Pedophile Trials Entangle Church

By Tom Mashberg
Boston (MA) Herald
January 13, 2002

It is nothing less than the Archdiocese of Boston on trial.

Tomorrow morning, in Middlesex Superior Court, a defrocked priest and alleged serial pedophile named John J. Geoghan, 66, of Scituate, will face criminal prosecution on one count of molesting an 11-year-old boy in Waltham in 1991.

But that case, disturbing as it is, will serve mostly as the prelude to a drumbeat of litigation against Geoghan and his clerical supervisors over allegations spanning three decades - and as the baleful tolling of what looks to be annus horribilis for the Catholic Church.

"How can there be anything but a devastating erosion of trust in the clergy as a result of this?" said David J. O'Brien, author of "American Catholics and Public Life" and a professor of Roman Catholic studies at Holy Cross. "And that can only be bad for the future of the church and for society in general."

In the coming weeks, an unprecedented amount of information - internal documents, psychological reports and sworn depositions - will emerge detailing the handling of the Geoghan molestation scandal by the archdiocese, by five of its former bishops, and by its archbishop, Bernard Cardinal Law.

Much of that material, kept under seal at the behest of Law and his attorneys, is expected to be opened by court order on Jan. 25.

But a barebones preview of it, in the form of unsealed preliminary filings, sits in Suffolk Superior Court as part of an upcoming civil suit against Geoghan brought by at least 84 of his 118 accusers.

That material alone makes plain Law was familiar with Geoghan's movements from 1984, the year Law first came to Boston, until 1998, the year Geoghan was jettisoned from the priesthood.

During Law's tenure, and for two decades before then, Geoghan circulated with few if any restrictions among the parishes of Boston and its suburbs - despite a history of admitted pedophilic behavior and a series of negative or at best dubious psychological evaluations.

In his defense, Law said, "John Geoghan was never assigned by me to a parish without psychiatric or medical assessments indicating such assignments were appropriate." He also notes that he himself arranged for Geoghan to be ejected from the priesthood, in 1998.

"Our knowledge and experience in dealing with such cases have evolved both within the church and society as a whole," he said.

But to what degree Boston's diocesan hierarchy, under Law's governance, was aware that Geoghan posed a serious threat to children - even as the recidivist and admitted molester was permitted to minister in Boston, Weston, Weymouth and Waltham - is likely to emerge in the sealed documents.

In addition, Law himself will become one of the few U.S. bishops ever questioned under oath about inner church workings. As a defendant in the multiple civil proceedings brought forth by Geoghan's accusers, which will either be settled or come to trial once the criminal cases end, Law is slated to be deposed by Mitchell Garabedian, attorney for the civil plaintiffs.

"My intent is to ask the cardinal what happened, when it happened, and why," Garabedian said. And while refusing in any way to characterize the documents that are to be unsealed in 13 days, Garabedian added: "Common sense would dictate that the Catholic Church and its leaders were negligent in their supervisory duties with regard to the protection of parish children."

The Boston scandal stands apart in the annals of priestly pedophilia cases because it has entangled not just a cardinal, but five local bishops who have since moved on to leadership roles in other dioceses.

(They are: Bishops Thomas V. Daley of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Robert J. Banks of Green Bay, Wis.; William F. Murphy of Rockville Center, N.Y.; John B. McCormack of Manchester, N.H.; and Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes of New Orleans.)

It also reaches back to the tenure of Law's predecessor, Humberto Cardinal Medeiros, who was informed of Geoghan's depradations in the 1970s but nonetheless assigned him to St. Brendan's Church in Dorchester in 1981.

As a monsignor in the 1960s, Medeiros is also accused of shuffling around defrocked priest and child molester James Porter, who was exposed in 1992 after having abused as many as 100 boys while serving in the Fall River diocese - a pedophilia scandal that up until the Geoghan case had looked to be the worst ever involving a priest.

"All too often, in these cases, complaints are disregarded, or the priest is given the benefit of the doubt," said Tom Fox, publisher of The National Catholic Reporter, the weekly credited with exposing the nationwide crisis of pedophiles in the priesthood in the mid-1980s.

"The dioceses will traditionally show little regard for the pain and suffering inflicted on the families," Fox said. "Only lawsuits seem to prompt local hierarchies to take real action. The policy was almost always to shuttle abusers around, or to come up with policies aimed at protecting the careers of priests rather than protecting victims."

