UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org – Assignment Record
Summary of Case: Born in 1938 in Lisheen, Ireland, O’Connell emigrated to St. Louis, MO in 1959 to attend college seminary. He had been rejected by 36 dioceses and religious orders before being accepted by St. Louis. O’Connell was assigned to St. Thomas Aquinas Preparatory Seminary in Hannibal, MO, where he was a teacher, spiritual director, dean of students and, for 18 years, Rector. O’Connell was also the diocesan Vocations Director for years, and was a member of the Priests’ Senate and Personnel Board.
In 1991 a diocesan youth minister told Jefferson City Bishop McAulliffe that boys were disclosing to her that they were being sexually abused by O’Connell and other priests of the diocese. The youth minister was fired. In 1994 a young man told Kansas City bishop Boland that O’Connell had molested him as a boy St. Thomas. Boland is said to have responded, “We like to keep these things quiet”. The accuser soon started to receive secret monthly payments from O’Connell. The Jefferson City diocese settled with one accuser in a “secret agreement” in 1996. This man went public with his accusation in March 2002. O’Connell acknowledged the abuse and resigned a few days later. By 2004 at least nine former St. Thomas seminary students had come forward alleging sexual abuse by O’Connell. Some of the men said they suspected there were dozens of others. Some said the abuse that began while they were boys at St. Thomas, between the 1960s and 1980s, continued into their early adulthoods, including while O’Connell was a bishop.
In June 1988 O’Connell was appointed first bishop of Knoxville, TN. In Nov. 1998 he was appointed bishop of Palm Beach, FL, replacing Bishop Symons, who resigned after admitting to molesting boys. After his 2002 resignation, O’Connell went to live at a Trappist Monastery in South Carolina. He is said to have been free to travel to and from his native Ireland. O’Connell died May 4, 2012.
Ordained: March 30,1963
Ordained Bishop: Sept. 8, 1988
Died: May 4, 2012
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.