Chris Geraghty

Dr Chris Geraghty is a former priest of the archdiocese of Sydney, a retired judge of the District Court of NSW, and the author of a recent publication, Virgins and Jezebels – the Origins of Christian Misogyny.

Chris's recent articles

Misogyny at the heart of our Australian parliaments

Misogyny at the heart of our Australian parliaments

In the normal course of events, one might expect the Roman Church in Australia to have something to say about the sub-culture within the Liberal and Country Parties in Canberra, and about the treatment of women in our community. After all, this institution used to be the self-appointed guardian of morality and the police official responsible for identifying and controlling sins and peccadillos of a sexual nature.

Your graces and my lord bishops of Australia: are you listening?

Ok. Thats it. Time to stand up. The alarm has sounded. Rub the sleep from your eyes, take off your embroidered nightshirts, do a few stretches and lets get moving. No shilly-shallying. No dilly-dallying. Come on, just do it. Get out of bed. Theres work to be done. And the whole familys depending on you to get going. Grace Tame is calling you out.

Most viewed posts 2020: Father Glen Walsh paid a heavy price (Sep 9, 2020)

The revelations never end about priests and brothers, of monsignors and bishops with their secret sexual lives, masturbating, buggerizing, sodomizing and raping boys and girls protected by an amoral hierarchy and a few corrupt members of the upper-echelons of various police forces.

On behalf of victim-survivors: the church has to own this worldwide scandal

Some of Jesus-men have turned from fishing to lives of crime.

Father Glen Walsh paid a heavy price

The revelations never end about priests and brothers, of monsignors and bishops with their secret sexual lives, masturbating, buggerizing, sodomizing and raping boys and girls protected by an amoral hierarchy and a few corrupt members of the upper-echelons of various police forces.

CHRIS GERAGHTY. Pell Again

Dear George, More bad news. When will it cease?

CHRIS GERAGHTY. The Pell Decision.

Finally the George Pell dilemma has been put to rest by the illustrious High Court of Australia. Or has it?

CHRIS GERAGHTY. Faith-based Beliefs or Long-held Prejudices.

The recent conversation as to whether faith-based schools should be permitted by law to discriminate against gay boys and girls, or against teachers who belong to the LGBT cohort, has resulted in a magnificent own-goal scored by so-called liberal conservative politicians and their ecclesiastical lobbyists. Another victory to the forces of evil! Its so embarrassing to see just how out of touch some of our leaders, political and religious, have become.

The Plenary Council

After the Royal Commission in Child Sexual Abuse in Australia, the Irish child abuse commission 2009 on the other side of the world and the resignation of all the bishops in Chile, the Roman Catholic Church as we know it has received the last rites lying in periculo mortis in intensive care and is now on a respirator. The family has been notified, a plot has been purchased and the funeral director is on stand-by.

CHRIS GERAGHTY. Jesus The Forgotten Feminist.

I have long been interested in why the officers of the catholic church have been so reluctant to consider involving women in the governance of their institution and in its sacramental ministry. So I decided to write a book about it.

CHRIS GERAGHTY. Jesus and CFMEU

Its not a time for business as usual. Its a time for outbursts of horror, for open-throated cries for justice a time for sackcloth and ashes, for fasting and floggings of repentance a time to cease celebrating, singing, canonizing and collecting money a time to call a halt to ordinary business, to close the shop, to stop preaching and declare a time of silence during which the religious leaders will cover their celibate loins and prostrate themselves before the community a time to embrace the victims and their wounded families.

Chris Geraghty. Appropriate responses to the scandal in Newcastle

After Bishop Bill Wright appeared on television to register his reaction to the findings of the special enquiry into the Churchs and the Police response to the paedophile activities of two priests in the Newcastle diocese, and to express his sorrow for the whole messy scandal, there was an inter-change of emails between two ex-priests - both have had a second career in the law, each with a family of his own and an abiding memory of what it was like to have been eternally and ontologically changed into a special and sacred person by the ordaining hands of his...

Chris Geraghty. Potiphars Wife The Vaticans Secret and Child Sex Abuse.

A few weeks ago the Roman Church gathered its heavenly forces, summoned her faithful from around the world to assemble in the eternal city, and in the midst of extravagant Renaissance-style splendor, infallibly declared two of her recent CEOs to have been translated into the presence of Almighty God, amid hosts of angels and Archangels on high. Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II were enrolled in the official canon of saints by Pope Francis, in the presence of his predecessor Pope Benedict and a gaggle of episcopal turkeys. Business as usual in Rome. Crazy triumphal ceremonial. A vial...

Chris Geraghty. Farewell to Pell

It was sad and painful, and no satisfaction, sitting at home in front of a computer, watching a senior prelate stagger around, wounded and bleeding. I sat glued to the screen, mesmerized, fiercely proud of our legal system, and watched a prince of the Church in humble street-clothes being tormented. George Pell, Cardinal Archbishop, sat there day after day, an image of King Lear, a broken man, weary, slow and incompetent, a man who had spent his life climbing the greasy clerical pole, now at the tail-end of his life, being forced to answer questions and to confront his...