Religious institutions have traditionally enjoyed enormous self-policing and privacy privileges. The Catholic rites of confession and spiritual guidance, for example, have long received formal immunities from legal investigations.

This is based in part on public policy imperatives that view some forms of secret confession as vital to bolstering Judeo-Christian society. And in part on a desire by the church to wield its canon law free from secular interference.

Yet one result of this "legal system within a legal system" is that internal documents regarding clerical discipline have rarely come to light, although some files emerged in the 1990s as a result of pedophilia lawsuits targeting archdioceses in Texas, Kentucky and Louisiana.

As O'Brien of Holy Cross said: "We grant these kinds of exemptions to the church because it is regarded as culturally and socially valuable. People do have profound convictions about their faith.

"But we also have to beware of that impulse inside the Catholic Church that is institutionally protective," he said. "There must be accountability in a democracy beyond simply internal procedures."

That is why it was a groundbreaking development last month, O'Brien said, when the state Appeals Court upheld a Superior Court decision ordering that most of the sealed Geoghan documents be made public, despite protestation by the church. The rulings arose as the result of motions by The Boston Globe, which reported extensively on the preliminary Geoghan materials last week.

Aware now that weeks of revelations surely lie ahead in the thousands of pages to be unsealed, Law held a televised news conference on Wednesday at which he apologized abjectly and repeatedly for his role in the Geoghan case.

"Before God," he declared, "it was not then, nor is it my intent now, to protect a priest accused of misconduct against minors."

But his 1,000-word statement contained repeated admonitions that he reinstated Geoghan as an active priest only after psychologists and other mental health experts assured him the predatory priest was "cured" of his disease.

Onlookers say Law's ostensible reliance on the recommendations of therapists will serve as the linchpin of his and the diocese's defense in the civil suits brought by Garabedian and his clients - suits likely to cost the diocese millions if judgments fall in line with similar payouts around the nation.

Law's lawyer, Wilson D. Rogers Jr., who has otherwise declined to comment on the Geoghan case, indicated as much in The Pilot, the archdiocesan weekly, last July.

In a front-page letter, Rogers wrote: "Each assignment of John Geoghan, subsequent to the first complaint of sexual misconduct, was incident to an independent medical evaluation advising that such assignment was appropriate and safe." That statement was prompted by Law's first, written admission that he was made aware of Geoghan's pedophilic past in 1984, within six months of his installation as Boston's archbishop.

But Garabedian and his clients are sure to contest claims by Law that he was acting on firm medical grounds each time he reassigned Geoghan. Until now, neither the complete texts of the many medical evaluations of Geoghan done by psychologists over the years - nor any of the civil-suit depositions conducted with those practitioners - have been made public.

"I have to ask myself, 'Why is he apologizing now?' " said Garabedian. "What is he apologizing for?"

Once the full record is known, experts say, the archdiocese may well find itself skating close to allegations of obstruction of justice, or of being an accessory after the fact, for never having reported Geoghan's crimes to civil authorities. It was not until Wednesday that Law finally ordered all church personnel to be "mandatory reporters," meaning that they must henceforth report credible allegations of molestation to the state.

While the statute of limitations for criminal counts has expired on most of the Geoghan accusations, those dating from the late 1980s through 1995 remain prosecutable.

"On the matter of conspiracy or obstruction or being an accessory, you cannot close the door to those possibilities," said O'Brien. "But that would be a matter that would have to be properly adjudicated."

Such prosecutorial measures would represent the extreme and frightening outcome of a scourge infecting one of the nation's great religions. Still, some experts say such steps might finally force the Catholic leadership to confront a crisis that is infuriating the faithful and driving many from their pews.

"The church has been on trial for pedophilia for two decades now," said Fox of the Catholic Reporter. "That is how long these cases have been in the courts.

"The sad thing is, the church appears only reluctantly to deal with these issues," he said. "It does so in a reactive manner, or as a last resort, instead of coming up with absolute policies and principles and mandating them across the board."

[Photo caption: More than 130 people have alleged they were molested as children by ex-priest John J. Geoghan, including (from left) Mark Keane, Patrick McSorley and Anthony Muzzi. Their stories, Page 9. Staff photo by Renee DeKona.]

[Photo caption: Apologetic: Bernard Cardinal Law spoke publicly last week about his knowledge of the ex-priest John J. Geoghan, saying he only reassigned him to other parishes after 'appropriate' medical evaluations. Staff file photo by George Martell.]