Fall from Grace (novel)

Fall from Grace is a 1993 novel by Father Andrew Greeley. It is a novel about sin and corruption in Chicago and the cover up of child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.

Plot introduction

Kathleen Donahue lives a perfect life until she receives a telephone call exposing her happy marriage as a sham. Kathleen's husband Brien is trying for Senator and so divorce is out of the question. The scandal has to be covered up, as do scandals in the church run by her brother Bishop James Leary.

Plot summary

Kathleen meets a former lover and he is her only chance of salvation.

Kieran O'Kerrigan is a psychiatrist and Kathleen asks him to undertake AIDS tests on her and her three children. Kieran starts to uncover the abuse that Kathleen is receiving from her husband and the two start to fall in love. Kieran also gets drawn into the child sex abuse scandal.

Gerry Greene is a popular parish priest and school principal. He was implicated in a police report from several years earlier concerning the sodomy of two twelve-year-old boys in a Chicago suburb by a priest. He was never prosecuted but was just moved to another parish.

New allegations have surfaced concerning the assault and attempted rape of two fourth graders. One boy's parents were paid off and moved away, but Kevin and Helen O'Malley were determined to seek justice for their abused son Jack. Jack was repeatedly abused, physically and sexually, by Greene, yet the Church's lawyers try to bully his parents into withdrawing the charges. Kieran visits the O'Malleys and finds Jack an 'adorable little boy' and believes him and his parents. Kieran learns that Jack only told when Greene demanded that he bring in other children he fancied. A janitor is then found who claims to have witnessed Greene raping boys in the basement. Kieran also learns that the boy whose family was paid off has developed serious behavioral problems.

See also

• Roman Catholic sex abuse cases
• Cases of child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church