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The Confession of Joe Cullen

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The Confession of Joe Cullen is a fast-moving novel with good characterizations and dialogue. It takes off from real newspaper accounts of the 1983 disappearance of a Catholic priest, Fr. James Carney, in Honduras. The author then weaves a story of the guilty man's confession, police investigations, and murders.

Because of his views and his commitment to justice, the real Fr. Carney was deported from Honduras in 1979 and lived in Nicaragua for several years. He was very encouraged by the social gains of the Sandinista revolution, but his heart remained in Honduras. During this time he wrote To Be a Revolutionary (listed by Amazon.com), while pastor of a rural parish. Fr. Carney entered Honduras in 1983 as chaplain to a revolutionary group.The column was surrounded by the Honduran army; some were captured and later released; others were killed; and many (like Fr. Carney ) disappeared. His remains have never been found, and we do not know how he died or disappeared.

In a New York Times Magazine article (June 5, 1988) entitled "The Honduran Army's Death Squad: How Much Did the U.S. Know?" author James LeMoyne quoted Florencio Caballero (a deserter from the Honduran army, now deceased) as saying that he personally interrogated Carney after the priest's capture: "Around the time Ms. Murillo was seized, Florencio Caballero said, he interrogated an American priest, Father James Carney...." Caballero's account that "Father Carney and nearly 70 of the captured guerrillas were executed" was "seconded by a Honduran officer."

During recent years the U.S. government has declassified and released large amounts of material, in response to an official request by the Honduran government. However, almost 50% of this material is blacked out, including paragraphs in sensitive areas where Father Carney is described as being captured by the Honduran military, tortured, and dismembered. In 1997 the C.I.A. acknowledged that this version "cannot be ruled out." (The official Honduran army version in 1983 was that perhaps Carney had starved to death in the mountains. Nevertheless, the army presented his stole, chalice and bible to his relatives but said they had not recovered his body.) One declassified C.I.A. page presents a report by an unnamed Honduran soldier who says that he carried Father Carney's head in his knapsack; recently Honduran newspapers have quoted a peasant leader who says that Honduran military officers told him that Carney's head is preserved in a jar of alcohol in what is now the Ministry of Defense building. For more information about Fr. Carney and the efforts to find his remains and to discover what happened to him, please contact Joseph Mulligan at guvols@nicarao.org.ni