“It is diffi cult to deal with the certain self-righteousness of some Christian people who don’t have the capacity to have a forgiving or compassionate response,” says Father Peter Norden (at St Ignatius Church in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond). 22 THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE / APRIL 8-9 2006 TTAM_0804_Mafia_priest.inddAM_0804_Mafia_priest.indd 2222 330/03/20060/03/2006 33:56:51:56:51 GODFELLA He is a friend and confidant to Melbourne’s most notorious mobsters, but some say Father Peter Norden’s forgiveness goes too far, writes Cameron Stewart. PHOTOGRAPHY ANDY BAKER ather Peter Norden has become But Norden says gangsters are no less a foiled attempt on his life in 2004. On that wary of late-night phone calls. They deserving of spiritual guidance and comfort occasion, police arrested two gunmen as they usually come within minutes of the than anyone else in the community. “I get lay in wait for him at Brighton Cemetery, near gunshots. When the blood is still abusive letters from the general public and his house in the bayside suburb. warm, the bodies still fresh. It is the from church people who think the church The near miss shook Condello, who sum- wives who call – panicked, hysterical should just be dealing with so-called respectable moned Norden to his house for a visit. The and unable to fathom their fate: churchgoers,” he says. “But as I said at Mario priest told the pale-faced Condello that he had gangland wife to gangland widow. Condello’s funeral, anyone who suggests that been given a rare second chance to rearrange On these nights, Norden grabs friends of Mario’s should not be welcome in his priorities and start his life afresh. Fhis Bible, jumps into his car and speeds into the this church has a complete misunderstanding “It [the near miss] was a shock for all of the dark Melbourne night to give the last rites over of the long history of the Catholic Church and family,” says Norden. “The advice I gave him the bloodied remains of slain gangsters. But this of basic Christian values.” was to examine his values, examine what was is more than a grisly priestly duty – it is deeply Norden is an unlikely conduit for important in his life and don’t do anything personal. This Jesuit priest – alone among controversy. Softly spoken, highly lucid and which would cause you to lose the things you Australia’s clergy – has the dubious distinction with a gentle demeanour, he spends most of most value.” Norden was telling Condello to of being friends with some of the biggest his time researching issues of poverty and get out of the game. mobsters in Melbourne’s bloody gangland war. social alienation in his role as policy director of Condello convinced himself that he had In the past few years he has been asked to Jesuit Social Services in Melbourne. survived only because God was not ready for give the last rites to two of the city’s biggest His pet project in recent years has been to him yet. From that day, he offered regular gangsters, who also happened to be good help map the concentration of poverty in prayers to the Almighty. When he was eventu- friends – Graham “The Munster” Kinniburgh, Australia by postcode. He has also become a ally gunned down in the garage of his Brighton who was gunned down outside his Kew home vocal campaigner against the death penalty, home in February, the convicted conman was in December 2003, and Mario Condello, whose after becoming involved in the recent death found with rosary beads on him. bullet-ridden body was found in the garage of penalty case in Singapore involving convicted “You don’t get gunned down outside your his Brighton home in February this year. Australian drug traffi cker Nguyen Tuong Van. house at 11pm carrying rosary beads by “Both of their wives phoned me within half Bob Maguire, a veteran priest from South chance,” says Norden. “He was obviously an hour of their deaths,” says the still youthful, Melbourne, concedes that Norden is “living thinking about things a lot more.” 56-year-old Norden. “Their immediate response dangerously” but says he is not doing anything Condello was a member of the so-called was that they phoned the police, phoned their wrong. Says Maguire: “You’ve got to represent Carlton Crew in Melbourne’s underworld war lawyer and then phoned their priest. both sides – goodies and baddies. You can’t – the old Sicilian-style Mafi a whose dwindling “These are people who have been involved have a ‘goodies-only’ church and call it the membership is overwhelmingly Catholic. They in a hard life, but they are also people who Catholic Church.” like to conduct their illicit business in style, have a wife and children, and