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Crimes of the Father

Thomas Keneally,

Tom Keneally

3.83 · Rating details · 757 ratings · 138 reviews

A timely, courageous and powerful novel about faith, the church, conscience and celibacy.

Tom Keneally, ex-seminarian, pulls no punches as he interrogates the terrible damage done to innocents as the Catholic Church has prevaricated around language and points of law, covering up for its own.

Ex-communicated to Canada due to his radical preaching on the Vietnam War and other ...more

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Paperback, 382 pages

Published October 31st 2016 by Vintage

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Jan 28, 2017 MaryG2E rated it it was amazing

Shelves: z2017-alphabetical, greatly-appreciated

This is an important book which tackles a serious social problem, and does it with great distinction. It is also very timely for Australians, as the latest findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse are released to the community (February 2017).

As a person brought up completely immersed in the Catholic faith, I could read this book with a good depth of background knowledge, particularly about the power of priests in the daily lives of Catholics. Tom Kenea This is an important book which tackles a serious social problem, and does it with great distinction. It is also very timely for Australians, as the latest findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse are released to the community (February 2017).

As a person brought up completely immersed in the Catholic faith, I could read this book with a good depth of background knowledge, particularly about the power of priests in the daily lives of Catholics. Tom Keneally, who is one of this country's most distinguished authors, has additional background knowledge through his experiences of studying for the priesthood during his youth. His writing in this novel is absolutely sure-footed, as he knows the context and views the events with insight and clarity.

I was deeply affected by this novel on a personal level, so I don't want to go into a detailed review of its content. I admired the approach taken by Keneally, to go back a few decades in our recent history, to look at the emergence of consciousness about this appalling abuse by clergy. He uses a light hand throughout, offering several points of view. Though he describes episodes of abuse, he does not dwell unnecessarily on the ghastly details. Rather, he focuses on the impact on the lives of the victims of clerical sexual abuse. He also draws interesting characterisations of the priests who perpetrated the abuse on children, which helped me to understand how the viciousness of their actions could be rationalised and excused away.

Most importantly, he tackles the thorny issue of the Catholic Church's response to abuse, and takes them to task for their lies, deceit and attempts to silence victims. For me this was the most significant impact of the novel. I think he absolutely nails the attitude of the clerical hierarchy, with its overwhelming attitude of power and privilege, of being beyond criticism.

Although the subject matter is grim at times, and may disturb some readers, I think the novel format is an excellent way to tease out some of the issues and expose some of the lies perpetrated by the Catholic administration. Keneally has the writing skills to inject warmth and humour into the book at various points, to counterbalance the awful stuff. His main character, Father Frank Docherty, is an inspiration - I wish he were a real person!

I thank Tom Keneally for his brilliant writing and incisive analysis of this controversial topic.
5★s

...more

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Jun 14, 2018 Silvanna rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Desperately dull.

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Mar 29, 2017 Deborah Ideiosepius rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017-reading-challenge, australiana, fiction, australian-authors

This unexpectedly exceptional book tackles the complicated issue of sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church. This has been a massive ongoing scandal and battle since the 90's in Australia and even now new issues surrounding it come out or are addressed often. Pedophilia has such a horrible ring to it, it is I think with great bravery one would choose to write a work of fiction about it.

In this book, at least, the bravery is well worth it. Our moderator of the story is Father Frank Doche ...more

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Feb 26, 2017 Roman Clodia rated it liked it

I love Keneally's writing and given his own background as a seminarian was excited to read his take on the scandals of abuse within the Catholic church: well, it's balanced and insightful but I was left feeling a little disappointed overall.

As usual, Keneally's writing is clean and clear but there are some huge coincidences here that are necessary to make the plot work, something that I've never felt about Keneally's previous books. That said, he tackles a difficult subject with a clear-sighted ...more

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May 12, 2018 Mary rated it liked it

Shelves: aussie-authors, contemporary, fiction, australian-setting

Fr Frank Docherty returns to his home town of Sydney in the 1990s to give a lecture on sexual abuse by clergy in the Catholic Church (the subject of his dissertation and clinical practice) and to visit his aged Mum. His visit coincides with a highly publicised case where the Church is being sued over abuse. At the same time he comes into contact with several people alleging assault by the same priest. He needs to keep the Cardinal on side to get agreement to come home but to stand for the victim Fr Frank Docherty returns to his home town of Sydney in the 1990s to give a lecture on sexual abuse by clergy in the Catholic Church (the subject of his dissertation and clinical practice) and to visit his aged Mum. His visit coincides with a highly publicised case where the Church is being sued over abuse. At the same time he comes into contact with several people alleging assault by the same priest. He needs to keep the Cardinal on side to get agreement to come home but to stand for the victims will mean that he will be rejected.

