Gerry Fenn—George Southworth: journalist and local promoter collaboration

Gerry Fenn and George Southworth’s relationship develops from an attempted recruitment into a conditional journalistic partnership. Southworth wants Fenn’s reporting to help shape the public account of Banfield’s cures and the proposed shrine; Fenn, alert to Southworth’s local and financial interests, agrees to cooperate without surrendering his right to publish what he believes the public should know.

First approaches and conflicting interests

Fenn initially encounters Southworth alongside Rodney Tucker, whose motives Fenn regards as openly commercial. Southworth is more difficult for him to assess: he acknowledges that Banfield’s revival could benefit him financially, yet also appears sincere in his belief that something divine has occurred. He presents the possible rebirth of Banfield and a renewal of local belief as further meanings of the cures, not simply as opportunities for profit. Fenn is therefore wary without treating Southworth as merely another exploiter; the combination of conviction and self-interest is precisely what makes the proposal hard to read.

Southworth’s first direct appeal is for Fenn to write further about what is becoming known as the Banfield Miracle. He takes the reporter’s earlier story as evidence that Fenn can generate attention, while Fenn recognizes that the local promoters want his work to contribute to their campaign. At a crowded service, Fenn’s own prospective article takes a more skeptical direction: he considers gullibility, superstition, avarice, and possible duplicity, and wonders how far the Church has discouraged or encouraged the miracle story. That judgment establishes the central tension in their relationship. Southworth seeks a journalist whose coverage can carry Banfield’s story outward; Fenn sees the same circumstances as material for investigation.

An offer of access and influence

As interest in Banfield grows, Southworth returns to the proposal in a more formal way. He invites Fenn to dinner and refers back to their earlier conversation, acknowledging that Fenn had once expected the story to fade. Southworth now argues that publicity is gathering momentum on its own, but suggests it may still need steering from within. His offer is not limited to a further newspaper article: Fenn is invited to write the complete story for any newspaper he works for, or as a book, and is promised access to parish-council meetings and to decisions, discussions, and plans concerning the affair.

The invitation places Fenn near the machinery of the local response. The dinner meeting is to address the development of a shrine at St. Joseph’s Church and Banfield’s role in it, with Southworth describing the need for cooperation between the parish council and the Church. Southworth is thus offering both reporting access and a position from which Fenn can observe how religious claims become civic plans. The arrangement would let Fenn report on the people promoting the site, but it also gives those people reason to hope his account will help direct public attention.

Negotiating the terms of cooperation

Southworth treats the two men as having an understanding, but Fenn immediately narrows what that means: their agreement is that he will write the truth. He accepts a distinction between accurate, unexaggerated reporting and the promoters’ wish to protect private lives or soften potentially embarrassing disclosures. In Fenn’s view, the first vision has already made the affair public not only for Alice Pagett but for her family and Banfield as a whole. He reserves to himself the decision about what embarrassment must be disclosed.

Fenn makes the limit explicit when he agrees to proceed only on the proviso that he may publish information if withholding it would, in his judgment, be morally wrong. He does not accuse Southworth or the Church of lying; his concern is that information damaging to the Church’s image might be withheld. Southworth’s relief when Fenn accepts the arrangement suggests that access depends on reaching terms, but the terms do not make Fenn a spokesperson. Their cooperation rests on a boundary Fenn insists upon: Southworth may open doors and state what he hopes the story will achieve, but he cannot dictate the resulting account.

The investigation as a test of trust

That boundary matters when the medical findings become part of their discussions. During the dinner, Southworth urges Monsignor Delgard to tell those present what the medical team has found to date. The findings distinguish Alice’s restored hearing and speech from evidence of physical repair: examinations show no discernible damage to the organs of her ears and throat, supporting the earlier view that her disability had psychological origins. For Fenn, reporting such details means keeping the public story answerable to medical evidence rather than letting the label of miracle settle the matter in advance.

The Church’s investigative procedures provide a related point of reference for the relationship. The bishop says claims of this kind require thorough examination under strict guidelines; the public statement on the cures likewise describes medical scrutiny, individual dossiers, and review by an international committee. Fenn’s access to these deliberations makes him useful to Southworth’s project, but also allows him to examine how the promoters and Church authorities define what may be claimed. The account is not simply a shared campaign: it is a working arrangement in which access brings scrutiny as well as publicity.

An uneasy alliance

Southworth and Fenn cooperate because each has something the other needs. Southworth can offer proximity to council planning and the Church’s response; Fenn can reach readers beyond Banfield and give the developing story a sustained public form. Yet their aims remain distinct. Southworth speaks of local renewal and divine significance while acknowledging material benefit; Fenn is interested in the same claims partly because they raise questions about promotion, institutional conduct, and what the evidence can establish.

The result is a partnership without full alignment. Southworth tries to recruit and, as he puts it, steer Fenn from inside the process. Fenn accepts the invitation and the access, but keeps editorial judgment—including the power to reveal withheld information—under his own control. Their relationship therefore makes the reporting itself part of the contest over Banfield: the local project seeks to organize the story, while the reporter’s conditional cooperation preserves the possibility that publication will expose tensions its promoters would prefer to manage.