Born near Chilton, Wisconsin on June 14, 1898, he received his early education in the District Township school and in St. Augustine's parochial school, Chilton. He completed his elementary studies in Milwaukee and finished high school at Marquette Academy there. He attended Marquette University during 1917 and 1918, and entered the Order at St. Joseph' Priory Somerset, Ohio, in October of the latter year making profession on October 26, 1919. He was sent to St. Rose Priory, Springfield, Kentucky, for the first year of his philosophical studies, but completed his education at the Dominican House of Studies, Washington, where he was ordained in St. Dominic's Church on June 17, 1925. He also made graduate studies in the school of Canon Law at the Catholic University but was obliged to discontinue his studies because of failing health.

Father Goggins had an extraordinarily diversified apostolate even for an American Dominican. Having served for some months in the parishes of St. Antoninus. Newark, New Jersey, and Sacred Heart, Jersey City, he was assigned in the Fall of 1927 to the Eastern Mission Band. In 1929 he was appointed Master of Students and professor in the House of Studies, River Forest, Illinois. In 1931 he founded the summer camp for the students near Menominee, Michigan, and in 1934 was relieved as Master of Students and sent to Lincoln, Nebraska, in the expectation of establishing a parish. The attempt having proved abortive, he was in November 1934, appointed superior and pastor of St. Pius in Chicago. Having been called to Rome in 1936 he became Commissary and Visitator General to all the houses of the Order in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile. In June 1939, he was appointed superior and pastor of Blessed Sacrament parish, Madison, Wisconsin. In 1945 he was sent to Holy Rosary, Houston, Texas to assist in the parish and to be Newman Chaplain at Rice and Houston Universities, and to teach at St. Agnes Academy. In 1948 he was assigned as professor in St. Catherine' College, Racine. and in September 1950 be was directed to establish the Newman Center at Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he taught in the Center and at St. Joseph's College and St. Vincent's Hospital. In September 1955 he was appointed Subprior and Procurator of St. Peter Martyr Priory, Winona, Minnesota, leaving there to become superior and pastor of St. Vincent Ferrer's in River Forest, Illinois, in March 1960. Three year later he retired to the Priory of St. Peter Martyr, Winona. and there died on February 18. 1967, and was buried in the community cemetery.