Forbidden Fruit (52 page)

Afterward, Arthur told me he had given Eamonn one more chance. If he called Peter and talked with him man to man, he would
stop the story and deny whatever the papers printed. He also said Eamonn was going to the Philippines for his usual two-week
post-Easter break.

I waited and waited. Still Eamonn never called Peter. He intended spending a couple of weeks in the Philippines and he hadn’t
one half hour to spare on his son?

In an angry mood, I phoned Galway. To the woman who answered, I said: “Bishop Casey, please. I want to talk to the father
of my seventeen-year-old son.”

She dropped the phone, screaming, with laughter or tears, I don’t know, “Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

Eamonn came on the line with “What did you just say?”

“Only what I’m going to say to the whole damn world.”

“You know I’m going on my usual two-week holiday.”

“You son-of-a-bitch,” I exploded, “you can run but you can’t hide.”

“Annie, please, what do you want?”

“I want you to know I have you taped. Literally. Remember Peter’s godfather, Jim? You were right—I did set you up. He was
filming you with his camcorder when you kissed me in the Grand Hyatt.”

“Stop it, Annie, stop it.”

“Maybe Jim even recorded us in that motel room.”

“The devil’s got you by the throat.”

God, even his phraseology hadn’t changed over the years. “You keep ringing here and you don’t talk to your son? How
dare
you? So have a nice vacation in the Philippines and dream on. If I turn up in Manila —”

“You would not betray me.”

“I have already been to the press.”

“I am
still
going on holiday, so good-bye.”

And, on Tuesday, April 21, he went. I had the strange feeling that he had already made up his mind to resign.

I called O’Clery to tell him Eamonn was going to the Philippines. The
Irish Times
tried to trace him but failed. Eamonn had, in fact, gone to Malta.

He did call us once, again offering money for Peter’s education but still refusing to speak to Peter. That was when I knew
beyond a doubt that he had some kind of death wish and not even I could save him.

I had the impression that the traditionally Protestant
Irish Times
was being overcautious. Reluctant to seem anti-Catholic or to intrude into a man’s private life, it was only interested in
the public matter of where the Bishop got the money to pay us.

I decided to give the paper a bit of a push. On April 27, I called O’Clery in Washington, D.C. His wife, Zhanna, said he had
gone to the
Times
office in Dublin. “That’s odd,” I said, “I’m speaking from across the street from the
Times
. I’ll wave to him.”

Conor’s wife telephoned him and he started a search for me. I wasn’t at work. Arthur said I wasn’t at home. They got frantic,
thinking that I might be about to give their scoop to another paper. Finally, when Conor called our house again, I admitted
I was there. He was not amused.

“Nor am I,” I said. “I swear if you don’t break this story, Arthur will. We’re scared. Last night, the lug bolts of our car
came unscrewed again and a wheel flew off.”

Conor, who obviously thought we were paranoid about the car, said the news was about to break. It would be one of the biggest
stories ever to hit Ireland. They had finally tracked Eamonn down. He had promised to speak with them as soon as he returned
to Ireland.

On Saturday, May 2, Eamonn left Malta on the normal afternoon flight from Valletta to Rome. He was met at the Rome airport
by a clerical colleague and taken to the Irish College.

On May 3, the
Irish Times
sent a photographer to take our pictures around Ridgefield and in front of our house.

In Rome, on Tuesday, May 5, Eamonn had two Vatican appointments. The first was to discuss Trocaire matters with Cardinal Etchegaray,
head of the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace. The second was to hand in his resignation to the Congregation of Bishops.
It was formally accepted by Pope John Paul II on Wednesday, May 6. Eamonn flew back to Dublin that same afternoon.

He broke his promise to talk at the Dublin airport with the
Irish Times
, presumably on orders from the Vatican.

Having driven to Galway, he told his colleagues in the Diocesan Chapter that he was resigning for personal reasons. He issued
his public statement of resignation shortly before midnight, Irish time. We heard it on TV that same Wednesday evening, May
6.

