Former priest convicted of abuse
By CHUCK COLBERT and GILL
DONOVAN Boston
Local diocesan members of the clergy are reeling and dealing as
best they can with the continuing story of alleged sexual abuse and misconduct
of a former colleague, the now-defrocked priest, John J. Geoghan.
Middlesex Superior Court recently found Geoghan, 66, guilty of
sexually abusing a 10-year old boy in a suburban Boston public swimming pool a
decade ago.
In a related development, the Suffolk County Superior Court
released previously sealed documents and letters that show Geoghan receiving
gentle treatment from members of the hierarchy who demonstrate little concern
for the victims of his abuse.
Though the conviction is the least serious of the three criminal
cases, Geoghan could be sentenced to as much as 10 years in prison for the
crime. Judge Sandra Hamlin has ordered Geoghan to undergo psychiatric
evaluation for 30 days prior to sentencing.
The laicized priest faces two more criminal cases -- with
allegations of rape and sexual assault -- scheduled to go to trial in nearby
Suffolk Superior Court in the coming months.
Following the conviction, Boston Cardinal Bernard Law said that
the Geoghan case and his handling of it has been the most difficult thing
Ive had to face in my whole life.
Geoghan is to begin his second trial Feb. 20 for charges that he
raped a 7-year-old boy. The archdiocese has reportedly settled 50 civil suits
with Geoghans alleged victims for more than $10 million. More than 80
other civil trials are pending.
Geoghan, who was ordained in 1962, was retired from active
ministry in 1994. The following year news reports about his sexual abuse of
children began to surface and more victims came forward, unveiling a pattern
over decades in which Geoghan gained access to children, faced accusations,
received psychiatric treatment and returned to work, supposedly cured. As press
reports of abuse mounted, he was involuntarily laicized in 1998.
The victim in the assault trial, now a 20-year-old college
student, testified that in 1991 Geoghan approached him at a swimming pool,
offering to teach him to dive. After 10 to 15 minutes of verbal coaching, he
said, the priest put his hand under his shorts in the pool and squeezed his
buttocks.
New Orleans new archbishop, Alfred C. Hughes, who was
Geoghans surpervisor in Boston at the time of the incident, was among the
witnesses who testified against Geoghan. Hughes said that after receiving a
warning that Geoghans proselytizing at the pool could be
open to prurient interpretation, Hughes instructed Geoghan to stay
away from the pool. Hughes said, however, that he had not received word of an
assault when he gave Geoghan the order.
Geoghan did not testify at the trial.
The jury deliberated about eight hours before delivering its
verdict.
News reports of the court trial and numerous pending charges have
been ricocheting throughout the local archdiocese for more than two weeks,
making local headlines in both daily newspapers, The Boston Globe and
Boston Herald, as well as grabbing airtime in local broadcast outlets
throughout the city.
Details surfaced
On Jan. 6, details of Geoghans history of sexual abuse
surfaced when the Globe began a several-part Spotlight
series, reporting not only the charges and allegations, but also the pending
release of thousands of legal documents, depositions, psychiatric reports,
memoranda, and other correspondence relevant to the Geoghan case. The
Globe fought successfully in court to have the documents released to the
public.
The documents, released Jan. 23, reveal the archdioceses
gentle treatment of Geoghan and a near-complete disregard for Geoghans
victims. Letters to Geoghan from former Boston Cardinal Humberto S. Medeiros
and from Bernard Law, Bostons current leader, are void of criticism.
Among the released documents was a 1996 letter from Law to Geoghan
in which Law wrote: Yours has been an effective life of ministry, sadly
impaired by illness. On behalf of those you have served well, and in my own
name, I would like to thank you. By 1996, Geoghan had been taken out of
four parishes in a row for child sex abuse.
Information that has surfaced a day after the release of the
hundreds of church records includes:
- The testimony of several priests that as early as 1966 Geoghan
was accused of bringing altar boys into his rectory room.
- Bishop Thomas V. Dailys reply in a deposition to a
question about why he didnt take decisive action when told by a woman
that Geoghan had abused her sons and nephews: I am not a policeman; I am
a shepherd. Daily, who had been Geoghans supervisor, has since been
promoted to head the Brooklyn, N.Y., diocese.
- A note written in 1989 by Bishop Robert J. Banks, who had also
been a supervisor of Geoghan. Banks wrote down a psychiatrists verbal
recommendation to him about Geoghan: You better clip his wings before
there is an explosion. ... You cant afford to have him in a parish.
The psychiatrists name appearing above the quote is Dr.
Brennan. Yet 18 months later, psychiatrist John Brennan would report,
I have known Father Geoghan since February 1980. There is no psychiatric
contraindication to Fr. Geoghans pastoral work at this time. In
1990, Banks would recommend Geoghan become a pastor. Banks has since been
promoted to head the Green Bay, Wis., diocese.
