Sri Lanka
Daily Mirror

December 14, 2020

By Stephanie Perie

With the recent rise in child abuse in Sri Lanka, I believe it is as good a time as any to put in my two cents regarding the matter. Here’s a side to abuse most of us don’t talk of and some of us don’t know of.

John Joseph Geoghan was born to an Irish Catholic family in 1935 in Boston where he later attended local parochial schools. After graduating from Holy Cross College, he joined Cardinal O’Connell Seminary and was ordained in 1962. In an assessment conducted in 1954, his seniors inferred he had “pronounced immaturity.”

On February 13, 1962, he was appointed assistant pastor at the Blessed Sacrament Parish in Saugus, Massachusetts, where Anthony Benezevich observed and reported to church officials of Geoghan’s habit of escorting boys to his quarters. On September 22, 1966, Geoghan was assigned…