'If you're wrong . . . the church will destroy The Irish Times

08/10/2005

The years when Conor Brady edited The Irish Times, from 1986 to 2002, saw huge change in Irish cultural and political life, with major upheavals in the Catholic Church. In the first of two extracts from his new book about his time as editor, he recalls the controversy about the Bishop Casey story.

My period as editor at The Irish Times coincided with the years of the great levelling of the hierarchical Catholic Church, as it had operated in Ireland more or less since the immediate post-Famine era. A great deal of its power and influence was dissipated through social change and a series of revelations that shook the confidence and belief of a traditionally loyal flock.

Much of this process was played out in the media, not least in The Irish Times. It presented us with particular problems and choices. As it went on, I had the overwhelming sense of the church as an authority institution that was unable to square up to awkward facts even when they were staring it in the face. Inevitably, that put it on a collision course with the news media.

I was saddened by what I saw happening in front of my eyes. I had been brought up and educated within the Catholic faith. I had, and have, many friends in the religious life. It was an area of my editorship that I found difficult, as I watched people, generally of good intention, dig themselves ever deeper into holes of their own making.

One afternoon in January 1992, a duty news editor at The Irish Times took a telephone call from a man with an American accent who said he wanted to talk about a young boy whose father was a senior figure in the church in Ireland.

According to one, probably apochryphal account of the conversation that circulated later in the newspaper, the deskman quipped that some of his own immediate colleagues had fathers who were church figures too. It was true.

Sons and daughters of the manse or the rectory were always numbered among the editorial staff.

This, of course, was different. The duty news editor referred the call to the news editor, John Armstrong. An hour later, when John came into my room, having telephoned to say he needed a few minutes in private with me, it had become no joking matter.

John and I had joined the newspaper together in 1969, he coming from Trinity News and I from Campus UCD News. We worked well together and I could instantly see trouble written across his face. He sat down opposite me.

"We've had a call from a man who says he wants to tell us about a boy in America who's the son of Bishop Eamonn Casey," he said quietly. The quieter he was, the more serious usually was John's intelligence. It may have been his grim manner, but for some reason, I sensed that this was not going to prove another of the inventions or hoaxes that are regularly phoned in to newspaper offices.

John read from his notes. "This man's name is Arthur Pennell. He's the partner of a woman called Annie Murphy. She claims she had an affair of several years with the Bishop of Galway, Eamonn Casey, and that he's the father of her child, Peter, who's now 17 years old. She wants to tell us the whole story." "Did you talk to him?" I asked.

"Yes. He seemed genuine. I had the impression that he wanted to get all this out into the open. He seemed under pressure himself." I had considerable respect for John's judgment. He was a thoughtful and painstaking editor.

After his conversation with Arthur Pennell he had spoken with Annie Murphy, who gave him the address of her home in the town of Ridgefield, Connecticut.

He had asked if she had any evidence to support her claims, such as documents or letters.

John suggested that the best course of action was to pass these details to Conor O'Clery, lately arrived in Washington as our new North America correspondent. Conor was the most experienced foreign correspondent we had.

It would be best if he went to meet these people who were about two hours' drive from him.

John left to brief Conor by telephone. I sent for the biographical file on Eamonn Casey from the library and took it home with me that evening.

Casey was by now 65 years of age. He was one of the most flamboyant members of the Irish hierarchy and one of the "strong men" of the Catholic Church.

Born in Co Kerry, he had originally come to prominence for his work among Irish emigrants in Britain. His first episcopal appointment was as Bishop of Kerry, later transferring to the more prestigious Galway diocese.

He had become something of a charismatic figure, fronting the Third World aid organisation Tr?caire, and had often spoken out against the actions of western financial and political interests, especially the United States. In 1986 he had been convicted of drink-driving in Britain and his frank acknowledgment of his crime, his contrition and a declared purpose of amendment, earned him some points with public opinion in Ireland.

When Pope John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, Bishop Casey was one of the prominent faces on platforms and in the pontiff's company. A special Mass for the youth of Ireland was held at Ballybrit racecourse, outside Galway, celebrated by Pope John Paul. Casey was a sort of master-of-ceremonies, accompanied by the Dublin priest Fr Michael Cleary. It was an ironic combination, given that both churchmen were to be exposed as having violated their vows of celibacy and to have fathered children with dependent, vulnerable women who had come under their influence.