On Thursday after lunch, he was chauffeured to Shannon and whisked aboard an Aer Lingus 747, flight El 105, arriving in the
early evening at New York. There he was given VIP treatment. A blacked-out limousine picked him up at Kennedy, whence he disappeared.

It hurt me to see him run like a frightened rabbit without one word of explanation or regret. Is this the way, I wondered,
that Catholics, especially Irish Catholics, deal with their problems? What lesson is this for young Irish people? Even more
worrying to me was this final proof of what the Catholic Church had done to daunt this once brave man whom I loved.

O
N THURSDAY, MAY 7, the
Irish Times
added to its report of Eamonn’s resignation a cryptic note about payments to a woman in Connecticut. It was hardly the presentation
we had hoped for. Without intending it, the paper may have suggested to some readers that I had blackmailed Eamonn.

At one in the morning New York time, the madness started. We were besieged by journalists and photographers. It went on without
a break for eight days. I was still working two jobs and getting three hours’ sleep a night. I was even followed as I drove
to my office in Stamford.

I had naïvely thought the story would cause a stir in Ireland. I had no idea it would go around the world. I found myself
entertaining the press from many countries, offering donuts and coffee in our small one-bedroom apartment.

The Irish media in particular treated me with courtesy but while some supportive letters did come in, I was deluged by hate
mail. “Hell hath no fury like a slut scorned,” summed it up.

It was assumed that I had pilloried the Bishop or had not prevented it when I could. I was blamed entirely for the Bishop’s
disgrace. Irish Catholics in America and Ireland took it for granted that I had wickedly tempted and betrayed a good man for
revenge and/or money. Irish priests are always seduced, never seducers; they are frail and innocent even after their fall.
Women are sinners always. I was told I should have kept my mouth shut.

One person wrote: “Everyone knows you seduced poor innocent Eamonn, in fact, people say you came to this country with that
intention.… If you want to stay
alive
with your bastard son keep out of Ireland.”

Even the bastard son is mine, not Eamonn’s.

“A Disgusted Catholic” from New York, after calling me a “low-life slime” prophesied: “God will punish you if not here then
hopefully in the hereafter…. Your son is also lowlife to keep trying to know his father.”

Yet another letter read:

You are a very mean, lowdown, sidewinding, two-timing broad the way you treated Eamonn Casey. He was a man held in high esteem
by his people until you dragged him into the gutter
.

He stole $70,000 [sic] from his parishioners to shut you up and still you had to squeal. I will be in Ridgefield very soon
and will put oatmeal in the radiator of your car and cut the brake pipes, so watch your ass
.

Cordially yours
.

I am glad he did not write in an uncordial mood.

Peter was upset that Eamonn had given no reason for his resignation when his one aim was to make him admit paternity. I was
less surprised, knowing how stubborn Eamonn was. My chief worry was that he might suffer to no purpose.

I was at work on Monday evening, May 11, when Conor phoned my home to tell Peter that Eamonn had issued a dramatic statement
at midnight Irish time saying that Peter was his son.

When an excited Peter passed the news on to me, I was astonished. It must have cost Eamonn a great deal to make a public confession
after all those years, years which all his many admirers were bound to reassess in the light of it.

Next day, I read Peter the full statement in the paper. When he heard the words
he is my son
, he stood up, raised his fist in the air and let out a loud shout of victory. In my mind, it erased the bitter memory of
Eamonn’s saying to me all those years ago, “He is not my son,” and Peter’s earlier cry of dereliction.

By his courage and persistence, Peter had at last achieved the minimum to which everyone is entitled: his birthright.

The full text was:

I acknowledge that Peter Murphy is my son and that I have grievously wronged Peter and his mother Annie Murphy
.

I have sinned against God, His Church and the clergy and people of the dioceses of Galway and Kerry
.

Since Peter’s birth I have made contributions such as they were, towards my son’s maintenance and support. All payments came
from my personal
resources except for the one sum of IR£70,669.20, paid to Annie Murphy in July 1990 through her American lawyer
.

