In a stunning development for California’s oldest institution of higher learning, Santa Clara University President Rev. Kevin O’Brien has been placed on leave pending an investigation into reports of unspecified impropriety.
O’Brien, 54, who became Santa Clara University’s 29th president two years ago and presided over a Mass attended by president-elect Joe Biden in January before he was sworn in, has agreed to cooperate fully with the investigation, said a notice from John Sobrato, chair of the University Board of Trustees.
Sobrato’s note said the university was informed that the Jesuit Provincial Office “recently received accounts that Father O’Brien exhibited behaviors in adult settings, consisting primarily of conversations, which may be inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries.”
A private institution that has been ranked in the top 25 for undergraduate teaching nationwide, Santa Clara University follows the educational tenets of the Jesuits, an order of the Catholic Church that numbers more than a hundred universities around the world.
“The Board of Trustees takes these accounts seriously,” Sobrato’s notice continued. “We respect the need for a thorough investigation and support the actions being taken by the USA West Province Office. We reserve any further action on the part of the trustees until we have fully reviewed the final results of the investigation.”
O’Brien did not immediately answer his phone or respond to a request for comment.
Tracey Primrose, spokeswoman for the Jesuits West Province, which is overseeing the investigation, did not provide details of the alleged behavior beyond what was relayed in Sobrato’s notice.
“Jesuits are held to a professional code of conduct, and the Province investigates allegations that may violate or compromise established boundaries,” Primrose said. She would not elaborate.
“As with any organization,” Primrose continued, “the Jesuits West Province has confidentiality practices, which is why I cannot provide any additional information regarding this matter.”
Santa Clara University alumni and board members who received the statement in their inboxes Thursday morning expressed shock.
“I’m not sure what’s going on — I’m really surprised,” said Norman Kline, a member of the university’s Board of Fellows, a fundraising group, and a former mayor of Saratoga. O’Brien, he said, was well liked and impressed the community when he embarked on a “listening tour” after his inauguration.
“He’s terrific,” Kline said. “I think everybody liked him.”
But without specific details spelled out in the letter, speculation coursed through campus Thursday, Kline said.
“I think it could have been more open,” Kline said of the statement. “But it’s important to have some type of process where he is protected as far as his reputation is concerned and other people’s reputations are protected, too.”
Santa Clara University, established in 1851, currently enrolls more than 8,000 students; Governors Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown are among its alumni. O’Brien, who before being named president was dean of SCU’s Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, has been a frequent commentator on church issues for MSNBC, CNN and the Washington Post and has written extensively about church reforms in the wake of the priest sex abuse scandal.
Born in Montreal, Canada, O’Brien became an American citizen in 1988 at age 22 and earned an undergraduate degree in government that year from Georgetown University, followed by a law degree from the University of Florida.
But after exploring a career in law and politics, O’Brien accepted a job as a teacher at Cardinal Newman Catholic high school in West Palm Beach, Florida. He entered the Jesuit order in 1996 when he was 29 and was ordained in 2006.
O’Brien has been a friend of President Biden for about 15 years, having met him while he was serving for eight years at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where Joe and Jill Biden sometimes attended Mass. O’Brien also presided over Mass for Biden and his family in both 2009 and 2013 when he was sworn in as vice president….
The above comes from a March 18 story in the Mercury News.
We’ll see. But it’s likely credible and damning because if James Martin can spout his thinly veiled heresy in the open and remain a Jesuit “in good standing” what this guy did must have been outrageous or criminal. The Jesuits are in severe need of reform.
Is Ignatian spirituality OK? Not a trick question. Just trying to avoid mis-direction.
” … what this guy did must have been outrageous …”
Maybe they found out that he supported Donald Trump. Just sayin’.
Should we be surprised?
I’m pretty sure that Jim (as his fellow Jesuits call him) Martin SJ will come to Rev. O’Brien’s defense (after Martin recovers from shock at learning that some in the Vatican are still Catholic).
From a previous CNA article (to cite only one example): “An official from the Jesuit-run Santa Clara University in California told Catholic News Agency that hosting a two-day long conference, on how to promote opportunities for gays and lesbians at Catholic colleges is ‘the Catholic’ way to act as opposed to highlighting the intrinsic immorality of homosexual acts.”
When dissent is promoted, should we think that it’s limited to thought(s) only and not to one’s subsequent actions?
Only _one_ Jesuit from the university was placed on leave?
Give me a break.
Based on the hints provided (adult environment) and the desire of the university to keep it quiet (more to avoid institutional embarrassment than out of respect for the people involved) I wouldn’t be surprised if the conduct involved explicit, filthy, gay remarks, as those people are wont to do.
Anon, I can’t wait to see what you will say when you become more judgemental and really tell us how you feel.
Glass houses, stones, etc..
The Board of Trustees is investigating him based on serious, credible allegations that he violated “Jesuit protocols and boundaries” in “adult settings, primarily (but not exclusively) consisting of conversations.” Draw your own conclusions. I have. Schadenfreude that a leftist, gay-marriage supporting Jesuit fake Catholic who hobnobs with the elite in the Bay Area and who’s buddies with and an enabler of a fake Catholic president who supports abortion and gay marriage gets his comeuppance? Yep. He thought he was invincible, and he went too far for even the secularist, leftist folks in silicon valley.
