January 2002

Scores of priests involved in sex abuse cases

Under an extraordinary cloak of secrecy, the Archdiocese of Boston in the last 10 years has quietly settled child molestation claims against at least 70 priests, according to an investigation by the Globe Spotlight Team.

In the public arena alone, the Globe found court records and other documents that identify 19 present and former priests as accused pedophiles. Four have been convicted of criminal charges of sex abuse, including former priest John J. Geoghan. Two others face criminal charges.

But those public cases represent just a fraction of the priests whose cases have been disposed of in private negotiations that never brought the parties near a courthouse, according to interviews with many of the attorneys involved.

One law firm alone won financial settlements for its

Church allowed abuse by priest for years

This is the full, original, first article that was published by The Boston Globe Spotlight Team to expose rampant child sexual abuse by pedophile Catholic priests in Boston, MA, and the massive, decades-long cover-up efforts by the Catholic church to protect them.

Since the mid-1990s, more than 130 people have come forward with horrific childhood tales about how former priest John J. Geoghan allegedly fondled or raped them during a three-decade spree through a half-dozen Greater Boston parishes.

Almost always, his victims were grammar school boys. One was just 4 years old.

Then came last July’s disclosure that Cardinal Bernard F. Law knew about Geoghan’s problems in 1984, Law’s first

Month: January 2002