THE ANTICLIMACTIC feel of Geoghan’s trial could hardly have been anticipated just two weeks ago. At that time, two back-to-back Spotlight Team reports in the Boston Globe revived interest in the mass of allegations pending against the former priest, along with the Boston archdiocese and Cardinal Law’s reckless history in dealing with the matter. (Editor’s note: the Phoenix covered much of the same ground last year in three articles, "Cardinal Law, the Church, and Pedophilia," March 23, 2001; "Cutthroat Tactics," August 24, 2001; and "Failure to Act," October 5, 2001. For full coverage, go to BostonPhoenix.com and click on "Cardinal Law and Child Abuse.") On January 9, Law responded by staging a dramatic press conference. Dressed in the simple black cassock of a Catholic priest, he apologized humbly and repeatedly to victims of clergy sexual abuse and "in a special way with heartfelt sorrow to those abused by John Geoghan ... particularly those who were abused in assignments which I made." He also pledged a "zero-tolerance" policy requiring clergy to report allegations to police, as dozens of other professions are legally required to do in this state.
The apology was too little, too late, but it had the desired effect. The following morning, the Globe trumpeted the news across its front page: a ‘GRIEVING’ LAW APOLOGIZES FOR ASSIGNMENT OF GEOGHAN. The Boston Herald, too, led a two-page spread on the press conference with the banner headline: ‘I AM SORRY’ — CONTRITE LAW UNVEILS PEDOPHILE PRIEST POLICY. The apology even captured the attention of big-foot national news outfits like the New York Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times, and CNN. The cardinal had — temporarily, at least — neutralized his culpability. And since last week’s conviction, he has made use of the strategy to diffuse general anger. On January 18, Law spokesperson Donna Morrissey released a three-paragraph statement implying that the cardinal was "grateful" for the guilty verdict. "On behalf of the Archdiocese of Boston," the statement read, "we again apologize to all victims of sexual abuse by clergy, and their families, and in particular, those abused by John Geoghan."
In the torrent of coverage, Law comes across as a sympathetic figure. It’s rarely mentioned, for instance, that the Geoghan scandal had already prompted the cardinal to apologize at least twice to victims of child molestation by priests. Last July, after news broke that Law had admitted in court records to receiving a 1984 letter outlining the former priest’s pedophilia, the cardinal publicly lamented the "heinous act" of clergy sexual abuse and "the anguish experienced by victims." In June 1998, after Geoghan’s "laicization" (return to layman’s status), Law offered up another ceremonial apology and held a series of "healing Masses." Still, his January 9 mea culpa — despite its calculated nature — was hailed as an extraordinary expression of remorse from one of the Catholic Church’s highest-ranking American prelates.
Sympathy for Law may have been all the greater since, for all the hype, last week’s criminal trail seemed to fall so flat. Proceedings in the Middlesex case began last Wednesday with testimony from the victim — now a short, trim 20-year-old man with carrot-red hair and a goatee. The college junior (whose name is withheld by court order) mounted the witness stand and recalled his 1991 encounter with Geoghan, then a priest at St. Julia’s Parish, in Weston. When he was 10 years old, he said, he went to the pool at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club. He had gone there with his mother and sister, neither of whom could swim. So he was in the pool alone, teaching himself to dive. Within minutes, he said, Geoghan approached and asked if he’d like some help. Geoghan coached the boy for 15 minutes and then, as the victim relayed, "I felt a hand going up the back of my leg." He wore shorts — and nothing else. "The hand reached my butt," he added, "and squeezed."
Many courtroom observers just leaned forward, as though eager to hear more. But the victim’s testimony didn’t turn out to be especially compelling. It wasn’t that he didn’t appear credible. While on the stand, he described his years volunteering for the Salvation Army and the Waltham Public Library. He spoke in such a soft, gentle voice that the jury had to ask him to repeat himself. Still, there were no strained pauses, much less a teary-eyed outbreak. And when questioned by Geoghan’s attorney, Geoffrey Packard, the victim acknowledged that he had suffered neither physical nor emotional injuries. The encounter came down to a one-time incident that lasted seconds. As one Boston-based reporter for an international news agency put it: "The act seems trivial. If I knew nothing about Geoghan, I’d be, like, ‘What’s the big deal?’ "
As it turns out, the prosecution’s case featured one of the weakest allegations yet lodged against the defrocked priest, who is suspected of fondling, assaulting, and raping more than 100 children throughout his 31-year career at the Boston archdiocese. And the case was made even weaker by the victim’s own mother — a squat, robust woman who looked about 40. She painted a starkly different picture of that fateful day in the fall of 1991. She explained that she, her son, and her daughter had gone to the Waltham club to swim. She was wading in the pool’s shallow end while her son was diving on the opposite side. After 45 minutes, when a lifeguard ordered everyone out of the pool, her son asked her to leave. She met him in the lobby moments later and noticed his wet pants. He hadn’t changed into dry clothes because, she implied, he was too upset. Eventually, he blurted out that Geoghan had caressed him. "He said, ‘Father Geoghan touched me on the bum,’ " she recalled.
The account, at first blush, seemed to corroborate the victim’s. But when questioned by Packard, discrepancies between the two versions became apparent. The mother acknowledged that she reported the incident to the Waltham Police Department in November 1999 — eight years later, right after she and her son had filed a civil lawsuit against Geoghan and Church officials. In her police affidavit, the mother testified that she had dated the encounter back to 1992, when her son was 11 years old. She’d also portrayed the incident in a rather benign light. Her son, she told police, had explained to her that Geoghan put both hands on his behind while he was climbing out of the pool, as if to hoist him up.
Her testimony evoked grimaces in the courtroom. After all, the prosecution’s case depended on these two witnesses — yet their stories didn’t match. By the first day, in fact, conventional wisdom had it that the case would flop. Outside Courtroom 6A, reporters circled the three other Geoghan accusers who had shown up to watch the January 16 proceedings. Did this action sound like sexual molestation? reporters inquired. Could this have been a misunderstanding? Patrick McSorley, 27, a shy, anxious Hyde Park resident who claims that Geoghan molested him in 1986 and who is one of the 25 plaintiffs specifically suing Cardinal Law, conceded that the touch was "made out to be nothing." But, he added, "I definitely saw an act of molestation." Still, McSorley and his fellow victims found themselves having to contemplate the unthinkable: this man who had robbed them of their childhood innocence by fondling, sodomizing, and orally raping them could wind up walking scot-free. Keane, who says Geoghan also assaulted him at the Waltham Boys and Girls club approximately 16 years ago, even alluded to the prospect. "If Geoghan is acquitted," he told reporters, "we still have the Suffolk [County] cases."
