturdays.

Mary tried her hardest to keep Kevin to his faith, even after a heavy Saturday night. She even managed to get him to join the Holy Name sodality and become a church warden. But there were still lots of times when he was too sick to make it to Sunday Mass.

2

Benediction was a favourite ritual for Catholics, short, to the point with lots of theatre and traditional Latin hymns. It symbolised well the hold the church had on Catholics of the day. Being Catholic was an all-consuming cultural experience. It invaded every waking moment of one’s life. What was right and wrong was decided by the church, all the way from spiritual practices to what was allowed and disallowed in the bedroom.

Sunday Mass was the high point in expressions of loyalty to one’s faith. It was obligatory and one fell into mortal sin if deliberately missing Mass on that day. So, attending Sunday Mass weighed heavily, whereas Benediction was voluntary. It had a friendlier, tastier feel to it, a little like dessert after the obligatory meat and three veggies.

The new church at Merivale possessed an ideal ambience for the dessert. Larger than the old one, now used as the church hall, it was nonetheless small enough to garner a cosy atmosphere when required. Benediction required it. It usually happened in the early evening, so the lights were on but, being of the argon variety, they never really lit the church sufficiently. The soft yellow glow was just right for Benediction. Together with the artwork and statues in every direction, the candles, and flowers on the well decked altar, and finally the pomp, circumstance and Latin verse and hymns, attendants were guaranteed an aesthetic experience of a medieval kind.

Most important in this setting was the thurible and the art of the thurifer. The thurible was a golden vessel on the end of a long golden chain. The vessel contained a disc or two of burning charcoal, overlain with a sprinkling of incense at a certain point in the ceremony. This ensured that anything lacking in the ambience was quickly filled with an aroma bound to lull one into a meditative state. If not trance-like or fast asleep. How well all this worked was up to the thurifer, the altar boy rostered to wield the thurible for the occasion.

Peter had been an altar boy for a few months before he was rostered on for Benediction. It was like a reward for a job well done on Sunday Masses. He was excited because being on Thursday evening Benediction often meant getting off one of the Masses the next Sunday. Besides, Father Cassey was almost always the celebrant, and he was the favourite priest of most of the parishioners.

Bernard Cassey was thirty something, ordained about ten years, with movie star looks including wavy black hair not unlike Clark Gable, the Hollywood glamour boy of the day. Some of the women referred to Cassey as Clark, normally followed by a snigger. The men preferred the nickname Hopalong, after another Hollywood hero, Bill (Hopalong) Cassidy.

‘How ridiculous,’ Mary said. ‘His name’s Cassey, not Cassidy.’

‘What’s it matter?’ Kevin replied. ‘Gable? Cassidy? The point is he should be in Hollywood. He’s a showman.’

‘So disrespectful,’ Mary said. ‘Honestly, Kevin, one of these days, God will strike you down.’

The women all seemed to like Father Cassey. So did the men at first though some, like Kevin, became threatened that their wives liked him so much.

Regardless, it was a relief to them all when Bernard Cassey came as the parish’s first full-time curate. The Irish parish priest, Walter Bell, was old before his time. He was stooped and walked unevenly. His complexion had a greyish tinge, blending with the lick of grey hair that he used to pull over his otherwise bald head. Bell had been there since the parish was first established in the years between the Wars. He was known as a bit of a crank and few could understand his brogue. His long, unfathomable sermons were dreaded by everyone.

Bell also had a habit of sleeping in for Sunday Mass, especially the early ones. The 6am congregation was often left sitting in the church until someone had the gumption to go and wake him up. There were rumours that his Saturday nights were alcohol-filled but no-one was game to take this up with anyone. Someone had apparently mentioned it once to the housekeeper, Mrs O’Keefe, and received a tongue-lashing for their efforts.

Mrs O’Keefe had a fearsome reputation for her bad temper. The stick she used to support her limp had often been seen waving menacingly in the air whenever anyone riled her. There were stories of the weapon being used against parishioners, nuns and even priests. The only exempt party was Walter Bell, who seemed able to get away with anything.

All in all, Cassey was a breath of fresh air for St Therese’s. Thereafter, parishioners tried to work out, from Sunday to Sunday, which Masses he would be celebrating. His sermons were entertaining, if not quite theatrical. His doctrinal conservatism was cloaked with a gift for simple storytelling mixed with the inevitable joke. The joke, if not the entire sermon, was as often as not at the expense of Protestants, Communists and/or social liberals. The appeal to tribal Catholicism was complete.

Most of the parishioners, especially the women, lapped up every word. Hence, Cassey quickly became the real leader of the parish, the one everyone called on for help, the one everyone wanted to perform marriages, baptisms, and funerals.