I am also a cultural Catholic plus I spent decades working in child protection so I wondered how I would manage this book. Sadly, I found quite a bit of it boring as I just was not engaged by the characters and did not find the plot particularly suspenseful - mostly because we know where this is going. It is extraordinarily difficult to write about sexual abuse in a way that is not titillating or banal and I think that Mr Kenneally did a very good job of that.

He spends a great deal of time discussing celibacy and its potential causation of child sexual abuse. I strongly disagree. Men have been blaming their uncontrollable sexual urges for their abuse of women and children for a very long time. There is no evidence that the celibacy of religious women lead them to sexually abuse children at the same levels as religious men any more than unsatisfied married women were 'forced' to abuse children at the same rates as sexually abusive married men who claimed lack of sexual satisfaction as the cause. He spends little time reviewing the theory of abuse as an outcome of power imbalance which is the most popular theory currently. This made a large part of the book both irritating and an irrelevant red herring to me.

In spite of that Mr Kenneally has done a good job of illustrating the many areas of culture that make it possible for child abuse to survive and/or flourish in communities. I thought he did an excellent job of demonstrating the double think of perpetrators and how they can accidentally come into contact and then back each other up. In fact he was spoiled for choice in deciding what to focus on. The role of police in not following up complaints against clergy was also a big issue that he touched on, without which the perpetrators would never have felt as safe as they did.

Something I don't think he explained well was the difference between Diocesan priests and those in Orders and what made Docherty choose an Order, which is not all that common. But given such a widespread pernicious interwoven network of innocent and not so innocent support for perpetrators, Mr Kenneally has done a good job.

Technically, the book moves between the past and the present frequently and also between character viewpoints, some of which are in first person. I could not always see the point of the changes in person and found it distracting. Moving from past to present saves us from having to read even greater slabs of history because this is definitely a story whose roots are in the past. I do think Mr Kenneally manages this well and is able to create the sense that the story is moving forward even when he is delving into the past.

Recommended for those who have not got a strong background in this area but are interested. ...more

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Apr 16, 2018 Chris rated it really liked it

How to begin a review on a book where the main topic of the surrounding story is the scandal and cover ups of Catholic priests sexually abusing boys, girls? Some who are now adults, later in life, come forth to reveal or prosecute, and struggle everyday from their victimized past. Unfortunately some suffer problems with relationships as a result, others seek solace in drink or drugs, some commit suicide. Others choose to deny.

Being raised Catholic and attended a Catholic grammar school, during ...more

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Mar 03, 2017 Sid Nuncius rated it really liked it

Thomas Keneally is a very fine writer and I was expecting this to be excellent. It was good in many ways, but as a novel I had my reservations about it.

Keneally is from a Catholic family and this is his take on priestly abuse of children (which he states clearly that he never suffered personally, by the way) and the Church's response to it. Set in 1996, we meet Father Frank Docherty who is returning to Sydney after being sent away by a previous Cardinal for his political views and his refusal to ...more

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Jun 11, 2017 Fiona rated it liked it

Shelves: religion, historical-fiction

Frank Docherty returns from his posting in Canada to visit his aging mother and to ask the archdiocese if he can return to work in Sydney to be closer to her. He was exiled to Canada in the 1970s because his views on global and church politics were causing embarrassment to the church. As a psychologist, he has been counselling victims of child abuse in Canada and is trying to raise awareness of the opprobrium the church in Australia will face if it doesn't publicly acknowledge the problem instea Frank Docherty returns from his posting in Canada to visit his aging mother and to ask the archdiocese if he can return to work in Sydney to be closer to her. He was exiled to Canada in the 1970s because his views on global and church politics were causing embarrassment to the church. As a psychologist, he has been counselling victims of child abuse in Canada and is trying to raise awareness of the opprobrium the church in Australia will face if it doesn't publicly acknowledge the problem instead of trying to sweep it under the carpet.

