Pedophile Priest: The Crimes of Father Geoghan
"..Child molesters are the lowest of the low on the inmate hierarchy. But, as reported by Newsweek in a September 2003 article called ''Preying on the Predator,'' Geoghan's chief tormentors at Concord were not other prisoners but the outraged guards. Correction officers are believed to have regularly spat in his food. They called him ''Satan'' and ''Lucifer'' and insisted that the former priest – who was still a Catholic since he had been defrocked but not excommunicated – answer to those names. On one occasion, Geoghan is supposed to have discovered that a guard had defecated in his bed..."
This one was one of the worst.
The reporter really isn't too well informed.
First, the Catholic Church does not "defrock" and there is no such thing as a "former priest" - there are priests whom the Church grants faculties (the ability to celebrate Mass, hear confessions, counsel parishioners, etc.) to and there are priests whose faculties are suspended, either temporarily or permanently.
Geoghan's faculties were permanently suspended.
The person who suspends your faculties is your bishop, who is also the same person who places or removes bans of excommunication in his diocese.
One of the grounds for excommunication is flagrant moral turpitude, and when a priest's bishop permanently suspends his faculties for flagrant moral turpitude the bishop is generally excommunicating him as well.
Of course, as soon as someone begs forgiveness for their sins, they can be recommunicated.