Forbidden Fruit (53 page)

My father warned me that if I stayed in Ireland, Eamonn would tire of me and only love Peter. When I left for America, the
opposite occurred. He continued loving me and was indifferent to Peter. Yet Eamonn is really concerned for young people. Hence
my hurt and bewilderment.

I wish I could blame myself entirely; guilt can be so satisfying. But looking back, I see it was neither my obduracy nor Peter’s
vindictiveness that finally brought Eamonn down. It was chiefly an inexplicable lack of love in a very loving human being.
I felt like saying to Eamonn: “Stop praying for Peter twice a day, for it does you and him no good. Use the time saved to
meet him. Look at him and say yes to him, say amen to him, for he is your own flesh and blood and for that alone he is lovely
and twice-blessed and in him you are graced with immortality.”

Peter says that Eamonn has probably been a child too long to grow up at this stage. Mother Church is still telling him what
to do and not to do. Peter was less a child at sixteen than Eamonn is in his sixties. Maybe Eamonn did Peter a favor by staying
away. Peter, too, might have led a life of endless denials.

Eamonn had one last surprise in store for me. After all the reported sightings of him from Peru to Florida to parts of Ireland
itself, I learned in November 1992 that he had spent the first few months of his self-imposed exile a few miles from me. He
was counseled by a Jesuit priest who was also a physician and psychiatrist in the Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut.
Though we were only an hour’s drive apart, he was still unable to fulfill the promise made in his public statement to try
to heal the hurt caused to Peter and me. My heart goes out to him; his inability to communicate shows his hurt must be far
deeper than ours.

A last word on the three main players in this drama.

First, Peter.

My companion, my beloved and my constant joy, how glad I am I never gave him up. I fought that fight almost to death and would
fight it again a hundred and a thousand times. I never realized that the hardest part of bringing up my son would be his father’s
indifference to him. Why did I fail for so long to appreciate Peter’s Siberian solitude, his sense of being a half person
in a half world?

Peter is now studying political science at the University of Connecticut. I pray that Eamonn will be present at his wedding,
even at the christening of his first child. How or when it will be I do not know, but I remain convinced that one day my son
and his father will meet again and, at last, be friends.

Next, Eamonn.

There have been nights since his exposure when I have not slept because of him. I felt he was conveying his anguish to me.

My wish for him is that by telling this story I may help him to become his own person at last, not to hurt or humiliate him.
He has been a victim since his father pressured him when he was small to dedicate himself to the Church.

Though many critics will say that I encouraged Eamonn to betray himself, I believe that the only time he was anywhere near
to being his true self was when he was with me. Who but I saw his big green wondering sea-haunting eyes, and all the hopes
and desires that shone in them? If I did not make him feel valued, why did he always love me? Could it be that one reason
why he did so much good in his ministry was because I had given him the always-remembered, never-retracted comfort of love?

Eamonn was not only weak, he was also unbelievably strong. I, who have been in his arms, know it was not easy for him to give
me up. Even later, he acted as he did not only to save his skin but to save his soul and, being a bishop, to save others’
souls.

How many people he made happy, how many he housed, clothed, and fed. Arthur has written of him words so generous I can only
repeat them here: “May the people of Ireland extend to Eamonn their hope and acceptance of his plight. And recognition of
all that is great within him so that he may come home and share with them once again in the greatness that is his.”

Finally, myself.

What a relief to no longer have to live a lie. I live in today with the hope of a better tomorrow. Having faced the abyss,
I am finally free of myself, free
for
myself. What the future holds for me I do not know.

Do I still care for Eamonn when we have caused each other so much pain? Do I still miss him? Yes and yes. He will always be
my beloved jazzman, the daring dancing laughing music-making ghost who wanders in and out of the byways of my heart.

I miss walking hand-in-hand with him up winding mountain roads and on blown white sands beside a milk-white sea.

I miss, while strong winds rattle the gray slate roof, the fireside storytelling.

I miss the whispered intimacies, kisses, love-clasps, and silent thunders of the flesh.

I miss waking by his side to fresh new dawns and the delicate singing of a thrush.

I miss what was and, this hurts so much more, what might have been.

Sometimes, but more rarely now, a chance word, a sound, a smell, a chord of music makes me close my eyes and I return, oh
yes, to Inch to revel in the green-leaf times and feast my mind on memories of paradise.

After eighteen years of secrecy, culminating in one of the greatest scandals ever to befall the Catholic Church, here at last
is the true—and the only authorized—account of Annie Murphy and her love affair with Eamonn Casey, Bishop of Galway, Ireland.
Romantic, spellbinding, and often shocking, the haunting passion of this profound love story is quite simply unforgettable
and rivals any in recent fiction.

Annie Murphy came to Ireland from the United States in 1973 after the breakup of a turbulent marriage. She made the trip hoping
to find spiritual peace under the guidance of a distant cousin, Eamonn Casey, then Bishop of Kerry. Instead, she found a charming,
dynamic man—and the attraction was immediate and mutual. Within weeks the two were lovers, caught up in a whirlwind romance
at Casey’s hilltop retreat on the Atlantic coast.

Fifteen months after Annie’s arrival, she and Eamonn became parents. But sadly for Annie, the love Eamonn felt for her—and
the Church—did not extend to his son, Peter. Fearing scandal, the Bishop did everything possible to force Annie to give
Peter up for adoption—and even went so far as to interfere with her medical attention when she developed a life-threatening
infection after the birth. When Annie resisted and returned to America to raise her child alone, the Bishop did his best to
cover up Peter’s existence, shunning contact with his secret family and providing only sporadic financial support.

Despite Casey’s efforts, however, knowledge of Peter—and the Bishop’s affair with Annie Murphy—could not remain a secret
forever. In May of 1992, Annie and the son the Bishop tried so desperately to hide went public and forced Casey to acknowledge
the truth. The disclosure caused Casey, the Bishop of Galway, to resign from his diocese—and added fuel to the ongoing debate
over the Church’s positions on celibacy, birth control, abortion, and the role of the clergy.

Forbidden Fruit
is an astonishing and unique story of a union so powerful it rocked the foundations of the Catholic Church. Replete with
intrigue, drama, and breathtaking emotion, it is ultimately a story not only of deception and denial but, most important,
of love and forgiveness. For despite all the controversy, the extraordinary passion between Annie Murphy and the Bishop of
Galway blazed so brightly that it still reverberates through both their lives, all these years later.

Peter de Rosa is a former Catholic priest and was a professor of philosophy and theology before leaving the priesthood. He
is the author of bestsellers including
Vicars of Christ, Rebels
, and
Bless Me, Father
, all of which received outstanding reviews. He now lives in Ireland.