| Ottawa Sun
11 August 2010 By KENNETH JACKSON, QMI Agency |
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Father Ken O’Keefe, a retired Ottawa priest now living in Toronto, faces a sex charge in connection with an incident in 1972. He is shown in this photo dating back to the 1970s. A retired Ottawa priest has been charged with indecent assault on a teenage boy dating back to the 1970s when he was a teacher at St. Pius X High School, the second such case in recent weeks. Police laid the charges Wednesday after Fr. Kenneth O’Keefe, now of Toronto, was arrested. He is being held pending a bail hearing. Police said an investigation was launched in July after a man complained there was “inappropriate” contact between him when he was a teenager and O’Keefe in 1972. The 79-year-old is a Basilian Priest said Rev. Terrence Prendergast, Archbishop of Ottawa, “On learning about the criminal charges against Fr. O’Keefe … I want to advise the community that our offices cooperated with the Ottawa Police Service in the investigation,” said Prendergast in a released statement. ” I pledge our continuing cooperation.” He said the Congregation of St. Basil (the Basilian Fathers) took “immediate responsibility for the matter which concerns a member of their religious community.” O’Keefe is the second priest who taught at St. Pius X High School to be criminally charged in recent weeks. William Joseph Allen, 80, was charged with three counts of indecent assault in July by Ottawa police and released on conditions. An investigation began in March into a series of alleged inappropriate contacts between Allen and two teenage males that occurred in Ottawa between 1970 and 1976. “Justice must be done, and must be seen to be done,” Prendergast said at the time, referring to Allen’s case. Allen was suspended from all ministry activities and prohibited from presenting himself as a Catholic priest. Prendergast made no such comments in the released statment of O’Keefe. “I want to assure the community of St. Pius X of my pastoral concern and personal support,” said Prendergast. kenneth.jackson@sunmedia.ca |