In God's House (51 page)

On the morning we left the swamp house to make our evening flight to Europe, I was still tired. As we reached the Interstate, I realized Julie had turned away from New Orleans and was headed due south. “We’re going to Amalie,” she said.

“Amalie?”

“It’s important, Ren.”

Amalie was the last place I wanted to see. It was the one place I hoped I’d never remember. I leaned back against the headrest.

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

Rows of sugar cane stood low in the fields along the road. We passed the smokestack named Catherine.

As we approached the front door of the church of Our Lady of the Seas, I realized I had never been inside. I was taken by its beauty. Along the center aisle, the pews had elaborate carvings depicting scenes of life around Amalie and family names of the area. We walked to the communion rail and looked at the
rose-colored
leaded glass windows on the back wall of the sanctuary. To our left was a small altar with a statue of the Blessed Virgin.

Julie nodded to the side altar where the statue stood. When I saw the woman kneeling there, arranging flowers, my heart almost stopped.

I walked over, reached down and touched her shoulder. She stood and turned to face me.

“Renon?”

“Hattie.”

Her lip quivered.

“Hattie, I am… uh…”

She threw her arms around me, hugging the breath out of me, holding me tight. “Oh God, Renon. It’s so, so good to see you.”

“I… I’m… sorry. Sorry, Hattie. So sorry.”

“It was God’s will. Not your will. Our little boy is with God. Wes and I know… We know… nothing is your fault, Renon. We forgave you a long time ago.”

She pulled back and looked at me, taking a handkerchief to her tears. “We didn’t know where you were. There’s been no number for you in Thiberville for years. Julie had left the diocese. Matt had passed. Wes wanted to call too. We knew this was killing you. God, how hard I’ve prayed for you. When Julie called me yesterday, I was so happy.”

I shook my head. “It was my fault.”

“Nothing can be changed. You have our forgiveness.”

I nodded.

“Do you want to tell him goodbye?”

She took a handful of summer lilies from a vase on the altar. “I brought these from the garden today.”

She carried the flowers in one hand and took my hand in the other, walking me to the center aisle. When she reached Julie, she hugged and kissed her. “He loved you so much. Come with us. Renon wants to visit.”

On the way to the cemetery, Hattie kidded me about how my hair had turned gray. She said Wes’s hair was falling out. She told us Wes had gone off to Baton Rouge for some kind of equipment auction and he would be really sorry he did not get to see us.

My head was throbbing, my throat was raw and my body ached.

Hattie handed me the flowers and pointed the way. “They had a place next to the little girl, Amalie, who the town was named after, and everyone wanted him there. He’s on the other side of the statue.”

I walked to the grave alone. Will’s marker had an image of a horse on it, his name, and the dates. I placed the flowers at the base of the headstone. I really prayed. I had not prayed that way since the day I’d said the rosary with Matt – Will’s buddy – in the hospital in Washington.

I struggled with the clasp on the chain around my neck and pulled off the Celtic cross. In a whisper I said, “Mr. Matt gave this to me.” Then I dug a tiny hole and buried the cross next to the grave marker.

I prayed for Will, his family, Matt, my family, for Julie. And for the first time in my life, I prayed for myself, prayed that I could accept the gift of forgiveness I had received. And I prayed I would find a way to forgive myself.

Julie lightly touched my hair. I looked up at her. She reached for my hand.

First, I acknowledge the ones whose names I will never know, those children around the world who had God's greatest gift, innocence, ripped out of their hearts; those who survived and those who did not survive, and their families. These strangers to me are the ones who kept me at the task of writing this novel every day for many years, for they deserve the truth as terrible as the truth is. When I tired of doing this work, as happened many times, my thoughts always turned to the victims and their families. They are the real heroes in a story that otherwise is without heroes.

Anthony Cheetham, my publisher at Head of Zeus in London, is one for whom I cannot compose enough words of praise, for Anthony was the first publisher to recognize the importance of this story. He unhesitatingly took the risks to bring the novel to the world. He generously supplied me with everything an author could ask for in terms of the support and guidance of the staff at Head of Zeus, including Nicolas Cheetham, Mathilda Imlah and everyone else who works with Anthony Cheetham.

The special acknowledgment, the greatest debt I owe, is to a lady who has my undying gratitude, Laura Palmer, Editorial Director at Head of Zeus, the very best in the business. Laura provided me with phenomenally brilliant editorial advice regarding the novel manuscript, advice that was unerring. Similarly overwhelming was incredible work accomplished by copyeditor Lucy Ridout to whom I also owe a great debt. These two consummate professionals demonstrated characteristics a writer could only dream of having access to at the final critical stage when their work is being shaped for the market.

My agent David Godwin, and Heather Godwin, and Anna Watkins at David Godwin Associates in London came into my life like unexpected gifts I could never reciprocate. David was the first person in the publishing business to recognize the value of the novel. David and Heather Godwin, partners in everything, worked hands-on with the manuscript, devoting days that turned to weeks and months to shape this novel for presentation to publishers. They were right in every call they made.

The Dean of American editors whose career spans nearly half a century at Knopf, one with a career as distinguished as any in the history of American literature, Ash Green, encouraged and supported me from the time I had the earliest drafts of this story written.

My wife, Melony, edited many versions of the manuscript, and steadfastly believed in the value of the story. There are no words poetic enough to express my feelings about all she contributed to this novel and my life.

