NEW MEXICO
BishopAccountability.org
Summary of Case: Michael P. O’Brien was a priest of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, ordained in 1970. After assisting in a San Jose parish for two years he pastored a series of parishes in Moriarty, Estancia, Ranchos de Taos, Mora, Las Vegas and Questa, New Mexico. The parishes were affiliated with many mission churches in the state. In 1973 O’Brien established ‘Pilgrimages for Vocations’ through which he would lead youth on week-long walks across northern New Mexico, staying at churches along the way. O’Brien died at the age of 48 in 1993, possibly of AIDS.
In 2012 a man told the archdiocese that O’Brien had sexually abused him many times during the 1980s, when the man was a ten- or eleven-year-old altar boy at St. Anthony’s in Questa. He filed suit in April 2013; within several weeks three more men filed suit, also claiming O’Brien sexually abused them as boys. In May 2013, there were lawsuits from an additional five alleged O’Brien victims and, as of December 2015 there were seventeen, at least nine of which had been settled. O’Brien’s modus operandi was said to have been to groom boys with massages and sometimes foot and leg washing, leading to genital washing, fondling and then rape. He reportedly would also ply boys with alcohol and pornography. His victims were allegedly as young as age eight and as old as age seventeen. The abuse is said to have occurred throughout his priesthood, at his assigned parishes and during pilgrimages.
Ordained: 1970
Died: January 14, 1993
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