Dancing with the Devil: A Journey from the Pulpit to the Bench

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.