For me, this is a very dry novel. It's not a page turner as it's often more about process than the characters and is at times very didactic. I'm certain that someone who has grown up in the Roman Catholic Church will identify much more strongly with the issues debated, such as the use of contraception, masturbation, sex before marriage, than I can. It does feel like a debate rather than dialogue that adds to the storyline, however. Because the contemporary scenes are set in 1996, we know how things have moved on over the last 20 years. There have been worldwide reverberations due to victims of child abuse coming forward to name and shame the perpetrators. The question still remains whether those with a predilection towards paedophilia are drawn to the Catholic Church because it offers so much opportunity for them to act or whether it's enforced celibacy that drives men towards committing these acts. In my opinion, blaming celibacy is simply a convenient excuse as they know the deal when they sign up.

I can only give this 3 stars because it read more like a case study than a novel. Frank Docherty is a frustrating character, both weak and strong simultaneously. I felt he was there to provide balance in the good priest / bad priest scenario. I found myself shaking my head often as I was unaware just what a strong hold the RC church had over its congregation in the 1960/70s when the early part of the novel is set, and I was disgusted by the Church's approach to complaints of child abuse. They sought to blame the victim rather than show them compassion and find ways to help heal wounds. There is much in this book to think about and I appreciate that Keneally understands the issues deeply as he himself trained as a priest. I wonder how much of the content of this book is cathartic rather than creative, however.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for an ARC. ...more

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Jan 28, 2017 Lia rated it really liked it

Shelves: available-cnl, australian

I am a bit numb after reading this.
Keneally brought his seminary upbringing and his prodigious intellect to this tale of betrayal and redemption.
There was no sugar coating of the scenario, one unfortunately playing out in Sydney (and churches across the world) today.
I grew up in a catholic family in the times depicted in the novel. So much rang true.
The modern and objective look at the tenants of the faith were refreshing.
The demons were deservedly in the spotlight, and thankfully the good ...more

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Dec 24, 2016 Robert Bland rated it it was amazing

Crimes of the Father
Tom Keneally
Random House Penguin
2016

First the disclaimer - I’m not a Catholic. I have, however, been deeply involved in various ways in the response of various churches to the sexual abuse of children in their care. I’m a member of my local Anglican Diocesan Professional Standards Committee. I chaired a National Round Table for the Salvation Army that tried to understand the reasons for abuse of boys in institutional care. As a university student I had lived and worked for si Crimes of the Father
Tom Keneally
Random House Penguin
2016

First the disclaimer - I’m not a Catholic. I have, however, been deeply involved in various ways in the response of various churches to the sexual abuse of children in their care. I’m a member of my local Anglican Diocesan Professional Standards Committee. I chaired a National Round Table for the Salvation Army that tried to understand the reasons for abuse of boys in institutional care. As a university student I had lived and worked for six months in a Salvation Army Boy’s Home and knew first-hand the sad and sometimes violent lives those boys lived. I now work for the Australian Catholic University as a Professor of Social Work. I like to think that I’m a sympathetic insider.

The work of the Royal Commission into the Sexual Abuse of Children has, over the past 3 years, provided evidence of widespread abuse of children in many different contexts – in parishes, in schools, in institutions, and in the Scouting movement. The daily reporting of the abuse, naming the perpetrators and describing their crimes, has shocked us deeply as a community, and shaken our faith in the Church. The media reporting has emphasized vulnerable children, evil abusers, and a community deceived and unaware of abuse. I have found this simple journalistic narrative to be naïve and convenient. The truth is much more complex.

Keneally tackles the hard issues in Crimes of the Father. He shows us the awful nature of abuse and its impact on three children. One young man discloses his abuse and his abuser in a suicide note. A second victim has struggled in diverse ways to fight the impact of abuse – we meet her as a taxi driver who had sought healing by joining a convent and who is driven by rage and despair. The third victim is a very successful businessman who believes he has overcome the abuse until he is confronted with the need for justice for other victims. It is his courage and resources that eventually defeat the institutionalized power of the abuser.

