CALIFORNIA
The Fresno Bee

By John Ellis – The Fresno Bee
Wednesday, May. 08, 2013

A Marin County woman is suing a Catholic priest who is now in Ireland, saying he raped her in 1970 while he was serving a short stint at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in northwest Fresno.

Kathryn Mary McGrath, now 59, was “barely 16 years old,” the lawsuit says, when Vincent A. O’Connell assaulted her by placing his hand down her pants a short time after her father had died suddenly.

McGrath’s lawsuit — filed this week in Fresno County Superior Court — is the latest in a long line of lawsuits alleging sexual assault by Catholic priests both nationally and internationally.

The suit says O’Connell, “a very striking and charismatic Irish priest,” came to Fresno from Nigeria. He was a visiting priest in between assignments who became a fixture in the…