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	Inland Church Scandal Grows: Charged: Officers Seek a Retired Priest Accused of Molesting a 17-Year-Old Girl 30 Years Ago. By Michael Fisher Press Enterprise August 16, 2002 Authorities are searching for a longtime Inland priest accused of sexually abusing a 17-year-old girl while assigned to a Highland church 30 years ago, prosecutors said Thursday. Monsignor Patrick O'Keeffe, 67, was charged last month with 15 felony counts of oral copulation with a minor stemming from his alleged 1972 involvement with a parishioner at St. Adelaide Catholic Church, the San Bernardino County district attorney's office said. It was unclear where the alleged sex acts may have occurred, and information about O'Keeffe's accuser, now an adult, was not released. O'Keeffe, a Laguna Niguel resident, spent 35 years in the Diocese of San Bernardino. He was dismissed from all parish duties in 1994 after the diocese settled a lawsuit brought by one of three adult women who had accused O'Keeffe of sexual misconduct, said the Rev. Howard Lincoln, spokesman for the diocese encompassing Riverside and San Bernardino counties. An arrest warrant for O'Keeffe was issued July 18, the day prosecutors filed charges against him. His whereabouts are unknown, San Bernardino County sheriff's Sgt. Jack Trotter said. Detectives have been trying to find the priest for nearly a month and have not been able to question him about the allegations, Trotter said, adding he does not believe O'Keeffe is hiding from authorities. *** 'A religious man' Parishioners at St. Adelaide Catholic Church who remember O'Keeffe still occasionally talk about him, said Peggy Kluge, who sometimes attended Mass there during O'Keeffe's tenure and has since joined the congregation. "I thought he was a good priest," said Kluge, who lives in Highland. "He seemed to me to be a very religious man. He was popular with everyone, very personable." St. Adelaide had a congregation of nearly 700 families during O'Keeffe's tenure, according to a church annual printed in 1981. Lincoln said the charges against O'Keeffe mark a step toward restoring the public's trust in the church. The Roman Catholic Church has grappled with a nationwide sex-abuse scandal since January. "We're always deeply saddened and concerned when anyone comes forward and says they have been victimized by a priest," Lincoln said. *** Working at school O'Keeffe retired as a priest in 1999, but began teaching religion at St. Anne Elementary and Middle School in Laguna Niguel in 1997. He was dismissed by the school after the latest allegations against him surfaced in April, Lincoln said. The woman made her accusations against O'Keeffe to the Florida Catholic Conference this year, which relayed the information to the California conference. The allegations were passed on to diocese officials, who met with the woman in May, Lincoln said. The woman asserted she had filed a complaint about O'Keeffe in 1989 with the diocese, but no record of the accusation could be found, Lincoln said. The diocese in April gave Inland law enforcement authorities 22 previously unreported complaints of sexual misconduct by priests. Some of the accusations were decades old, and the diocese admitted it erred by not revealing the complaints earlier. O'Keeffe is the first of the 20 priests named in the complaints to be charged. *** Inland career Ordained in 1959, O'Keeffe worked at a handful of Inland churches during the next 35 years. He served as pastor at St. Adelaide from 1971 to 1976. He worked briefly at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Loma Linda, and was transferred to St. Peter and St. Paul Catholic Church in Alta Loma in 1978. From 1983 until 1992, he worked as the diocese's director of vocations, overseeing seminarians who were studying to become priests, and he spent part of that time working at St. Margaret Mary Church in Chino. In 1992, he was moved to Holy Family Church in Hesperia. The diocese dismissed O'Keeffe in 1994 after the confidential settlement of a lawsuit, Lincoln said. The diocese was sued by a woman who accused O'Keeffe of having intimate relations with her. The woman was one of three to accuse O'Keeffe of sexual misconduct, Lincoln said. Lincoln said it is unclear whether O'Keeffe worked as a priest from 1994 to 1997, when he took the teaching job in Laguna Niguel. Peggy O'Donnell, pastoral associate at St. Adelaide, said the recent troubles involving Catholic priests are painful for everyone. She expressed hope that the scandals would not sour the church's youth. "Their relationship with God or Jesus should not be marred because of the sins of man," O'Donnell said. Prosecutors are asking anyone with information about O'Keeffe's whereabouts to call Trotter at (909) 387-3615.
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