Chris Geraghty. The Pell Factor

Sydney is vacant again, and many of the faithful are breathing a huge sigh of relief, though at the back of our minds lurks a suspicion mixed with fear that we will be saddled, for a long time to come, with a little repellent clone of the great man. George is off to Rome where he belongs. Its a move long overdue. Some years ago, perhaps in anticipation of this journey, he built a home for himself close to the Vatican a suite of rooms in Casa Australiana just waiting for him to appear with his baggage....

Chris Geraghty. The ABC and Scott Morrison

The ABC has been much criticised, by our Prime Minister no less, and by the silly bullies on some commercial radio stations, for not being patriotic enough, for not barracking for the home team. Disloyal journalists published a story that some wounded, unwelcome refugees who had been intercepted on the high seas by our navy boys and girls were alleging that they had been tortured by them, forced to grasp and hold onto hot engine pipes and burnt. These dishonourable journalists broadcasted pictures of several dark-skinned men presenting their severely burnt hands to camera and complaining about the brave troops...

What a good effort. Guest blogger: Chris Geraghty

This is the best effort at an apology so far and the leaders of the Catholic Church in Australia are to be congratulated, finally. They have been dragged, fighting and squealing, to their knees, no, to their bellies, but eventually a thorough and unqualified commitment statement has been published and read to the faithful at every parish Mass on Sunday 24 November. I heard it and it produced a great sigh of relief in me and in those united in prayer with me. The sadness, the horror, the anger, the shame have been all pervasive, like a fog low over...

In Bob we Trust. Guest blogger Chris Geraghty

In Bob We Trust begins with Father Bobs potted version of the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Five minutes of fun and irreverent theology. Over two thousand years passing in the blink of an eye. Then Father Bob, assisted by his sinister chess opponent, John Safron in the guise of the Devil, gets down to more serious business an old priests herculean struggle with an ecclesiastical dragon in Melbourne the iron institution led by Archbishop Denis Hart and his mob. The story is a hoot. The Father Bob in whom we trust is a bit mad...

Our Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, deserves respect. Guest blogger: Chris Geraghty

The leader of the opposition addressing a protest crowd in Canberra and a team of colleagues all standing in front of a large sign DITCH THE WITCH Anthony Abbott continuing to grace the commercial radio station and be softly questioned by the commentator who refers to our prime minister as JU-LIAR, or who opined that they (women) are destroying the place, or who thought it might be a good idea to put our prime minister in a bag and leave her out at sea, or who had the appalling taste to state publicly at a Liberal Party function,...

Pell before the Parliamentary Enquiry. Guest blogger: Chris Geraghty

I watched Cardinal George Pell give his evidence to the Victorian Parliamentary Committee on Monday and thought that he was fortunate to be questioned across the polished table by a team of amateur interrogators. The members of the committee were, for my taste, too respectful, and far too thankful for the inadequate information he was providing. He will not be treated so softly, so kindly by counsel assisting the Royal Commission. We should prepare ourselves for a longer and more equal contest when the trained, heavy-weight inquisitors put the Archbishop of Sydney on the rack. I thought His Eminences...

Mea Maxima Culpa. Guest blogger Chris Geraghty

If you are a pious, conservative member of the Catholic Church, stay away from any movie theatre showing the documentary Mea Maxima Culpa. You will be exposed to scenes of diabolical evil, revolting details of lives destroyed, to corruption, institutional ineptitude, chronic, sinful delay, ignorance, injustice and a disturbing misuse, no, an abuse of power all in the name of Jesus. If you are a loyal member of the institution, a little person with a simple, delicate faith who wants to believe the best of those you call Father, Your Grace, Your Eminence, protect yourself from the agony of...

Habemus Papam. Guest blogger Chris Geraghty

The signs are hopeful, but the challenges are herculean. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a good, simple man. As Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires he used to cook his own meals and catch the bus to work with the other workers. These are good signs. His feet are on the ground, his toes in the dirt and his mind in the street. We can expect him to turn his back on Renaissance dress and Byzantine ceremonial, to take off the red shoes and cast aside the ermine and feathers, and return to the values of the Gospel to simplicity,...

The Candidate. Guest blogger Chris Geraghty

Its frightening, isnt it? I saw Cardinal George Pell on television recently claiming that his election to the top job was not impossible. He explained that because hes a Catholic, a bishop, and a member of the College of Cardinals, he was a chance. Is that all one needs to be pope? The applicants for the biggest job on earth are gathering in the Vatican to be assessed, to go through their interviews, to do some politicking and count the numbers. The successful candidate must of course be a member of the masculine branch of the human race. Being...

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