John Geoghan

John Joseph Geoghan was born in Boston on June 4, 1935, to an Irish Catholic family. He lost his father when he was five years old and was subsequently raised by his maternal uncle, Mark Keohane, who was a Catholic priest within the archdiocese of Boston. Geoghan attended local parochial schools. Intending to become a priest after his father's death, he attended Cardinal O'Connell Seminary. An assessment in 1954 noted he had a "very pronounced immaturity". He graduated in 1962 and was ordained. ==Career==

On February 13, 1962, Geoghan was assigned as an assistant pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Saugus, Massachusetts. That December, he talked a man out of committing suicide by jumping off the Mystic River Bridge. While Geoghan was assigned to Blessed Sacrament, Rev. Anthony Benzevich allegedly told church officials that the junior priest was observed bringing boys into his bedroom. Benzevich would later deny the allegation. In 1998, Benzevich told reporters he was branded as a troublemaker for reporting Geoghan and that church officials hinted he might be sent to Peru if he persisted. In 1995, Geoghan admitted to having molested four boys during his tenure at Blessed Sacrament. On November 28, 1990, Banks recommended that Geoghan return to the parish but left the decision up to Cardinal Law and another bishop. On October 23, 1991, the church received a complaint about Geoghan's "proselytizing" with a boy at a pool. ==Retirement==

In 1993, Geoghan retired from active ministry at the age of 58. He moved into the Regina Cleri residence for retired priests. Three years later, after more allegations surfaced against him, he spent several months in therapy in the Southdown Institute in Ontario, Canada. ==Sexual abuse charges==

During a 30-year career in six parishes, Geoghan was accused of sexual abuse involving more than 130 boys. He was prosecuted in Cambridge on charges of molestation that took place in 1991. Geoghan was defrocked in 1998 by Pope John Paul II. He was found guilty on February 21, 2002, of indecent assault and battery for grabbing the buttocks of a 10-year-old boy in a swimming pool at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club in 1991, and was sentenced to nine to ten years in prison. After initially agreeing to a $30-million settlement with 86 of Geoghan's victims, the Boston archdiocese pulled out of it, finally settling with them for $10 million. Boston's Suffolk County prosecuted Geoghan in two other sexual abuse cases. One case was dropped without prejudice when the alleged victim decided not to testify. In the second case, a judge dismissed the conviction of Geoghan in two rapes after hotly contested arguments, because the statute of limitations had run out. The commonwealth's appeal of that ruling was active at the time of Geoghan's death. The remaining charges of indecent assault in that case were still pending prosecution. ==Murder==

On August 23, 2003, while in protective custody at the maximum security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster, Geoghan was strangled and stomped to death in his cell by inmate Joseph Lee Druce (born Darrin Ernest Smiledge; April 15, 1965). Druce was serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for killing a man who allegedly made sexual advances toward him. Geoghan was trapped in his cell by Druce, who jammed the door closed so correction officers could not reach him. Druce then strangled and stomped Geoghan to death. An autopsy revealed Geoghan's cause of death to be "ligature strangulation and blunt chest trauma". Druce was said to have planned the murder of Geoghan for more than a month, considering him a "prize". Druce had been sexually abused in a boarding school as a child. Also, because Geoghan had taught another inmate how to sexually abuse children, Druce's crimes were partly due to the fact that he felt he had to take revenge on all child sexual abusers. The press raised questions about prison officials' judgment in placing the two men in the same unit for protective custody. In addition, prison officials had been warned by an inmate that Druce intended to attack Geoghan. It was noted that while two officers are normally stationed in the unit where Geoghan and Druce were being held, there was only one officer in the unit at the time because one had left temporarily to escort another inmate to a medical station. Union officials had noted previous staffing cuts at the prison, which they felt led to the prison being a more dangerous and volatile place. It has also been suggested Druce had been offered money to kill Geoghan or that Druce thought he would gain prestige from fellow prisoners for doing so. Department of Correction officials investigated who posted the video, as it was from an internal security camera. Geoghan was buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts, on August 28, 2003. ==Effects of the Geoghan case on other church leaders==

Robert Joseph Banks Robert Joseph Banks, then an auxiliary bishop in Boston, had recommended in 1989 that Geoghan remain as a parish priest despite receiving an assessment that he would likely continue to act on his pedophilia. Banks was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay in 1990. He retired in 2003, having reached the church's mandatory retirement age of 75 years. John Michael D'Arcy John Michael D'Arcy, who had written an unheeded letter of warning to Cardinal Law about Geoghan's behavior, was transferred from Boston to Indiana on February 26, 1985, and ended his career as bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend. D'Arcy retired in 2009 and died in 2013. Bernard Francis Law After Cardinal Law resigned as Boston's archbishop in December 2002, he relocated to Rome in 2004 where he served as archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, the largest Catholic Marian church in Rome. It was "commonly believed that he would live out his retirement in Rome" after he retired at age 80 in 2011. Law died in Rome on December 20, 2017. ==In popular culture==

Canadian punk-rock band Billy Talent's song "Devil in a Midnight Mass" from the album Billy Talent II (2006) addresses Geoghan's story from a victim's perspective. Bob Rivers recorded a parody of "Keep Your Hands to Yourself", originally by the Georgia Satellites, about Geoghan. The 2015 film Spotlight depicts the Boston Globe investigation into the Boston Archdiocese, spurred by Geoghan's trial that would lead to his eventual imprisonment. Geoghan is briefly depicted in the film in a scene taking place in 1976 at a Boston police station, played by an uncredited actor. ==See also==