Peter Turner, 85, died of a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) on February 6 at HMP Swaleside, according to an investigation report from the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
The former priest, known as Father Gregory Carroll, was jailed in February 2020, with a sentence of 20 years 10 months, after he admitted a string of sexual offences more than 30 years earlier against three boys aged between nine and 12.
Turner admitted 11 counts of indecent assault, two serious sexual assaults, and gross indecency with a child.
Turner was found to have abused boys at Ampleforth independent school in Yorkshire in the 1980s.
The court heard that Turner was removed from the school in 1987 and sent to work in Workington.
While in Cumbria, he abused two more boys.
Following Turner's death, NHS England commissioned an independent clinical reviewer to review Turner’s clinical care at HMP Swaleside.
The clinical reviewer concluded that the clinical care Turner received at Swaleside was of "a good standard and equivalent to that which he could have expected to receive in the community".
A Prisons and Probation Ombudsman report said it did not find any non-clinical issues of concern, and made no recommendations.
At the inquest into his death held on October 24, the coroner concluded that Turner died from natural causes.
After his sentencing in February 2020, the then-Workington MP Mark Jenkinson said it was a 'scandal' that Turner had been sent to Cumbria to work as a priest. "I hope the victims can find closure,” he said.
During Turner's sentencing hearing, the Recorder of York, Judge Sean Morris, told the defendant: "You have brought evil into this world when, by your calling, you should have brought hope, help and succour.
"Your values were not those of a man of the cloth."