‘Father Cassey wasn’t available,’ Mrs Cameron said when asked why her daughter’s wedding had been put off by a fortnight. ‘She even forfeited the deposits on the Bella Vista reception venue and the Carrington Hotel at Katoomba where they’d booked the honeymoon.’

‘We can do the funeral on Friday if you’re happy to have Father Bell,’ the Flannery Funeral Home manager said on the phone. ‘But you’ll have to wait until Tuesday if you want Father Cassey.’

‘I understand. We’ll wait until Tuesday, then.’

The children had been the most excited when Cassey came to the parish. He was a regular figure around the school, and he looked after the altar boys’ training and rostering. Wherever he went, he had a good story or a funny joke to tell. On occasion, he was known to slip a penny or two into a child’s hand.

‘There, go buy yourself something at the tuck shop.’

The altar boys were well-placed for this largesse, especially those who served Benediction on Thursdays. For them, it was more likely to be a threepenny bit. David Wilcox even boasted he once got sixpence. No-one knew why.

*

Peter couldn’t believe his luck when he was rostered onto Benediction for the first time. He had gotten to know Cassey through school and the altar boys’ meetings - and in his home. The priest had been a regular guest in the Madigan house over the past few months, whether just blowing in for a cuppa with Mary, a chat with the kids or the occasional beer with Kevin.

At first, everyone liked Cassey’s visits because they were the only times Mary seemed truly happy. Then, the kids started to notice how their parents often fought afterwards. That was when Cassey started sharing the occasional beer with Kevin. That helped for a while, especially if Cassey came around with a bottle. Mary didn’t mind sharing the priest’s time, just so long as she got most of it.

The kids loved his visits. He would play with them together and separately, especially with Peter.

‘How’s my little man?’ he would say. ‘What have you got for me today?’

Peter would run and get a ball and they’d bounce it to each other, or a toy gun and they’d run around the house playing Cowboys and Indians.

‘It’s not fair,’ Kate would say. ‘He always spends more time with Peter than us.’

‘I don’t care,’ Lucy said more than once.

3

Peter had served at Mass many times but serving at Benediction had a different feel to it. Sunday Mass was always busy with sermons, notices, collections, and long communion queues. Benediction was quieter and less crowded. Those who attended really wanted to be there. The first time he served at Benediction, Peter wanted to be there more than any place on earth.

Evening time made for a mellow mood. Peter knelt on the step, two hands on the long chain holding the thurible. The sweet-smelling smoke rising into his nostrils made him sleepy. His eyes were glazed as he peered at the multi-coloured flowers and tall candles alight on the altar. The organ was accompanying the singing of O Salutaris Hostia. Father Cassey was leading the congregation in the hymn. Peter was standing right next to him, his own voice drowned out by the priest’s semi-baritone vocals. He felt special. He felt safe.

Being on thurible was the most important of the altar boys’ jobs. At the high point of Benediction, the priest would bless the congregation with the sacred host, deemed in Catholic belief to be the true Body of Christ. The host was contained in the centre of another large golden vessel, called the monstrance. Surrounding the host were circles of golden threads looking like the rays of the sun. The thurible was a perfect match for the monstrance, especially in the hands of a competent thurifer who would ceremoniously swing the thurible back and forth to emit plumes of incense-laden smoke in the direction of the priest as he blessed the congregation with the monstrance. It was high theatre.

Father Cassey had shown the altar boys how to swing the thurible for maximum effect. Much to their amusement, he’d also play-acted how to do it badly.

When it came time for him to show how well he’d listened, Peter felt he did reasonably well. It was only his first attempt, after all. He hoped it might even warrant a word of praise afterwards in the sacristy.

*

‘Peter, I’m going to leave the church keys here. When you’ve cleaned the thurible, can you lock up and bring them over to the presbytery?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘You remember how to lock the church, do you?’

‘Yes, Father.’

Learning to lock the church had been part of the altar boys’ initiation classes.

‘Oh, and well done tonight, boy. You’re a natural with the thurible.’

‘Thanks, Father,’ Peter said, standing and beaming at the priest.

‘Off you go, then. You know what to do.’

‘Yes, Father. Sorry, Father,’ Peter said as he turned away to finish cleaning the thurible.

‘Oh, and Peter. Don’t go to the front door. Just come in the side door and I’ll meet you there.’

‘Yes, Father.’

Ten minutes later, Peter was stepping up onto a veranda that stretched around three sides of the timber presbytery. He opened the side door and let himself in. He had never been inside this house, known as one of the nicest in the suburb.