I found Keneally’s sensitivity to the real lives of the victims both compelling and truthful. There’s no single story of abuse and we don’t really understand why some children rise above awful abuse and others fail. The stories of abuse remind us that the families suffer along with the victims. We have seen this again and again at the Royal Commission as so many parents connect the abuse of their children to life-long problems like depression and drug taking. Innocence is despoiled, and lives of promise are blighted. For those parents, their grief is profound and unending.

Yet not all the children are powerless, and at least one child is saved from abuse by the courage of a parent who confronts the abuser and demands an end to their behaviour. By telling the alternative story of resistance, Keneally gives depth and substance to the reality of abuse – that at points it might have been avoided had families and the community been less trusting of the Church.

In Monsignor Shannon, Keneally creates a villain for whom we can feel little sympathy. He is arrogant, unrepentant, cruel, and cunning. He is clever and knows how to use his power to protect himself and his Church. Perhaps the real villains though are the Cardinal, lawyers and accountants who conspire to deny the abuse and silence the victims. There is a thinly disguised account of the Ellis case and the Catholic Church’s attempt to apply a legal technicality to avoid responsibility for the actions of the abusive priests. We see the total failure of the Church to accept the wrong that has been done, prepared to attack the credibility of complainants in court rather than risk the assets and reputation of the Church.

Keneally holds the intersecting stories together through the device of a contrasting “good priest” Frank Docherty – a man exiled from his Sydney diocese because of his radical political activism and who has made a life as an academic in Canada. We see him at work in a parish in the 1960s, making friends and enemies, falling in love and struggling with his vows of celibacy. On his return in 1996 Frank is confronted with the corruption of the Church at a time when he needs to be allowed to return. His honesty and courage help to bring together the grieving family with the other victims to seek justice. Perhaps he is a little too good to be true, though Keneally tries to give him the humanity of weakness. There are some inspired moments when Frank is able to speak his truth to the power of the Church – with predictable results. He bravely chooses to fight the good fight, and we cheer him on.

Why did the abuse happen? At a very basic level Keneally reminds us that this isn’t about sex so much as it is about power. Abuse happens anywhere where there is power and vulnerability together – that abuse happens because it can. The Church failed to protect children from abuse – that is the real Crime of the Fathers. Setting the story in the 1990s relieves us a little of some of the distress the story tells. We know that in the years ahead the Church will have to suffer the humiliation of intense public scrutiny. We know that the naïve respect for the authority of the Church, a trust that made the abuse possible, is gone forever. We know that victims are believed, and that compensation and apology is helping to promote healing of broken lives. Keneally reminds us that change has happened because good men like Frank Docherty, and John Ellis, fought for change. The victims of abuse fought for change, and their families fought for change. The struggle for justice continues.

I loved this book for its hopefulness and honesty. It’s not just a good read, but a significant contribution to the public debate about the nature and response to one of the darkest episodes of Church history. I’m encouraged to keep working at the way forward. ...more

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Nov 10, 2016 Annette Chidzey rated it really liked it

This latest Keneally offering is couched in a timely setting as the Catholic Church and other organisations are held to account for any abuse to those who have placed trust in them. Though it may be a work of fiction as Keneally attests in his acknowledgements, there are inevitable parallels and comparisons that I found myself making to both real world individuals and situations that have been reported and investigated in Australia and other parts of the world while I read this account.
The effec ...more

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Sep 20, 2017 Marjorie rated it liked it

Shelves: first-reads, giveaways

Father Frank Docherty seems to attract controversy. He’s a good man and a good priest but his beliefs are sometimes at odds with the Catholic Church. He was banished from the Australian church in the sixties due to his religious beliefs and he truly wants to return to Australia and their church so he can be near his aging mother. But events come about that bring him into direct confrontation with the same Cardinal he’s trying to win favor with. He’s become aware of several incidents of child abu ...more

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Sep 23, 2019 Rissy rated it really liked it

This is an important, devastating book that handles its subject with appropriate sensitivity. Thomas Keneally, ex-Seminarian and renowned author of Schindler’s List, explores marriage, celibacy, guilt, innocence, and sin in this short novel where an unwitting priest finds himself at the center of a clerical abuse scandal.