your main This is just as well because, as the body wearing designer suits, dark glasses and thick concern at that stage is to be supportive of the count grows in Melbourne’s gangland war, gold rings, and are said to favour religious family who have been victims of crime.” many of the city’s mobsters are taking a belated motifs for spiritual protection. But Norden’s close connections with interest in religion and the afterlife. The other side in the gangland war consists Melbourne’s underworld identities and his of a more godless crowd from the city’s gritty willingness to forge friendships among them is NORDEN BELIEVES PEOPLE ARE MORE INCLINED outer western suburbs. But even this group, dividing opinion and raising questions. His to embrace spirituality after hardship. Maguire known as the New Guard, has moved closer to critics say he goes too far in cosying up to the is a little more direct: “They say in war that there God as the body count grows higher. One of bad guys. Andrew Bolt, conservative columnist are no atheists in the foxholes – maybe there their leaders, hitman Andrew “Benji” Veniamin, for the Herald Sun, says Norden is a “PR disaster aren’t too many atheists [in the underworld].” had rosary beads on him when he was shot for the Catholic Church”, adding: “I’d like him Mario Condello was one of several of the dead in a tussle with Dominic “Mick” Gatto in to speak more truth to sinners, as did Christ.’’ city’s mobsters who belatedly found God after a Carlton pizza shop in March 2004. APRIL 8-9 2006 / THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE 23 TTAM_0804_Mafia_priest.inddAM_0804_Mafia_priest.indd 2233 330/03/20060/03/2006 33:57:05:57:05 ORDEN’S LINKS WITH GANGLAND MOBSTERS says Norden. Gangitano feared that another gangster are as accidental as they are deliberate. The was seeking to harm him. “I gave him [Gangitano] some Melbourne-born Jesuit from a working class advice, telling him he would be wise to take whatever N Hawthorn family cut his teeth as a chaplain precautions necessary to protect himself. Alphonse inside the bleak bluestone walls of the city’s notorious ended up going to Italy for two years.” Pentridge Prison. It was only his second job after But eventually Gangitano’s enemies caught up being ordained in 1981 and the appalling conditions with him. Known as the Robert De Niro of Lygon inside Pentridge shocked Norden to the core. The Street for his sharp dressing, Gangitano was gunned experience forged a lasting sympathy for the plight of down in his underwear in the laundry of his inmates and a willingness to forgive the worst elements Templestowe home in 1998. His murder rocked of criminal behaviour. Melbourne’s underworld to the core and sparked the “In the prison, you saw it all from an angle that latest gangland war, in which 30 people have been shot others don’t have the opportunity of seeing,” he says. dead in a bitter tit-for-tat battle for control of the city’s In particular, he remains haunted by the day he had to lucrative amphetamines market. give last rites to the fi ve prisoners killed in the fi re that Another time, Norden found himself being tailed swept through the Jika Jika maximum security section by members of a police task force after he had accom- in 1987. “One by one I lifted the blankets off the panied two criminals, Trevor Pettingill and Tim Neville, bodies,” he recalls. “And as I was kneeling over them, to dinner at a restaurant owned by AFL football I looked up at the razor wire and realised this was a personality Robert “Dipper” DiPierdomenico. Pettingill system so destructive of human life.” was later charged and acquitted of the cold-blooded In the prison Norden met an extraordinary cast of ambush and murder of two police offi cers in Walsh high-profi le criminals who soon accepted him as their Street, South Yarra. Recalls Norden: “Dipper said to friend and confi dant. He met the safe-cracker Graham me later, ‘As soon as you and your crim mates left, the Kinniburgh, the conman Mario Condello, the celebrity undercovers came in and wanted to know exactly what crook Mark “Chopper” Read and many members of you were talking about.’ ” the infamous Pettingill/Allen crime family, who ruled DiPierdomenico remembers Norden often dropping Melbourne’s back streets during the brutal Painters in “with some of the well-known people in the Carlton and Dockers era. area”. “Every time he left, the criminal investigators Norden’s ability to befriend these men was such would come in and ask questions,” says Dipper. “I was that one prison offi cial suspected he had swapped sides thinking, ‘This is like the real gangster world.’ ” and was importing heroin into the prison.