Posted by norman
(here)
Listening to an early interview with
Janet and
Brian Kennedy,
Kate McCanns’s aunt and uncle, a helpful priest was mentioned.
The name of the Anglican priest was
David….
David? I didn’t remember a
David. What I did recall was
Father Pacheco, who gave the
McCanns the
keys to the
Church of Nossa Senhora da Luz, most known as the
PdL Church, and supposedly left a broken man, weighed down by the burden of
Kate’s confession.
Then there was
Haynes Hubbard and his wife, who arrived soon after
Madeleine's disappearance, befriended the
McCanns; to whom they returned the said
keys.
I also remembered
Paul Seddon, the Catholic priest who married the
McCanns; an old golfing pal of
Gerry. He was the priest
Kate called on the night that
Madeleine went missing. They spoke to him on the phone, according to an interview with
The Tablet on
June 16th, 2007.
It was in this interview the name of
Father Pacheco is cleverly linked with
Seddon’s name. They talked of him saying the rosary with them a later date; then, the article adds
“The Parish Priest also gave the McCanns the keys to the Church so that they could pray there alone in the evenings.”
You see, it doesn’t say it was
Father Pacheco, but it certainly implies it was to any reader.
Father Pacheco’s statement of
Oct 30th. 2007. gives a mixed message:
“He (Father Pacheco) gave them the key to the church on the 7th or 8th of May, on the suggestion of John Geraghty, a resident of the parish, so that they could go calmly to church without any pressure. Someone from the Church gave the key to John Geraghty, who then passed it onto the McCanns with Father Pacheco’s permission.”
He does not remember the date upon which the
key was returned. However,
Father Pacheco later denied that he had made any decision to hand the
keys to the
McCanns. In an article dated
Dec 13th, 2007, by
Cecilia Pires, for
The Algarve Resident, she writes:
“Father Pacheco ensures that “Priest have no power to order anything in our churches. We have an entity for that, which is the Conselho Pastoral, where the catholic community is represented…………….With regards to the key to the Praia da Luz Church that the McCanns were given after Madeleine went missing…..”That was a decision made by the Conselho Pastoral and I only knew about it three days later "”
How many people were members of the
Conselho Pastoral and how many were required to make this decision? Could it be that only one person made this decision?
David seems to have been airbrushed from history, often a sign that something interesting lurks.
The
Reverend David W Heal was the priest at
St Vincent’s; the
Anglican name of the
same church which was shared with the
Catholic congregation.
According to reports in
Correio da Manhã,
Sep 19th, 2009:
“The keys to the Church , which members of the parish decided to lend to the couple a few days after Madeleine’s disappearance…. were returned to the Anglican priest…who befriended the couple". However, Hubbard‘s comment on the returning of the keys was ambiguous “I agree that the parish decided to lend them the church keys” . He didn’t reveal it was to him that the couple returned the keys.”
The
McCanns were reported to have handed the
keys over without saying goodbye to
Father Pacheco, so it certainly wasn’t him they were returned to. Even so,
Father Pacheco seems to have been severely chastised by his superiors.
He denied taking confessions from the
McCanns in his statement, so perhaps he left feeling used and abused. It’s hard to believe any burden he may have carried came from the unlikely event of confessions, but there may have been other reasons.
From what I know of the
Catholic Faith, I’m certain that
Kate would not have confessed to
Father Pacheco. He would have told her that she could not be forgiven unless she confessed what had happened to the authorities.
Confession would have brought risk, not forgiveness. A few Hail Mary’s or a decade on the rosary would not be enough!
Unless she wanted to compromise him.
Russell O’Brian, in his rogatory interview, refers to
David Priest -a comma between the words is required- and explains why
David’s number, beginning
914, is on his mobile phone, immediately after that of
Robert Murat.
It seems
David, therefore, was the most likely person to have sought the agreement of the
Conselho Pastoral. Was it also not more likely that the keys had passed between
Geraghty and
Heal?
Fiona Payne and
Rachael Mampilly/Oldfield comment on the perceived strangeness of
Kate’s desperate need to speak to a priest in the midst of this maelstrom and seek to explain it in a vague manner.
It seems that concerns were expressed that the
McCanns had called the media and a priest before they contacted the police.
El Pais in
Dec 07 “For the police, the most surprising thing was that the first concern of the parents was to alert the press before the police themselves. They were also struck by the fact that Kate asked the Ocean Club reception for the village priest’s telephone number.”
Why would they do that?
The following article in
First Magazine (with thanks to
Pamalan’s site) throws a very interesting spotlight on the involvement of
David Heal:
“With every squeeze of her daughter’s Cuddle Cat, anguished mother Kate McCann willed her little daughter home. Priest’s wife, Pam Heal helped Kate and Gerry through the early, terrifying hours of Madeleine’s disappearance…. “Someone’s taken Madeleine, someone’s taken Madeleine” she wailed over and over again, said Pam. Kate kept playing with the toy. She said Madeleine had definitely been taken from them because she would never go anywhere without her favourite toy. The night Madeleine disappeared, Kate and Gerry telephoned the local Anglican priest, Father David Heal, asking him to visit them at their apartment…..When he arrived with his wife, 38 year old Kate threw herself into the priest’s arms as she broke down. It took him 3 hours to comfort Kate.”
There are no statements from the
Heals in the available
PJ files, in spite of their
KEY roles in the early hours of
Madeleine’s disappearance.
References to the
Heals’ involvement refer to the
McCanns contacting them on Friday.
The Mail, on Sunday reports
“Reverend Heal was called to meet the McCann family on Friday.”
Well, that would be partly true, if the
Heals had arrived around
10 p.m. and had remained at the apartment for
3 hours. None of the
T9 mentions the
Heals’ visit in their interviews and they quickly disappear from the media radar.
Father Heal did continue to conduct services at
St Vincent’s, although one report suggests that he may have been leaving the next day.
During a service held later in the week
Father Heal’s sermon included the following observations
“Whatever happens today, whatever happens tomorrow, whatever happens in the days ahead, after this week, life will never be the same again……. We have all been changed and we have all been changed forever.” (Mail on Sunday)
Thanks to
The Maddie Case File for newspaper archives. References refer to key and keys. I don’t know if there was more than one.
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