I really wish this book were longer and its themes were more fleshed out - Keneally eludes to some stuff I have more questions about. At the end of the book we get to see Father ...more

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May 04, 2017 Andrew Doohan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

I didn't want to read this book and, in fact, had no real intention to do so, until I was asked to provide an opinion on it. Having said that, I have to confess that I found Keneally's book a strange combination of challenging, disappointing, and frustrating. Let me address those in reverse order.

As a priest, I found some of the 'errors' depicted by Keneally on supposedly current liturgical and canonical discipline very frustrating. They were, in some cases, trivial 'errors', once which any othe I didn't want to read this book and, in fact, had no real intention to do so, until I was asked to provide an opinion on it. Having said that, I have to confess that I found Keneally's book a strange combination of challenging, disappointing, and frustrating. Let me address those in reverse order.

As a priest, I found some of the 'errors' depicted by Keneally on supposedly current liturgical and canonical discipline very frustrating. They were, in some cases, trivial 'errors', once which any other reader less familiar with the intricacies of these things might miss or gloss over. I fully own that the frustration belongs entirely to myself and, having owned it, it doesn't really detract from the overall impact of the book.

Which brings me to the disappointment. Having read many of Keneally's books over the years, and been thoroughly captured by his vivid writing style, I found this particular effort slightly disappointing. Compared to his other works it didn't have the same 'feel', the same engagement that I have experienced in other works by this particular author. That disappointment may have something to do with the subject matter perhaps, or it could simply be that this particular contribution from Keneally wasn't one of his better ones. I would like to think it was the former rather than the latter.

Which means that I now turn to the challenging subject matter that Keneally has chosen to address in this novel. The scourge of child sexual abuse in our society is something I still think many Australians would prefer not to face. That the current Royal Commission has forced all Australians to face the presence of this scourge in our society, in our institutions, in our churches, cannot be denied. After almost four and a half years (at the time of writing) the work of the Royal Commission has meant, I fervently hope, that no child who has been the target of the such criminal behaviour will not be believed, and no institution - particularly a church - will behave in the way depicted in Keneally's work and which has, to its everlasting shame, been the reality far too many people have been confronted with.

As a member of the Catholic Church - and as a priest - I have been ashamed and appalled by the history that is being made known through the efforts of the current Royal Commission. The story portrayed by Keneally has, unfortunately, all too many resonances with what has been brought to light by the Commission and other efforts to eradicate the scourge of child sexual abuse. One can only hope that those who read Keneally's work can commit themselves to ensuring that the work of the Royal Commission bears fruit into the future. ...more

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Aug 16, 2017 Jillwilson rated it liked it

“If they were a corporation, they would be out of business.” This is what a friend texted me after watching the recent 4 Corners program Dark Secrets which explored the cover-ups of paedophilia in Philadelphia. The investigation within that TV program began with a question: Why, in 50 years, had only one Catholic priest been officially investigated for child abuse? The program found both disturbing levels of child abuse and extraordinary measures taken by the church to hide the abuse. “If this w “If they were a corporation, they would be out of business.” This is what a friend texted me after watching the recent 4 Corners program Dark Secrets which explored the cover-ups of paedophilia in Philadelphia. The investigation within that TV program began with a question: Why, in 50 years, had only one Catholic priest been officially investigated for child abuse? The program found both disturbing levels of child abuse and extraordinary measures taken by the church to hide the abuse. “If this was a brand, it would be dead in the water” (another text message swapped while watching the program). Keneally describes the Catholic church as being like a "worldly wise corporation. It's supposed to be a mountain of compassion ... the temple above all temples, and here it is behaving like a chemical company that has had a spill."

Keneally writes as something of an insider, having trained for the priesthood and describing himself still as a “cultural Catholic”. I think that the book had more resonance for this reason; that he knows priests well, has personally struggled with the challenges of the role and operates out of a kind of insider despair in this novel. The novel is about a fictional outsider priest, the outspoken Father Docherty who returns home to Australia briefly to speak professionally about child abuse (he is a psychologist working in Canada) in 1996. Docherty issues a warning that the state will intervene if the church does not adequately deal with the problem.

