John Geoghan
 |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page John Geoghan contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
|
John J. Geoghan (June 4, 1935 – August 23, 2003) was an American Roman Catholic priest and serial child rapist while he was assigned to parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston in Massachusetts. He was re-assigned to several parish posts involving interaction with children, even after receiving treatment for pedophilia.
The investigation and prosecution of Geoghan was one of numerous cases of priests accused of sexual abuse in a scandal that rocked the archdiocese in the 1990s and 2000s. It led to the resignation of Boston's archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, on December 13, 2002. Law lost the support of fellow clergy and the laity after it was shown that his response to allegations against dozens of priests consisted of assigning them to different parishes, thus allowing sexual abuse of additional children to take place. Geoghan was finally convicted of sexual abuse, laicized, and sentenced in 2002 to nine to ten years in Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison. Less than a year later, he was murdered there by Joseph Druce, an inmate serving a life sentence. The Boston Globe 's coverage of Geoghan's abuse opened the door for public knowledge of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston and sexual abuse by priests in the United States in general. This coverage is a key plot element of the movie Spotlight that was released in 2015.
Biography edit
John Joseph Geoghan was born in 1935 in Boston to a family of Irish Catholics. After attending several parochial schools, Geoghan began training to become a priest at Cardinal O'Connell Seminary, and in 1962 he was ordained. He was assigned to be an assistant pastor and later that year successfully talked an unknown man out of killing himself by jumping off the Mystic River Bridge in Saugus, Massachusetts. While there, Geoghan was accused of bringing young boys into his bedroom by Reverend Anthony Benzevich, who later said he was branded as a troublemaker by church officials for making this accusation. He was later transferred to St. Paul's Parish in Hingham, the reason for which is still unknown, where a man claimed Geoghan had molested his son just a year into Geoghan's time there. This accusation resulted in Geoghan being sent to an institute in Baltimore to have treatment for his paedophilia. Another parishioner later accused Geoghan of molesting her four children, however no action was taken against Geoghan.
In 1980, Rev. John Thomas told bishop Thomas Daily that Geoghan had confessed to the molestation of seven children. When Daily called Geoghan, Geoghan admitted this, but said he did not feel that it was serious. Three days later, Geoghan was placed on sick leave and forced to undergo psychotherapy. He later returned to the parish, but was removed after further accusations of paedophilia.
Having been assigned to St. Julia's Parish, Geoghan was placed in charge of three youth groups, despite concerns from several priests. Two years later, more sexual abuse allegations were made against him and he was diagnosed with homosexual paedophilia. He was suspended and the church later received complaints about him groping a ten-year old boy at a public pool. He retired in 1993 and a year later confessed to molesting four boys while in Saugus. He was charged with a case of sexual assault (the boy at the pool), defrocked and eventually found guilty. While in prison, he was murdered by Joseph Druce. This caused problems for many prison officials, who had been warned repeatedly that Druce planned to kill Geoghan.
Legacy edit
Geoghan was accused of sexually abusing over 130 boys, making him one of the most prolific paedophiles in history.