UNITED STATES
Minnesota Public Radio
By Madeleine Baran · July 21, 2014
· CHAPTER THREE OF FOUR ·
On Jan. 6, 2002, the Boston Globe published a story that would lead to the worst scandal in the history of the U.S. Catholic Church. It showed that Cardinal Bernard Law kept the Rev. John Geoghan in ministry for years despite allegations of child sexual abuse. Geoghan was accused of abusing more than 100 children.
Although similar cover-ups had been reported in Louisiana and Minnesota years earlier, the Boston scandal was different — it happened in one of the wealthiest cities on the East Coast with an aggressive media and one of the most powerful archdioceses in the world.
Nearly every day, the Boston Globe published more disturbing revelations. Newspapers reported similar cover-ups in other dioceses. Donations dried up, parishioners began to leave the church, and hundreds of lawsuits hit dioceses across the country as victims came forward. It got so bad that some Catholics speculated that Satan had created the crisis to destroy the church. The faith of the nation’s 65 million Catholics and the wealth and reputation of the church were at risk. Soon the clamor reached the Vatican.
Faced with the worst scandal yet, bishops panicked. Familiar strategies — expressing regret, vowing to help victims, blaming the media — no longer worked. They decided they needed a national response led by a bishop with credibility.
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