1996 is a significant year; it was when the Towards Healing process was established; part of the plot of this novel follows the introduction of a similar process titled “In Compassion’s Name”. (The Age reported in December 2015 that the “Catholic Church avoided paying up to $62 million in compensation to sexual abuse victims by creating the controversial Melbourne Response program, which capped payments at $50,000 for each victim. Internal documents also show church leaders ordered written records about sex abuse be "kept to a minimum" to avoid losing lawsuits, and hired one of the country's best spin doctors in a bid to prepare for the scandal in the early 1990s.” (http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/cat...)

This is a book about disgusting behaviour – both on the part of individual priests but also on the part of the institution. It’s shocking. Of the novel, Keneally says: “I am having a go at the institution because it has messed up and violated its own principles. Now, bless me father for I have sinned. I have messed up frequently in my life and violated its principles. But the church has stuck so determinedly to the wrong course, and its denial has been frightening and grotesque. So, yes, you’d expect me to write this, but it’s because I am genuinely concerned that an institution for which I have a great deal of love would create such injustice. I’m allowed to say that, surely?” (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/...)

The most interesting part of the novel for me was where Keneally attempted to explore how individual priests justified or rationalized their criminal and unchristian behaviour. The justification took several forms according to Keneally. Some priests “had the idea that impulses involving children were ungovernable.” In other words the excuse is that the men had no power to control themselves. Others felt that each time they confessed and showed genuine contrition, the slate was wiped clean – no more sin. Others that they were in some bizarre and self-righteous way saving children from a worse fate: “I took their sins on me. I took the sins of the girls and the sins of the boys. On me. I risked my soul so that they would not have a squalid experience in a suburban toilet. But I will never be thanked.” Or the Blame the Victim trope – “Bring them all in, every neurotic you can find,” Shannon (the finance administrator for In Compassion’s Name) sweeps on. ”I remember the kid all right, amongst all the other kids of unhappy households. They hang round a priest they like and make themselves absolute pests. The cardinal won’t for a moment believe any of this about me.” Some priests, according to Docherty, even claimed to believe their abuse was God-ordained. That “the child had been chosen for them by God to sustain their ministry by making possible the sexual release God knew they needed”.

Keneally also looks at how church administrators can have been so obtuse. His fictional cardinal simply can’t conceive of a man that he knows and likes committing an act of child abuse. Also, there is the intimation that they do not want to probe too far. Protecting the financial integrity of the Church is paramount. It’s disgusting. The brand has been trashed and it must be truly upsetting for practicing Catholics of good heart that this has been (I was going to write “allowed to happen” but this is inaccurate) so brutal and cynical a policy in Australia and other parts of the world.

It’s difficult to critique this book given the subject matter. The characters in the book tend towards the one-dimensional. This is a novel that is trying to explore the complexity of this issue and its impact on a church and faith that is/was important to the author. He says a couple of things about this in an interview with The Australian: “Keneally stresses sexual abusers in the church are a minority, though the field of blame expands to include the “enablers, excusers, hiders’’. He says he knows many priests who are “decent fellows, noble souls, full-fledged humans’’, though “none of them are the kind to be made bishops. This novel is a dramatic story, but one side of it that shouldn’t be diminished is that it’s about a priest who is viably dealing with the modern church, and with belief, and with secularism. There is admiration for him.’’

He also says “Does he think the church can recover? “Yes, yes, though it’s hard. The Pope reminds me of Malcolm Turnbull, hostage to his own right wing. There’s been a deliberate process to bring the church back to that old-fashioned dogma and in the interests of that it has frequently been right-wing bishops who have been appointed, people who hold the line on gays, women, birth control and so on. So the church has established a command corps which is extremely devoted to the authoritarian, totalitarian proposition, the one that says we tell you what your conscience is, you don’t decide what your conscience will tell you, we’ll decide that. That totalitarianism is something that is very hard for modern people to live by, and the question is: should they? It’s a question I can’t resolve. Between the totalitarianism and individual dignity, where do you draw the line?”

Last night I watched a representative of the church arguing that priests need to retain the confidentiality of the confessional. I heard a priest on the radio arguing that they could adequately protect and intervene effectively “behind the scenes” for children if someone admitted to child abuse. I felt irritated and sorry for him at the same time. It is possibly true that he is genuine – that he could make some positive interventions for a child in this situation but how could the community now have faith that this could happen, and happen effectively? I think they have trashed their own brand and need to now be subject to the same rules that apply to the rest of the community in regards to reporting child abuse.