After making his public apology, Law said, However much I
regret having assigned him, it is important to recall that John Geoghan was
never assigned by me to a parish without psychiatric or medical assessments
indicating that such assignments were appropriate. However, since that
apology, the credentials of two of the doctors Law relied on have come under
heavy scrutiny. Geoghans general practitioner, Dr. Robert W. Mullins, has
told the Globe that he has no specialized training in psychoanalysis,
even though he did psychoanalyze Geoghan and cleared him to return to work.
Another doctor, psychiatrist John Brennan, who in 1984 said Geoghan was
fully recovered, had no experience treating sex offenders other
than Geoghan. Further, he has been sued by two female patients for molesting
them. One of the suits was settled for $100,000.
The day after the church records were released, Law gathered more
than 500 Boston-diocesan priests for a 24-hour convocation that was closed to
the press.
Fr. Walter F. Cuenin, pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians Church
in Newton, Mass., attended the gathering on Jan 22 at the Park Plaza Hotel,
located in downtown Boston.
Hard time for
everyone
This is a hard time for everyone in Boston -- laity and
clergy alike, he said during a telephone interview.
At the parish level I dont see a great disaffection
from the church, he added. People ask me about the finances. Our
collections are up.
While people are upset over the matter, they are able to
make a distinction between the local church and their experience of parish
worship, he said, drawing a comparison to the way people feel about
government. They get mad at Congress, but not their
congressman.
Cuenin acknowledged, however, that the ongoing story starts
to wear on you.
He added, We need to talk about this in our churches. We
have to name the elephant in the room. Everybody seems to feel better with
acknowledgment.
Another priest, who asked not to be identified, agreed with
Cuenins assessment, You cant help but be affected by all of
this, he said. Our feelings range from embarrassment to fear,
he added.
Oh, my god, the parishioners are going to think this of me.
Believe me, this stuff takes its toll. Anyone in ministry is subject to public
opinion --more so than we would like to admit. If people express hostility
toward you and you feel under attack and scrutiny, then your response in
pastoral situations is much more guarded and defensive, he said.
Several days earlier, Msgr. Peter V. Conley, pastor of St. Jude
Parish in Norfolk, Mass., who is also the executive editor of The Pilot,
the official newspaper of the Boston archdiocese, expressed a similar view.
Its disgusting. It is as if someone has splashed into
a puddle and sprayed the mud onto us, he told a reporter from the
Boston Herald.
Reports of hostility
Reports of hostility to local priests have surfaced. One priest,
for instance, experienced verbal abuse firsthand while taking a walk in his
parish. Said another priest of his friends encounter: He thought
the motorist had stopped to ask for directions. But as the driver rolled down
the window and passed by, he yelled, You f---ing pervert.
Still other reports tell of more measured and deliberate
reactions. One priest said that he heard accounts of parishioners -- furious
over the scandal -- who clipped Globe news accounts, signed them, and
returned the articles in response to the cardinals appeal for the capital
campaign.
Meanwhile, Law continues to grieve and apologize. He did so at the
convocation. Its a difficult time for him, said Cuenin.
He was much more open yesterday [Jan. 22] than at the previous press
conference [Jan 9]. There was a different tone, genuine and
more apologetic, he said. Yesterday, his sorrow really came
through.
Law continues to draw support from the clergy, although calls for
his resignation continue. Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson, for
instance, called for Law to resign, citing Laws loss of credibility as
leader of the archdiocese.
In an opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal
Jan. 18, Charles Molineaux, a member of the Knights of Malta, said Law
should resign and took issue with Laws reasoning that the church
has been on a learning curve regarding pedophilia. It was
surprising to read, wrote Molineaux, that the church, after 2,000
years of experience with sin and recidivism, is on some sort of
business-management learning curve about such ghastly and repeated
conduct.
My resignation is not part of the solution as I see
it, Law said, according to the Globe.
Priests greeted Laws announcement that he would not
resign with applause, the Globe also reported.
Reactions among the laity are perhaps the strongest. One person, a
Catholic college-educated woman with more than 20 years of lay ministry in the
archdiocese, who asked that her name be withheld, summed up her reaction to the
scandal this way: The cardinal should resign without question. It
doesnt take a doctorate in psychology or psychiatry to know that the rape
of young children is categorically wrong. To say that we didnt know at
the time is a rather lame excuse.
Referring to mothers of the alleged victims who wrote letters to
the local hierarchy concerning Geoghans misbehavior, she said, It
seems to me that women were reaching out to the cardinal and his bishops. Once
again the voices of women seem to have been ignored.
But, she said, what really makes me angry is that pastoral
ministers who have been serving the church for their entire lives can be pulled
out of such ministry at the drop of a hat -- just as teachers who have given
their entire lives to teaching in the church are yanked out of classrooms and
silenced for thinking freely. Yet, the hierarchy tolerates a known pedophile
for three decades. Now something is seriously wrong here.
Chuck Colbert is a freelance writer who lives in Cambridge,
Mass. Gill Donovan is NCRs proofreader and a news
writer.
National Catholic Reporter, February 1,
2002
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