Father Thomas Patrick Doyle has become a historic figure and deservedly so. I've often read that Tom possesses great courage, but he possesses much more than courage. Courage is something we rely upon to confront and conquer fear. Tom Doyle is truly without fear, the only fearless person I ever encountered. Upon recognizing the potential scale of the crisis that might confront the Church and grow to scandalous proportions, and realizing the damage and destruction being done to minors and children, he immediately and unhesitatingly took actions that he knew would destroy his career in the Church as he sided with the child victims and the truth. He has never left the side of the victims or the truth. My debt to him is immeasurable.

When the history of the crisis and scandal is finally written it will be recounted and remembered that once there was a man called Michael to whom millions owe a debt. Fr. Michael Peterson's phenomenal comprehension of every aspect of the many issues and his unbounded compassion for all concerned, his humanity, and tireless work until his death amounted to a monumental
contribution. Sometimes I think I can still hear his voice calling to the hierarchy of the Church to embrace common decency and common sense, for he believed that no man of God should require policies, procedures, intervention teams or any bureaucratic devices to simply do the right thing and act to protect God's greatest gift, innocence, that is only embodied in children. My memories of Michael never faded when doing this work.

The world owes a debt to Scott Anthony Gastal that I acknowledge on behalf of those who know of him and those who do not. He was a young child in 1985 when he was the first victim of clergy abuse to ever go into a courtroom trial against a bishop and diocese before a judge and jury and make the impervious prelate and the monsignors who surrounded him accountable for the grave injuries he suffered, changing history in the process. Without the brave, honest, strong testimony of this child, the crisis and scandal would not have ignited in the way it did 27 years ago.

Psychologist Dr Lyle Lecorgne imbued young Scott Gastal with the confidence to tell his truth before a court in the first historic trial against a bishop and diocese. Not only did his very presence have a soothing effect on the young boy, Dr Lecorgne's trial testimony should be engraved in stone in the Piazza San Pietro in front of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome as a permanent monument to the damage done to innocent children at the hands of criminal priests whose crimes were covered up by those in the Church hierarchy all the way to the highest levels inside the Vatican.

There would never have been justice for child victims if the crisis and scandal had not been lawyer driven by a large number of outstanding American attorneys with Jeff Anderson of Minnesota heading the list and joined by many of his colleagues like Michael Pfau, Mitchell Garabedian and a legion of other courageous lawyers who fought fierce battles on behalf of victims to reveal the hidden crimes, sin and shame of the church.

I first met Helen Malmgren and David Gelber when they
produced a special hour of
CBS 60 Minutes II
that was presented by journalist Ed Bradley on the eve of the first Bishops' Conference to discuss clergy abuse in June 2002. The groundbreaking broadcast was awarded an Emmy. Helen remained in contact with me over the years, and was passionately motivated to see the story I told in the broadcast placed between the covers of a book in the form of a novel. She worked without either compensation or credit in revisions of this novel and was a tireless editor and tough taskmaster when she worked with the text.

Dr Eamonn O'Neill, a prominent international journalist and lecturer who resides in Scotland, and Michael Powell of
The New York Times
(formally New York Bureau Chief for
The Washington Post
) and Helen Malmgren of CBS asked the hard, probing, difficult questions in long interview sessions with me that were of monumental importance in helping me focus on the issues that matter, the truths that needed to be represented in the novel.

Leslie Schilling was not only one of the first to read the manuscript, she went the whole distance by my side, and was always there when I needed assistance regarding research or computer technology and gave her unwavering support to the project during its long time in the making.

I feel a debt of gratitude to some writers, as well as others with literary backgrounds, and a few friends and family members who generously gave of themselves, expending enormous time and energy reading various versions of the manuscript and commenting on same, including Helen Malmgren, Allen Josephs, Jesse Graham, Thomas E. Guilbeau, Edward Leblanc, Tom Turley, Vincent and Helen Grosso, my brother Johnny, my sister Camille, Carl Wooton, Jack Cooper, Joe Riehl, John Hemingway, Scott Crompton, Tom Gowen, Robert F. Smallwood, Ron Gomez, and especially Robin Kelley O'Connor who was the first to read the earliest draft and urged me to push on to the end through countless revisions to the final draft regardless of the number of years it might take.

My former wife, Janis, and our children, Todd, Chad and
Jeanné, lived through a very dark period in my life, a time that I am sure changed all of us in significant ways; a time when the sadness in our lives was eclipsed by a feeling of solidarity. I will never know what scars this time inflicted upon them, but I have the memory of how they loved and supported me in that time and daily reminders of how they love and support me now, love and support I hope I return in significant ways.

In the time I worked on the book, some people shared confidences with me and they know who they are and will read the result of their trust and honesty in the pages of this work and know how deeply I feel indebted to them.

Dr Sidney Dupuy is a gifted and gentle healer who knows what he contributed that can never be adequately expressed or repaid.

While working on this novel, I kept close company with some of the novels and stories by Ernest Gaines, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, the singularly wonderful work by Nell Harper Lee and novels by other southern writers. The prose of these southern American voices is so compelling as to be convincing, and these distinct, strong southern voices were inspiring to me.

In 1984, Ray Mouton represented the first Catholic priest charged with sex crimes against children. His subsequent efforts to save children from the Church extended across the United States, working with a canon lawyer in the Vatican Embassy and a bishop holding a secret appointment from the Papal Nunciature. Mouton
co-authored
a document in 1985 that has since been hailed by the media as the most important document issued in the crisis.