ARIZONA
Phoenix New Times
BY SEAN HOLSTEGE
MONDAY, AUGUST 7, 2017
The dark cloud of child sex-abuse allegations still follows the former bishop of Phoenix.
Years after he resigned from the top post in the Catholic diocese here, after acknowledging he knew that priests he supervised had sexually abused children, 81-year-old Thomas O’Brien now faces new allegations in court that he was himself an abuser.
He has denied the accusation and last week won a partial victory when a judge tossed out four of 14 claims against him in a civil suit brought by a man identified only as Joseph W.
The man claims, in a suit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court in 2016, that O’Brien assaulted him from 1977 to 1982. The suits says the attacks occurred when he attended second to fifth grades at the St. Aquinas and St. Vincent de Paul Catholic schools and parishes in Litchfield Park and Phoenix, respectively.
According to the lawsuit, the abuse occurred before or during church services and involved kissing and touching as well as oral intercourse by and to the priest.
Joseph W., who lives in Tucson, says in court documents that he suppressed the memories of these attacks until two years earlier, when he readied his son for baptism. The abuse caused Joseph W., now 47, to suffer for almost his entire life, the complaint says, naming among other things distress, disgrace, and humiliation prompting psychological therapy and loss of income.
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