So in summary, the book is interesting because of the writer’s background and worth a read. ...more

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Dec 29, 2017 Christina McLain rated it liked it

There are two groups of people who will read this book: Catholics and those who are not. For the latter group, unless you have been worked over by Isis or some other group of fundamentalist hooligans, there will be shock and horror. For Catholics, and I am one, there will be other, more complicated reactions. I know this story of a priest's efforts to expose pedophiles who masquerade as priests is a timely one and makes for a compelling novel. It certainly made me realize now how lucky I was to There are two groups of people who will read this book: Catholics and those who are not. For the latter group, unless you have been worked over by Isis or some other group of fundamentalist hooligans, there will be shock and horror. For Catholics, and I am one, there will be other, more complicated reactions. I know this story of a priest's efforts to expose pedophiles who masquerade as priests is a timely one and makes for a compelling novel. It certainly made me realize now how lucky I was to grow up in a time when the iron-clad precepts of the Church were beginning to be questioned AND that I was born into a family with a Protestant father and a mother who was a bit of a rebel. Though she paid lip service to Catholicism, my mother's heart wasn't really into Holy Mother Church. Even more fortuitously, my sister and I were educated at a Catholic elementary school which though peopled by eccentric tyrants and raging alcoholics, contained not one member of the clergy. I finally had nuns as teachers in Grade Ten but by then it was too late. Which is a good thing because even though I encountered in my childhood more than my share of child molesters(more about that later, much later), they didn't come armed with battalions of lawyers and enablers to convince me I was mad. Nor did they convince me they had God on their side.
Anyway this book is very well done though it shocked me how Irish Australia or parts of it still appeared to be, even in the latter part of the 20th century. It also shocked me how smooth some of these perpetrators were. So smooth that, unlike Harvey Weinstein they didn't need Mossad as they had their silver tongues and the Church organization on their side. And these victims were white kids. God only knows what the indigenous kids went through. Well I guess we all do know since we hear about daily now ---finally. Not to mention all the wasted time a lot of ordinary Catholic people spent agonizing about birth control and sex and the fact that women by their very nature were seen as lesser beings than men. Thank God, that's over, though as Keneally's main character suggests, the Church is a bit like Hotel California--you can check out but you can never really leave. ...more

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Aug 08, 2018 Lynne rated it it was amazing

While we’ve all been made aware, through media reports, of child abuse within the Catholic Church, nothing has brought home the victim impact to me quite as strongly as this novel. While the characters may be fictional, the situations are sadly all too real and the author, himself a former seminarian, highlights areas that I’d previously been unaware of, eg the use of the confessional to groom potential victims and the initial attempts at cover ups, not to mention the impact on the wider communi ...more

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Dec 01, 2018 Angelique Simonsen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Jeepers this was hard to read in places. Keneally is such a great storyteller.

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Mar 03, 2018 Nancy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dad

"'Why didn't that omnipotent God intervene when we were at the mercy of the abuser?' I ask it myself. All I can say is, Christ be with you. He is also a sort of victim of the (Roman Catholic) Church.'"

As Keneally writes in the author's note, he went to seminary and left just a few months before his ordination. So, he definitely has a lot of inside information on the Catholic church, and this is clearly reflected in Crimes of the Father.
The protagonist, Fr. Docherty, is flawed in many ways, but ...more

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Nov 11, 2016 Lisa rated it really liked it

Shelves: 16review, c21st, australia

If issues raised in this review cause personal distress,
help is available from Lifeline and Beyond Blue.

Crimes of the Father is a book that was crying out to be written, and Tom Keneally has created an exceptional novel out of a momentous issue of our times. With the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about to resume its hearings, this time about the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle, this issue is well and truly out of the shadows in Australia as it is elsewhere, b ...more

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Sep 18, 2017 Claire rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I received Crimes of the Father as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

In 1996, Father Frank Docherty, a Catholic priest and psychology professor working with pedophile priests in Ontario, makes a rare trip to his native Australia, ostensibly for a speaking engagement but, more broadly, to seek permission to return to Sydney, from whose archdiocese he was ousted from for his liberal political views decades earlier. During his brief trip, he comes face to face with the devastation wrought by the sexual ...more