It is frequently the case, when a news organisation is given a lead into an apparently dramatic story like this, that the sources turn out to be unreliable or untruthful or both. But three days later, when Conor O'Clery reported back from Ridgefield, Connecticut, where he had travelled to meet Arthur Pennell, Annie Murphy and her son, Peter, it was clear that none of these applied.

Conor telephoned me to say he had met the sources. He said he thought they were telling the truth, although he guessed that Annie was highly strung and that the household was under a lot of emotional strain.

I had asked him to tape a formal interview with Annie Murphy and Arthur Pennell and to forward a copy to me in Dublin so that we could form a second judgment on what he was being told. When I got the tape and listened to it, I found myself in agreement. This was a coherent narrative with the ring of truth about it. When John Armstrong listened to the tape he came to the same conclusion.

I called a conference of some senior editors and John and I went through what we knew. The problem was that we had no corroborative evidence of Annie Murphy's story. There were no incriminating letters from the bishop or anything such. If we published what we had been told, he might simply deny it and we would have nothing to fall back on. All we had was an allegation and our own sense that Annie, Arthur and Peter were telling the truth.

Annie Murphy's narrative detailed locations and dates in which she had spent time with Casey. She also mentioned some friends and former work colleagues in Ireland who, she said, were aware at the time of her relationship with the bishop. We reckoned that we needed to put a couple of experienced reporters on the case to check out these details before we went any further.

The possibility of simply walking up to Bishop Casey's house in Galway and confronting him with the allegations was also considered. But we had reason to believe that he was under severe emotional pressure. I had no desire to cause him a cardiac seizure or to be the instrument of his deciding to do something foolish to himself. In any event, if we confronted him without any corroborative evidence, we would still be leaving the way open to a simple denial, without any fallback position for ourselves.

One or two newsroom reporters, apprised of the story, initially refused to have anything to do with it - to the irritation of Armstrong and myself. I could have ordered them to take the assignment, but what would have been the point? Eventually we got a small group of three, divided up the tasks and gave them 48 hours to complete them. Meanwhile, O'Clery went back to Ridgefield, Connecticut, to explore a range of supplementary questions which we thought might lead us to concrete evidence.

There were big issues for The Irish Times in the unfolding story. And there were serious ethical questions. If we ran with the story and it proved to be untrue, or incapable of being proven, it would be catastrophic for the newspaper. The Irish Times was still seen by many as a newspaper that was hostile to the Catholic Church and this would be construed as an attempt to damage the church and one of its leading prelates in Ireland.

We discussed the possibility that the whole thing might be a ruse, set up to trap the newspaper. Clever and unscrupulous elements were at work on the far-right wing of Irish Catholicism. The destruction of The Irish Times's credibility and reputation would be no small prize for such people. There was also the possibility, I feared, that running with the story might force Casey to a private reconciliation with Annie and Peter, after which they might retract or deny what they had told us, thereby leaving us exposed.

There were ethical issues too about invading the private lives of individuals. Irish media have generally been more reticent in this area than their British counterparts, especially where there is no demonstrable linkage between a person's private life and the manner in which that person discharges his/her public or professional functions.

But as a Catholic bishop, Eamonn Casey publicly espoused virtues of continence and chastity which, it now appeared, he did not practise in his own life. His prominent place at the side of a Pope whose own stance on issues of private morality was so stern and uncompromising seemed especially invidious. On the other hand, when one read back through his pastorals and other public statements, Bishop Casey's record was compassionate and moderate. He was never of the hellfire and brimstone school.

There was also the possibility, I realised, that Bishop Casey's offence - assuming that Annie Murphy's story was true - might well be known to the higher church authorities, either in Ireland or in Rome. He was not the first senior churchman to find himself in this situation. Was it possible, I asked myself, that somehow he might have regularised the whole situation vis-a-vis his ecclesiastical superiors? I needed advice. I sought out an expert in Canon Law, a well-known churchman, and asked him to meet me. I said I needed an evaluation of a sensitive situation. I needed to know what church law might have to say about it and to ascertain how the church authorities would generally deal with this sort of issue. Without revealing the identity of the bishop in question, I outlined the circumstances of the case.

