Prolific Predator Priest Arrested for Child Porn in Portugal

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Oct. 24, 2019

One of the world’s most notorious predator priests – who admitted molesting at least 25 children in California, was deported to Ireland and later moving to the Netherlands – has just been arrested again. We hope he spends every remaining minute of his life locked up so that children will be safer.

According to reports, Fr. Oliver O’Grady was caught with child pornography in Portugal. He previously spent years in a northern California prison for molesting kids and received considerable media attention in recent years because he was interviewed for and is featured in a highly acclaimed documentary film on the Catholic sex abuse and cover up scandal. (The award-winning film is Deliver Us From Evil).

Years ago, he was defrocked, convicted in northern California, and deported to his native Ireland. In at least one case, he sexually exploited a vulnerable adult parishioner and went on to molest her daughter and sons.

In 2010, a civil lawsuit charged that O’Grady repeatedly sexually assaulted a five-year-old boy in the early 1990s. The crimes reportedly took place in the rectory of Sacred Heart parish in Turlock, where O’Grady was assigned. He was babysitting the child at the time, according to the suit. It says that the defendants “had knowledge or notice of O’Grady’s prior acts of unlawful sexual conduct with minors” but “failed to take reasonable steps to prevent future criminal sexual misconduct and molestation.”

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