Editorial from The Guide	Editorials Archive

In 2002, John J. Geoghan, a Roman Catholic priest, was sentenced to ten years in Massachusetts prison for touching a 10-year-old boy's backside at a public swimming pool in 1992. Geoghan's case received unprecedented media coverage. Local papers and television stations told us again and again that Geoghan had abused over a hundred other boys. Soon, dozens of other Boston-area priests were similarly accused-- not with legal evidence, but rather with allegations and unsubstantiated hearsay dating back decades. Eventually, over 500 lawsuits alleging misconduct by clergy were filed against the local archdiocese demanding millions and millions of dollars.

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On August 23, 2003, John Geoghan's conviction became a death sentence. The 68-year-old priest was killed in prison by another prisoner; he was tied up, strangled, and beaten until bones broke. The state's medical examiner found Geoghan had died of "ligature strangulation and blunt chest trauma." His killer reportedly had a razor with which he planned to castrate Geoghan's corpse.

The state has convened a special commission to investigate why prison officials allowed a violent, sociopathic prisoner (already serving a life sentence for strangling and beating a gay man to death) access to the vulnerable Geoghan. Many rightly worry that prison staff are themselves implicated in Geoghan's murder.

But almost no one has addressed the more fundamental issue: why does touching a butt result in lengthy prison terms and provoke murderous rage? Had Father Geoghan beaten the same 10-year-old boy he was accused of touching, he would not, in all likelihood, have been charged with a crime-- much less sentenced to a decade in prison.

Part of the answer lies with the enormous financial incentive offered to those who allege that they, too, were touched. With millions of dollars in the offing, some accusers must be tempted to invent and exaggerate accusations and the "trauma" they've endured. Similarly, the media have an interest in overheating the story: absurd allegations-- and there have been many-- and salacious innuendo have been splashed across countless pages, all billed as "news."

Greed and sensationalism thus can exploit society's astonishing discomfort with any youthful sexual expression. Kids playing doctor with each other nowadays risk being judged "sex offenders." And the mildest touch from an adult, if deemed at all desirous, is equated with rape and its perpetrator ostracized as a monster.

In America's recent past, thousands of black men were lynched, often following accusations they had raped white women. Usually, there was nothing to the charges; other times, the "guilty party" may have bumped into a white women, his touch being enough to trigger allegations of attempted sexual assault. Many whites were so primed to fear and hate blacks that judicial protections of due process were dispensed with, and the accusation of the slightest transgression of racial lines became cause for vigilante murder.

Similarly, we have today lost all sense of proportion in cases wherein an adult is alleged to have had sexual contact with someone under a certain age (which varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction).

For laws themselves to be ethical, they must distinguish between violent, hurtful acts on the one hand, and conduct that is not malicious or coercive on the other. To irrationally equate an affectionate touch with violent sexual assault and punish both with Draconian severity mocks justice and foments lynchings.

Mob mentality, whether amongst lawyers or journalists or prosecutors, creates monstrosity where none existed before. Father Geoghan's demonization and brutal murder underscore that real justice demands cooler heads and more dispassionate evaluation of allegations of sexual transgressions.