Killer of [Pedophile] Ex-Priest Was Hater of Gays (Three Bag Hurl Alert..)

New Jersey Star Ledger ^ | August 26, 2003 | Adam Gorlick

[prarie earth]

The inmate accused of strangling John Geoghan in his prison cell hated homosexuals and began plotting the attack on the child molesting former priest weeks ago, a prosecutor said yesterday.

'He looked on Father Geoghan as a prize,' District Attorney John Conte said. No question he had been planning it for well over a month.

Joe L. Druce, who is serving a life term for killing a gay man 15 years ago, cut apart a book to make a perfect tool for jamming the door of Geoghan's cell and spent time stretching the socks used in the strangling, Conte said.

'Druce had a longstanding phobia, it appears, toward homosexuals of any kind..He is filled with long standing hate,' Conte said as he provided new details into the death of the central figure in the Roman Catholic Church sex scandal.

Conte did not address why two inmates with such criminal histories were living in the same cell block at the maximum security Souza Correctional Facility in Shirley.

[wideawake]

If you look at the media, it is thier job to report, how it comes about is another story.

Thousands of children are molested every year by public school teachers, yet I've never seen one news story about how the teachers' unions fight extensive background checks and other safeguards.

Why is that? Because the media likes the teachers' unions. The teachers' unions are reliably leftist.

What a news story is supposed to do is report the facts as they are and let the reader make thier own assumptions.

Except that such unbiased news stories cannot ever exist. All news is selected information. All selection contains bias.

Now we all know that we are human, and personal emotions can find thier way into what is written, but to categorize every journalist, etc.. into one category isn't nice.

I really don't give a flying fig what's nice or not nice. The media has declared war on God and traditional morality. They are, almost to a man, scum who lie for a living.

The few honest journalists out there readily admit this sad fact.

[witnesstothefall]

I hope all the stupid kneejerk FReepers who allied with the liberal media.....

That's pretty stupid. Freepers can think for themselves, and your need to categorize critics into some wierd intellectual uniformity is bizarre. Ad hominem is a tactic of the weak.

[tkathy]

Don't many serial killers have homosexual molestation in their childhood? Seems to me I have read that somewhere.

[11th Earl of Mar]

I'm with you. Some freepers are getting very lazy lately.

[click HERE for my entire response]

[Oztrich Boy]

the flaw in your reasoning is that it is possible for both the media and the Catholic hierarchy to be scum.

[wideawake]

Freepers can think for themselves, and your need to categorize critics into some wierd intellectual uniformity is bizarre.

There is a difference between a critic and a lemming. And what I am criticizing is the lemminglike uniformity of those who swallowed the media's spin uncritically.

Someone who was actually able to think for themselves would be capable of asking themselves this question: "The mainstream media spin every story to benefit the left. Do they have an ulterior motive in their journalistic crusade against the Catholic Church?" But many FReepers proved themselves incapable of such critical analysis.

Ad hominem is a tactic of the weak.

I'm glad to hear you say that for two reasons:

(1) My argument was not based on ad hominem. The argumentum ad hominem is: "you're a bad guy, therefore what you say is wrong." That wasn't my argument, which you apparently didn't bother to reflect on for even a moment.

(2) You've employed ad hominem here against me, characterizing me as a compulsive with "weird" and "bizarre" aspects. Therefore, according to your formulation, you accuse yourself accurately of the same weakness which you inaccurately ascribed to me.

[witnesstothefall]

lemminglike uniformity of those who swallowed the media's spin uncritically.

I consider that ad hominem and hyperbolic. The words I use are the most accurate ones I can think of to describe the psychological construct you implicity propose be used.

That said, I can agree with you that the media has a bias against the Church and seeks to degrade Christian at every turn.

I can even agree that the state failed miserably in pursuing pedarists and child rapists in all walks of life.

But that still leaves the wee bit of a problem of the dead serial rapist priest who was tranferred around and covered up for. I haven't seen the Church deal with the real Problem. Attacking the Church's enemies if fine and good, but it's not the whole picture.

[proud2serve]

Society has declared that war by changing. Morality is changing, it's a personal choice by private citizens.
Well, I can't argue the fact on the teacher's unions, I haven't seen any factual evidence of that anywhere. Children are also molested by family members, friends, neighbors, etc.. every year, so in essence it's just not teacher's, it's everywhere. What is traditional morality anyways? What one group deems right and wrong?
Priests are spiritual leaders, that is what made this topic so important. It's important for the Catholic Church to sweep it's doorstep before handing out advice on morality. If that doesn't happen, then the morality message doesn't get across.

[Held_to_Ransom]

According to the news, 75% of all those in prison suffered some form of child abuse. If that's true, perhaps we should reflect a bit on just exactly what it is we use our prison for.

As for the priest, he was 'the engineer hoist on his own petard.'

[wideawake]

the flaw in your reasoning is that it is possible for both the media and the Catholic hierarchy to be scum

Logically, yes - it is completely possible - but this possibility does not reveal any flaw in my reasoning.

The fact that Bernard Law is a venal and evil man has no bearing on my argument.

My argument is this: if Bernard Law had covered up the crimes of Shanley and others AND at the same time been an outspoken, vocal critic of the Church's position on abortion, contraception, sodomy, etc. the media would have given him a free pass.

Well-known liberal bishops in the Catholic Church, like Cardinal Mahony, the late Rembert Weakland, the retired Daniel Ryan and others are guilty of crimes worse even than Law's.

Ryan didn't just cover up cases of molestation: he himself personally molested young men 5 years ago. Concerned Catholics went to the media then, and the media did nothing because Ryan was sympathetic to the "gay pride" and "rainbow sash" movement among disobedient Catholics.

The media was very selective in their coverage of the scandal and their spin was very obvious.

[witnesstothefall]

Agreed. Whatever the numbers, if society (meaning both the state, the church and most important the FAMILY) got back in the habit of teaching children right from wrong in absolutes, then perhaps we wouldn't have so many problems finding and managing the grownup sick freaks.

But I am old school with Spanish blood in the veins. If it were up to me, I'd take pedarist priests, try them in a Star Chamber, then put their head on a spike at the Church entrance for all to learn.

[wideawake]

I consider that ad hominem and hyperbolic.

Go right ahead, as long as you realize that it is my commentary and has nothing to do with the meat of my argument.

But that still leaves the wee bit of a problem of the dead serial rapist priest who was tranferred around and covered up for. I haven't seen the Church deal with the real Problem. Attacking the Church's enemies if fine and good, but it's not the whole picture.

The problem is a grave one - here are its components:

(1) Too many seminary vocations directors are liberals who think that it's OK to ordain those with sodomite urges.

(2) Too many people become bishops because they are politicians - someone who really wants to be a bishop should be considered too ambitious and power-hungry to be allowed to become a bishop. The best bishops in the Church's history have been those who thought themselves unworthy of the title and who had to be ordered against their will to accept the job.

(3) The resulting problem: that sodomites have been ordained and that politicians are put in charge of them was a recipe for the disaster that happened.

It is a very rare sodomite indeed who is able to control himself in a social atmosphere (like the modern day US) that encourages sodomy and it is a very rare politican indeed who will ever admit that he made a mistake or will accept public blame for the crimes of his subordinates.

Yet the media pumps up the so-called "Voice of the Faithful" as the solution to these problems. What is the stance of VOTF? That the Church be more open and forgiving toward sodomites and that bishops be elected rather than appointed.

In other words: the solution to sodomites sneaking into the priesthood and bishops acting like the Clintons is to openly welcome sodomites into the clergy and to make sure that all bishops be campaigning politicians.

[sauropod]

Don'tcha just love it when DAs act as psychologists?

[EggsAckley]

Heheheh.

[witnesstothefall]

Thanks for getting to the real problem. The problems as you describe them, are truly stupendous.

If as you say, sodomites have gained free reign within the Church, with a political bureaucracy that tolerates and even protects them, we are talking factions of Satan my friend.

I haven't flirted with millenialism for ages and ages, but one must wonder. How can the Church be a haven for predators of the Innocent? And what does it really mean?

[witnesstothefall]

Oh, and please elaborate, who is Voice of the Faithful, and what is their geography and numbers?

I hope my remarks are not seen as any attack on the Church. On the contrary, I speak only out of a healthy fear of God's Wrath.

[wideawake]

Well, I can't argue the fact on the teacher's unions, I haven't seen any factual evidence of that anywhere.

Would that be because you have never seen the mass media report on the teachers' unions opposition to more stringent licensing? You prove my point for me.

What is traditional morality anyways? What one group deems right and wrong?

It's what God deems right and wrong.

Priests are spiritual leaders, that is what made this topic so important. It's important for the Catholic Church to sweep it's doorstep before handing out advice on morality.

A ridiculous statement. The Catholic Church teaches that it's wrong to lie - should the Church not teach that moral doctrine until every single Catholic in the whole world has never told a lie?

There is no surer way of stifling the spread of the Gospel. The Church on earth is made up of sinners. Always has. Always will be.

Just because individual Catholics fall short of the ideal is no reason to stifle the ideal or pretend it doesn't exist. For every Catholic priest who did the evil things we're discussing there are hundreds who go about their business, selflessly giving of themselves for Christ's sake.

You want to scant the good they do every day and pretend that they don't exist. In many ways that's an even worse thing to do than covering up evil deeds.

[witnesstothefall]

Decided to check myself. Here's Voice of the Faithful's most recent PR, dealing w/the prison murder. Interesting:

http://www.votf.org/Press/pressrelease/0824.html.

[Petronski]

WORCESTER, Mass. -- The inmate accused of strangling John Geoghan in his prison cell hated homosexuals and began plotting the attack on the child-molesting former priest weeks ago, a prosecutor said yesterday.

"He looked upon Father Geoghan as a prize," District Attorney John J. Conte said. "No question he had been planning it for well over a month."

Joseph L. Druce, who is serving a life term for killing a gay man 15 years ago, cut apart a book to make a perfect tool for jamming the door of Geoghan's cell and spent time stretching the socks used in the strangling, Conte said.

Druce "has a long-standing phobia, it appears, toward homosexuals of any kind. ... He is filled with long-standing hate," Conte said as he provided new details into the death of the central figure in the Roman Catholic Church sex scandal.

Conte did not address why two inmates with such criminal histories were living in the same cell block at the maximum security Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley. Conte said part of the investigation would try to determine how many cells should be opened at any one time on the protective custody block.

Yesterday, Gov. Mitt Romney appointed a panel to conduct an independent investigation. Surveillance cameras filming the protective custody unit while the attack took place also are being reviewed.

Druce and Geoghan had just finished lunch in their cells and were let out to return their trays when Druce followed Geoghan into his cell about 11:52 a.m. Saturday, before the doors were locked again.

In the upper track of the cell door, Druce jammed a book he had doctored to fit the slot, then put nail clippers and a tooth brush in the door's lower track to prevent guards from opening the door. He had precut the book to fit into the track, Conte said.

He tied Geoghan's hands behind his back with a T-shirt, then used the stretched-out socks, a pillow case and one of Geoghan's shoes to strangle him, Conte said. Druce did not use a razor he had with him, but may have intended to castrate the former priest, Conte said.

Once he was alerted to the attack by an inmate, the guard on duty tried to get inside, but found the door was jammed. He called for help. By the time a nurse arrived to treat Geoghan, seven or eight minutes had passed, Conte said.

Geoghan, 68, was taken to Leominster Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:17 p.m. An autopsy yesterday showed that Geoghan died from strangulation and blunt chest trauma. He also had broken ribs and a punctured lung, Conte said.

Conte has said Druce will be charged with murder once a grand jury is convened in September. Druce, who remains in isolation in the prison, has been cooperative with investigators, Conte said.

Geoghan allegedly molested nearly 150 boys over three decades and became a symbol of the clergy sex abuse scandal that shook the foundations of the Catholic church. He was serving a nine- to 10-year sentence for assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy. He had been in protective custody since being transferred to Souza-Baranowski in April, officials said.

Geoghan eventually was granted early retirement in 1996 and praised for an "effective life of ministry, sadly impaired by illness" by Cardinal Bernard Law, who ultimately resigned in December 2002 for his role in the scandal.

[Redleg Duke]

I hope he gets his sentence reduced for this. He did the world a favor and gave a lot of innocent victims a sense of closure.