The old house pre-dated the church, having been built by a wealthy landowner in the late 1800s. His two sons were killed in the First World War and his wife died ten or so years later. He outlived her by only a few more years and, having no family to inherit the estate, left the house and large adjoining block to the diocese. He had also left enough money to pay for the original church that now served as the school hall. The new church stood next to it, along with a small set of classrooms and a convent.

There had been a squabble between the diocese and the nuns about who should get the old house. It was a tight fit for the six nuns in the small convent. The Order argued that they should be accommodated in the old house. But the diocese won the battle, so the nuns were squashed into the convent and Walter Bell and his faithful housekeeper rattled around in the old house for almost twenty years until Cassey’s appointment. It was large enough for him to be housed in a separate section with its own door, the one Peter was now entering.

He saw Cassey standing at the end of a narrow hallway.

‘Good boy. Come in here, Peter. I have something I want to talk over with you.’

Peter walked along the hallway and followed the priest into his room. He was excited that he was about to be richer by a threepenny bit – or perhaps even sixpence.

‘Come over here and sit down.’

Peter had never even wondered what a priest’s room would look like. If he had been asked, he would probably have imagined it filled with statues and holy pictures, holy water fonts, rosary beads and bibles, perhaps a photo of the Pope. It would be austere, with hard chairs and bare tables. He wouldn’t have even thought of a bed because priests didn’t sleep. They were like saints. It was enough to imagine them eating and drinking.

‘Over here,’ Cassey repeated. ‘Come and sit here.’

Peter had to blink a couple of times to adjust to the darkened, smoke-filled room. There was just one desk lamp behind Cassey, shining in Peter’s direction and revealing the clouds of cigarette smoke between him and the priest.

When he could finally focus, he saw that Cassey was pointing to a large, comfortable-looking lounge chair, one quite beyond anything his parents would have been able to afford. It was one of two matching chairs, facing each other and quite close because all the furniture in the room left little space for them.

Peter quickly scanned the room. There was a large, polished dark timber wardrobe to his right, with hanging space on either side of a set of drawers and a mirror on top. It looked expensive, as did the matching tallboy on the other side. Behind the priest was a lacquered desk holding the lamp with a hard-back chair facing in. To his left was the bed, not as big as Mummy and Daddy’s double bed but way bigger than the single bed he slept in.

Peter had to manoeuvre past the bed to get into the chair that Cassey was pointing to. He was in the matching one.

‘Sit here. I won’t bite.’

Peter moved into the chair, rubbing against Cassey’s knees. He sat down and noticed, for the first time, a crucifix hanging on the wall behind the priest.

‘Good boy. Now, you’re probably wondering why I wanted to see you.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘It’s about your mother.’

Peter stared at the priest, a blank look on his face.

‘She’s worried about you. Did you know that?’

‘No, Father.’

‘Well, that’s because she doesn’t want to worry you and you mustn’t worry her. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘You see, Peter. Your father was badly hurt in the War. You do know that don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And he finds it hard being a father, especially for you because you’re his only boy.’

Peter continued to stare in silence. He watched Cassey stub out his cigarette in the ashtray that sat atop its own stand beside the priest’s chair. Cassey lit up another one and blew the smoke in Peter’s direction, stinging his eyes.

‘Your mother’s spoken with me about this. Your father’s a good man but your mother worries that he doesn’t give you the right sort of example. You know, of how to be a Catholic.’

Peter continued his silence. Cassey took a long puff on his cigarette, again blowing the smoke in the boy’s direction. This time, it blinded him for a moment.

‘So, she’d like me to take some responsibility for you. Especially for your faith. She even thinks you might be a priest one day. Would you like that?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Good boy; good boy.’

Cassey took another puff. Peter was rigid in the chair.

‘So, is there anything that’s worrying you? Anything you’d like to talk with me about?’

‘No, Father.’

‘Anything at all? Remember, if I’m going to be like a father to you, then we have to trust each other. So, anything we say to each other is between us. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Good boy; good boy.’

‘So, anything at all?’

‘No, Father.’

‘Alright, then, Peter. I tell you what. I’m going to roster you on Benediction every Thursday for a while. After it, I’d like you to come over, just like tonight, and we can have our own little private chats. I know that’s what your Mum wants and so do I. Would you like that?

‘Yes, Father.’

‘You’re a special boy, Peter. I picked you out from all the others. And, you know, I think God loves you in a special way too. Would you like God to love you like that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good boy, Peter. Good boy. And I think God has something very special planned for you. Would you like to know what that is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, let’s talk about that then. So, I’ll see you here next Thursday. Does that sound good?’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘Good boy, Peter. You’re such a good boy.’

Cassey stubbed out his cigarette and reached across to take Peter’s two hands in his. He squeezed them and moved forward in his chair. He looked into