Holy Trinity

by May I
 
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.

Pictures of Father David Heal, from Pamalam:
 
Also from Pamalam: