BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By David Abel, Globe Staff | March 23, 2005
Cleared of accusations he molested a teenage boy in the early 1980s, the former administrator of Our Lady of Lourdes in Revere has been returned to active ministry, officials at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston announced yesterday.
The Rev. Edward Keohan, 72, could not be reached yesterday, but his attorney said the priest plans to celebrate by attending a public Mass at a parish this week in Reading. He has not been assigned a parish.
A Boston lawyer representing the accuser said his client received a six-figure settlement from the archdiocese in the case. He said he thought the review board's process was unfair.
''If nothing happened, then why did the church pay my client a substantial amount of money in settlement of his claim?" asked Mitchell Garabedian.
Ann Carter, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, declined to confirm there was a settlement and said the church thoroughly reviewed the accuser's allegations before clearing Keohan, who was ordained in 1959 and for more than a decade served as administrator at the now-closed St. Mary's Church in Salem.
Neither Carter nor Philip D. Moran, a Salem lawyer who represented Keohan, knew whether Keohan would continue to serve as a priest or what he plans to do.
Posted by kshaw at March 23, 2005 07:49 AM