Bøger af Christopher Geraghty

Christopher Geraghty was a Roman Catholic Priest, ordained in 1962 and attached to the Sydney Archdiocese for fifteen years. This is the fascinating story of his struggle to live his life as a priest, and his difficult journey out of the priesthood. Most revealingly, it is an insider's account that describes with uncompromising honesty the secret life of the clergy behind the altar curtain, the tensions, the hypocrisy and contradictions, and the major conflicts within the Catholic Church. Throughout his time as a member of the clergy Christopher faced many challenges that made him constantly question the life he had chosen. While a Professor at St. Colomba's College, a student confessed to him that one of Christopher's seminary colleagues had been preying on him since he was a child. Christopher did not report it to the rector or the police as it seemed dishonesty to avoid scandal was the unspoken reaction to such matters. In another incident an Archbishop offered a promising young priest who had a fallen in love the opportunity to live a double life. With the partner looked after but kept secret and hidden from view. Forced to confront these contradictions, the paedophilia and other sexually deviant clergy ?misdemeanours?, all the while battling with extreme loneliness, the temptations created through the absence of human contact, the confusion and the price extracted for celibacy, Christopher increasingly found this too high a price to pay for membership into the clerical club Finally he escaped to Paris and Germany to study where he met his future wife. Making the decision to jump ship and leave the priesthood, he then had to confront the question as to whether to seek a Vatican dispensation, while searching for employment, and adjusting to an entirely new life. Interspersed with tales both humorous and shocking of cardinals, bishops and senior clergy, Dancing with the Devil is the story of one man who passed through the Roman system and came out the other side to become a husband, a father and a Judge of the District Court of NSW. ABOUT CHRISTOPHER GERAGHTY: Christopher Geraghty is married with two sons, and a retired judge of the District Court of NSW. Prior to this he spent approximately ten years as a judge of the Compensation Court of NSW. Before commencing his career in law, Christopher was a Roman Catholic priest, ordained in July 1962. He has a doctoral degree in theology from Sydney and a master's degree from Paris where he lived for two years. He spent some years in parishes in Sydney; however his principal work as a priest was to lecture in theology to students for the priesthood in the Theological Institute of Sydney. Christopher began his legal studies in early 1977 at the age of thirty-nine and at the same time, worked as a public relations officer for the Health Commission of NSW (as it then was), and later as the legal reporter on Channel 10 Newshour.

In Cassocks in the Wilderness, the author tells the story of his highly regulated life as a young seminarian locked away in the isolation of a sandstone building in the Blue Mountains. He reveals how he came to be there, the characters he lived with, his teachers and his companions. His memory of events and occasions is captured with a certain barbed humour, sharp and surprisingly honest, but at times with a touch of sadness and a dose of anger. This book reveals a world which was closed to most of us, one which has passed away, but which has left scars on some who lived in it and an indelible mark on all who passed through it. …Chris Geraghty, a judge in NSW. He has taught theology, ministered in several parishes and worked as a public servant in the Health Departmant. He has been a legal reporter for a commercial television station, a solicitor to a large city firm, and a barrister. He was one of the counsel assisting the Woods Royal Commission inquiry into the scandals at the Chelmsford Hospital. Geraghty is well placed to describe the seminary system. He has been part of it for so many years. His memory is strikingly accurate, his eyes sharp, his observations sometimes acid, but often amusing. It is an entertaining read for anyone who wishes to learn what the seminary system, and the Church behind it, was like in the fifties. It is compulsive reading for Catholics who lived through the harsh ironclad system, for generous men and women who thought they had a vocation and tested it in fire, and of course for the many boys who took the train trip to Springwood Station and then the old rattlers to the college.