Father Martin O’Hara – Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Assignment Record:

DatesAssignment
Approx. 1941 Ordained in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia
1942 – 1944 St. Patrick’s Church, Pottsville, PA
1945 – 1956 St. Martin of Tours Church, Philadelphia, PA
1957 – 1961 Most Blessed Sacrament Church, Philadelphia, PA
1962 – 1966 Holy Family Church, Philadelphia, PA
1967 – 1969 St. Gabriel’s Church, Norwood, PA
1970 – 1978 St. Francis of Assisi Church, Philadelphia, PA
1979 – 2002 St. Jerome’s Church, Philadelphia, PA
Source:
  • The Official Catholic Directory, Kenedy & Sons

(The years listed above are the publication years of the Official Catholic Directory. According to the Directory, the assignments provided for a given year are effective as of January 1 of that year. This means that a priest listed in the Directory for a given year at a parish or school was likely at the same assignment for at least part of the previous year as well.)

Summary:
  • Father O’Hara died in 2002.
  • Father Martin O’Hara was accused of sexually abusing a male minor child on at least thirty occasions from approximately 1971 to 1973 when the male child was approximately nine to eleven years old. At the time of the sexual abuse, Father O’Hara was assigned to St. Francis of Assisi Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the male child was an altar boy at the church. The sexual abuse took place inside St. Francis of Assisi Church and in the rectory near the church.
  • The sexual abuse by Father O’Hara included the following: Father O’Hara forced the boy to perform oral sex on Father O’Hara, and Father O’Hara sodomized the boy.
  • The claim settled in May 2020 in the low six figures.