The unfortunate man appeared to be shocked. His first reaction was "It's . . ., I assume," naming another senior churchman. I told him I would neither deny nor confirm any name he put to me. He accepted that.

Then he outlined the relevant sections of Canon Law. It was not impossible, it seemed, that the bishop might have "regularised" his situation by confessing, "shunning" the woman and providing for the material welfare of the child. It might be achievable under Canon Law, he told me, but he doubted if it would have been possible "politically" at the Vatican.

"You may have difficulty proving this, you know," he told me as we parted.

"And if you're wrong or if you can't prove it, the church will destroy The Irish Times. That's got to be part of the moral calculus too. In the long term, wouldn't this society be much worse off without it?"

The bit about providing for the material welfare of the child set a thought running in my head. If Bishop Casey had, indeed, "provided for" Peter Murphy, that might be the best, provable confirmation we could get of Annie Murphy's story.

And so it turned out to be. One by one the reporters came back to John Armstrong with nothing more than additional circumstantial detail. Annie Murphy's best source, a friend now living in Galway, was not willing to go on the record although she told a reporter that she believed Eamonn Casey to be the father of Peter Murphy.

Conor O'Clery explained the situation to Annie Murphy and Arthur Pennell.

They had begun to become irritated at what they saw as excessive caution on the part of The Irish Times and told him they were thinking of bringing the story "elsewhere". I remember after Conor called me to tell me this, I went to bed that night thinking how nice it would be! But the following day he was back with the break in the story. Annie Murphy had directed him to a New York priest who had been the conduit of payments from Bishop Casey to her over the years.

Conor went to visit the priest and found him to be disarmingly frank about the money. He provided Conor with details of payments made over a period of years and gave him the name of a firm of solicitors in Co Kerry that had forwarded the funds from Ireland. When he showed Conor some of the documentation it became apparent that more than IR?70,000 had been paid out of a reserve account operated by the Diocese of Galway.

It was the only incontrovertible evidence upon which we could run a report.

Conor put an official request through to the Bishop's residence in Galway, asking for a meeting to discuss certain financial payments to Annie Murphy.

It turned out that Casey was on holidays in Malta. But a message came back to say that he would meet The Irish Times on his return in two days' time.

The meeting was set for the Skylon Hotel, close to Dublin airport. But Eamonn Casey never showed. The same evening the Vatican announced that he had tendered his resignation to the Pope. Later, he flew out of Ireland to New York on an Aer Lingus flight and went to a secret destination in South America.

There was consternation in the church and bewilderment in the media. We alone knew the full story but I insisted that we hold to a minimal stance, simply reporting the following day that The Irish Times had been seeking to interview the Bishop about money that he had paid to an American woman in Connecticut. In time, of course, the entire story came into the public domain.

The fall of Bishop Casey was a monumental event in Ireland. By comparison with what was later to emerge during the 1990s about clerical sex abuse of children, his offence was perhaps a venial one, and came to be regarded as such. But in its time and circumstances it was seen as a shocking revelation of the gap between what the Catholic Church preached and what some of its leading figures practised.

The dramatic fall-off in religious practice, the steep decline in vocations to the religious life and the near total loss of authority by the institutional church that took place during the 1990s can be said to have begun with the fall of Bishop Casey.

One of the most revealing and perhaps saddest aspects of the Casey saga was the way in which he was effectively isolated by the rest of the Catholic Church in Ireland. In the final days before our inquiries concluded, I learned that some of the bishops had picked up straws in the wind and had knowledge that something was afoot.

I made attempts to reach a number of those whom I understood to have been alerted. With the matter reaching its denouement I thought Eamonn Casey should have the support of his peers when the news broke. I had no idea, of course, that he was going to flee the country. I telephoned two episcopal offices and left messages for the bishops in question. I never got a call back.

Extracted from Up with the Times, by Conor Brady, published by Gill & Macmillan. See also Fintan O'Toole's review of the book on W11

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