Fellow Salemite and cigar-lover Tom Fitzpatrick points to this Boston Globe story that 3 priests recently accused of abuse remain in their parishes and he agrees with uber-victim lawyer Mitchell Garabedian that this is a bad thing. I don’t know about the other two cases, but I have some inside information on the case against Fr. Keohan and the allegation against him is the flimsiest pretext for a lawsuit and I predict that a judge will throw it out.
As we saw with the awful case of Fr. Ron Bourgault who was suspended last year and only recently reinstated, he was misidentified as having abused a kid almost 40 years ago based on old photos and a vague recollection. It was wrong for Fr. Bourgault to have been suspended on such thin evidence. I think the case with Fr. Keohan—and possibly the others—is an attempt to remedy the injustice. Just because someone makes an accusation doesn’t make it credible and if it’s not credible, the priest should not suffer for it. Yes, the allegation is now public so it’s different than an attempt to hide it, so that concern is no longer operable.
I think this is a good change in policy and practice by the archdiocese.