Exposing the truth is judgmental now. You gotta love the Left, it’s only judgmental when it’s a pro-abortion, pro-homosexual who is exposed but not when innocent people are either put to death or accused by the fake news….LOL.
Too bad O’Brien couldn’t have used his Jesuit career as an instrument of God, to seek to convert the Bidens and many others, to Catholicism. Waste of life.
I wonder if he publicly affirmed the response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to the “ad dubium” that same sex relationships cannot be blessed. That might be cause for removal in some religious orders even more so than sexual innuendo or acting out.
Absolutely. The most offensive things to Jesuits today are Catholic things.
This is an opportunity for SCU to install a Person of Color, preferably Brown, as the president. Don’t tell me there aren’t any Brown Jesuits. Can’t be a woman, unless they opt for a lay president this time. Let’s see more diversity.
Kris, of course, the most important qualification for a university president is skin color.
And, why do you prefer Brown to Black or some other “Color?”
It’s technically a Jesuit-affiliated university, so a non-Jesuit could be made president. (The Jesuits gave up control of the university years ago.)
Maybe SCU could become more diverse by appointing a Muslim, a Satanist, a Catholic or Meghan Markle (she’s currently out of work) as president.
Or, stick with a Jesuit. How about Fr. Joseph Fessio SJ, Fr. Mitch Pacwa SJ, Fr. Joseph Koterski SJ, Fr. Bill Kurz SJ, or Fr. Lou Aldrich SJ?
Yeah, preferably brown — because that’s not racist at all.
In order to combat the present-day effects of past racism we have to engage in efforts that will uproot racism and create equity.
Equity . . . through racism? Sounds really, really stupid (even to me, a member of a minority and historically opressed people).
So to fight racism, we have to be racist. (The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. would despise that ridiculous — and deeply racist — idea.
Reminds me of “We have to destroy the village, to save the village.”
(Pssst. Don’t look now, but America is the least racist nation on the planet.)
Kris, this is a Catholic website. You don’t sound very interested in the Catholic Faith. The job of President of a Catholic university is very, very serious. Color of skin makes no difference.
That’s white privilege speaking. Are you saying that the job of president of a Catholic university is so serious that a Black or Brown person couldn’t do it? That’s what I hear. Color of skin surely does make a difference. That fact that you think and assert that it doesn’t make a difference is an example of how unaware you are that whiteness has infected your thinking. It’s the kind of thing people say to maintain their privilege. Oh, sure, let’s put the Brown or Black vice president in charge of the diversity office. But president has to be a white man. Why?
Kris, Have you never been taught that Dr. Martin Luther King said it is not the color of skin that matters, but a person’s character? Shouldn’t that matter and make sense to a sane individual?
Designating people according to “color” is so white privilege. And beyond racist. I think if a “white” person tans to look more brown that a latinx, you would still not approve of them.
Race, ethnicity have so many identities, many more than gender. Even in a family, there can be difference in racial and ethnic identity and identification.
This is America. All people are equal here. Not everyone has been treated as equal or even as a desired presence, myself among them. Sometimes it could be a physical characteristic that the person who is treating you badly is reacting to; sometimes not. You don’t fix racism by more racism.
We are Catholics. We see all of humankind as equal and love each individual. Every person is a creature of God.
Kris, wants white genocide, she dresses up in fancy pseudo intellectual terms, but that’s what her crowd wants. Defy her, folks, have large families.
So he just gets fired without an investigation because of his skin color?
Kick ’em when they’re up. Kick ’em when they’re down.
There is just so much I can do with this one…
Brown Jesuits? Is that like the Black Madonna?
Why just Brown? Why not our Yellow brethern? Surely, they were at least as equally oppressed as the browns and blacks? Maybe more so from what I see in the media today!
Kris- Why do you hate yellow people?
Just some fraternal correction here…
since no one is outside Christ’s mercy and no human knows the outcome of their lives in terms of their salvation (unless they’re an Evangelical Protestant, that is), graciously saving our Lord the trouble of damning this priest anonymously on a website would seem a little presumptuous.
This man indeed may meet an hellish judgement, God forbid, but why are there so many here so eager to join him? Remarks in a comm box don’t damn us, but they are indicators of what interior life may be like for the writers. God will not be mocked by this priest or by you.
Nobody asked you.
Mark– Everyone is so sick to death of the many immoral, heretical post-Conciliar Jesuits! And O’Brien really badly injured our Nation and our Church, by saying Mass and offering Holy Communion to our worst “bad Catholic” national leaders– Biden, Pelosi, etc. etc. Not one word to teach and preach Christ’s holy Truth to any of them!! Plus– he is president of a prestigious Jesuit university that has gone totally anti-Catholic, immoral, heretical, and even anti-Chrisrian, in the post-Conciliar era. Such faithless, false “priests” should be kicked out of our Church.
I’m part of the ‘everyone’….I’m just not going to choose Hell over it….I’m doing my part to spread the gospel and instruct the ignorant…not just at my keyboard…
If the Jesuits are investigating him, he likely said something orthodox like “Jesus is Lord” or “There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.”
Or even “marriage is between a male and a female.” Eeeek!
Just guessing here.
Does anyone have a copy of the “Jesuit protocols and boundaries” document? It would be nice to know what the standards are that Jesuits hold themselves to. Surely that must be public… unless the Jesuits are secretive about their own code of behavior.
He resigned. “alcohol issues” but we all know that’s cover for what he did with students under the influence of alcohol.