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Oct 30, 2017 Pgchuis rated it really liked it

Shelves: library-book, hardback

Frank Docherty is exiled by his order to Canada (from his native Australia) after speaking openly on topics such as the Vietnam War. In Ontario he studies and works as a psychologist specializing in sexual abuse by priests. He returns to Australia to give a lecture and visit his mother, and receives information suggesting that the brother of a very close friend has in the past abused both teenage boys and girls. This brother is (on behalf of the church) currently seeking to make small monetary p ...more

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Jan 03, 2018 Chris Demer rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime-fiction, sociology-fiction

This is a novel, but considering the situations involving predatory behavior and pedophilia by priests on several continents, and its widespread cover-up by those in positions of authority, it might as well be true.
It is a story of an Australian priest who belongs to a religious order but has been "banished" to Canada due to his anti-Vietnam War sentiments as well as his emphasis on personal conscience as a guide to behavior. He studies psychology with a particular interest in abuse by clergy. H ...more

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Nov 13, 2017 Danielle Routh rated it really liked it

Even though I'm a Protestant, I do sympathize for those in Catholicism who must juxtapose their faith with the corruption within their institutional church. (I'm not saying Protestantism is exempt from corruption, but our pastors answer to fewer people and are not as interconnected.) Because of this, I appreciate how Keneally approached the matter: indictment for those who contribute to corruption, sensitivity for corruption's victims, and gentleness for those who have to pick up the pieces. One ...more

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Nov 24, 2017 Lynn Pribus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Somehow this book started clumsily -- as if the editor only picked up her blue pencil after the first couple chapters. Long sentences -- next to impossible to diagram, if you remember that annoyance from your 8th-grade English teacher. Rather as if it was poorly translated from German.

But once the characters and their relationships became clear and there was more dialogue, it moved along very well with a female character in first person and all else in third, mostly present tense.

The ever deeper ...more

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Jun 18, 2017 Laura Newsholme rated it really liked it

This is not an easy subject to read about, but it is a very important one that has become more and more visible over the past 20 years. This tells the tale of one priest's fight to highlight the abuse suffered by young girls and boys in his former diocese. What I found really compelling here, was the tone of the prose. Keneally writes in a very pared back fashion that lends the material a documentary or reportage feel. He outlines the 'facts' and doesn't spend too much time dealing with the emot ...more

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Nov 06, 2017 Stephanie rated it really liked it

In this rather 'close to reality' story Keneally, ex-seminarian, pulls no punches as he interrogates the terrible damage done to innocents by the Catholic Church with its relentless covering up for its own.

Exiled to Canada due to his radical preaching on human rights, Father Frank Docherty is now a psychologist and monk. He returns to Australia to speak at a conference, and unwittingly is drawn into the stories of two people who claim to have been sexually abused by an eminent Sydney monsignor.

A ...more

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Jun 29, 2017 Maggie rated it really liked it

Gripping read. The author demonstrates detailed knowledge of the back story and working of the priesthood within the Catholic church in Sydney Australia in the 1990’s. Story is told wonderfully. This book does not contain high drama and there is no complete resolution, which mirrors real life with these cases. This narrative felt honest and realistic as to how the situation could develop, both within the minds of the victims and the accused clergy. It appeared insightful to present a humane and ...more

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Oct 22, 2017 Matthew rated it really liked it

"At an immature age, I chose to study for the priesthood, and I would like to put on record my thanks for the more generous and openhanded aspects of that training. It was not, however, an education designed to encourage a callow young man to achieve full maturity as a sentient and generous male adult. I was too innocent to understand that the education to make me a celibate strayed easily into stereotyping half of my species -- women -- as a perilous massed threat to priestly purity; or that th ...more

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Jul 15, 2017 Mandy rated it liked it

Thomas Keneally is a very uneven writer. A master storyteller, admittedly, but his novels vary quite a bit in quality and disappointingly, in view of the serious subject matter, this one is one of his less successful ones. It focuses on Father Frank Docherty who is determined to highlight and improve the way the Catholic Church responds to allegations and convictions of sexual abuse of children by priests. In this heartfelt and serious exploration of the subject we meet a number of characters wh ...more

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About Thomas Keneally

Thomas Keneally

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Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982, which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), which won the Academy Award for Best Pict ...more