Priests can do cures if they will, and it's not out of the Gospel they do them, but out of a book specially for the purpose, so I believe. But something falls on them or on the things belonging to them, if they do it too often.
But Father Keeley for certain did cures. It was he cured Mike Madden's neck, when everyone else had failed—so they had—though Mike has never confessed to it.
The priests can do cures surely, and surely they can put harm on you. But they wouldn't do that unless they'd be sure a man would deserve it. One time at that house you see up there beyond, Roche's, there was a wedding and there was some fighting came out of it, and bad blood. And Father Boyle was priest at that time, and he was vexed and he said he'd come and have stations at the house, and they should all be reconciled.
So he came on the day he appointed and the house was settled like a chapel, and some of the people there was bad blood between came, but not all of them, and Roche himself was not there. And when the stations were over Father Boyle got his book, and he read the names of those he had told to be there, and they answered, like a schoolmaster would call out the names of his scholars. And when Roche's name was read and he not there to answer, with the dint of madness Father Boyle quenched the candles on the altar, and he said this house and all that belong to it will go away to nothing, like the froth that's going down the river.
And if you look at the house now you'll see the way it is, not a stable or an outhouse left standing, and not one of the whole family left in it but Roche, and he paralysed. So they can do both harm and good.
There was a man out in the mountains used to do cures, and one day on a little road the priest met him, and stopped his car and began to abuse him for the cures he was doing.
And then the priest went on, and when he had gone a bit of the road his horse fell down. And he came back and called to the man and said, "Come help me now, for this is your doing, to make the horse fall." And the man said, "It's none of my doing, but it's the doing of my master, for he was vexed with the way you spoke. But go back now and you'll find the horse as he was before." So he went back and the horse had got up and was standing, and nothing wrong with him at all. And the priest said no more against him from that day.