That sum was paid by me from the diocesan reserve account on my personal instructions to a third party. I confided in nobody
the nature and purpose of the transaction. It was always my intention to repay that money
.

The sum of IR£70,669.20 and interest has, since my resignation, been paid into diocesan funds of the diocese of Galway on
my behalf by several donors so that the funds of the diocese are no longer at any loss
.

I have confessed my sins to God and I have asked His forgiveness as I ask yours
.

Prayer, guidance and dialogue are clearly necessary before final decisions are reached about how I can set about trying to
heal the hurt I have caused, particularly to Annie and Peter. I have already set out on that road and I am determined to persevere
.

I trust that you will respect my need for some time and space to reflect and pray so that, with God’s help, I can again hope
to serve Him and His people, especially Peter and Annie, in my new situation. Pray for me
.

The most surprising part of the statement was Eamonn’s admission about how he had acquired the $125,000 he gave us.

He had written out a check from a diocesan reserve fund to a Galway businessman, presumably countersigned it, and paid it
into his own account. He said he intended to pay the money back but two years went by and he never did. Had an American banker
or politician acted like that, he would have been accused of forgery and embezzlement.

The seventeen-year cover-up was ended. Eamonn had used those years to help many people. He had played masterly poker with
a very weak hand. Sadly, as I had predicted, the Bishop got crucified. Calvary followed him to Galway.

What people think of me I no longer care. I am only sorry that Eamonn has been made to look a rascal in the eyes of many.
They would have sympathized had he left to marry me in 1974, but he had furtively taken forbidden fruit; he had privately
indulged what for years he had publicly and vehemently decried.

Once, though, when I said to him jokingly, “I do have a lot of power over you, don’t I?” he replied, “I’ll fight you to the
death so the truth doesn’t come out, but if it does, I won’t give a damn.”

He was always positive. He believed that whatever happened, God had a plan for him. He was not afraid.

* * *

On May 12, I gave a press conference, chaired by Peter McKay, in the midtown Peninsula Hotel. The room was crowded with TV
cameras and over a hundred journalists from many nations. After years of secrecy I could now speak openly; I was a whole person
again. I felt proud of having helped to vindicate my son.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “the Bishop has gone through pain. We have all gone through pain.… I am looking for Eamonn to do the
right thing, that is, take the time and effort and some soul-searching to come forward and meet Peter. The time is past for
him to be a father figure. Maybe they can be friends.”

Once the story was in the open, I felt obliged to tell it in its entirety, or others would tell it in a faulty or malicious
way. I do not have Eamonn’s luxury of confessing my sins in secret. But I, too, needed to be a penitent and to find healing
in making public my own shortcomings, my wildness, my own hypocrisy.

I also wanted my son to know that he was born of a genuine and long-lasting love. This book, in a sense, is his family album.

My hope is that it will provoke change, especially in the Catholic discipline of clerical celibacy. I know from bitter experience
the harm it causes. How many priests and bishops are behaving like Eamonn, how many women and children, like me and Peter,
are suffering as a result?

My story is shocking, I know. The long secrecy and deceit have been shocking, too.

Many things in the story will be new to Eamonn and to Peter. They will both suffer because of it. But I have come to believe
that ultimately truth can heal if we are brave enough to face it.

What have we to share, we the little ones of the earth, except our small grain of truth?

How strange love is, how unpredictable. Lovers move in the same fantastic orbit, they dream the same dream.

How could our love, Eamonn’s and mine, survive the bitter goodbyes and long, long absences? It was a mystery, like a seedling
that sleeps year after year in the desert. One shower and it spikes the earth, blossoming instantly in beauty.

Our love was like that. We had only to hear the other’s voice or see the other’s face and, whatever our resolutions, our sleeping
love thrust upward through the desert sands and bloomed again. When we were together we filled every place we were in; never
was there time enough to say all we needed to say.

But why did this divine love not flow from Eamonn to Peter? Why could Eamonn not stop loving me and not begin to love the
fruit of our love? Why could I, who loved them both, not help them love one another? This, too, is a mystery.