Priest who held service for Biden’s inauguration RESIGNS as head of California university over ‘misconduct’ at booze-fueled dinner

Father Kevin O’Brien, who delivered the homily at the inauguration of his friend Joe Biden, has resigned as president of Santa Clara University and checked into rehab, over inappropriate conduct with students at dinner parties.

Santa Clara, which bills itself as “The Jesuit University in Silicon Valley,” announced on Wednesday that its board of trustees had accepted the resignation O’Brien submitted over the weekend. He had been president of the school since July 2019.

Lisa Kloppenberg, who was appointed acting president when O’Brien was suspended in March, will continue to serve until a replacement is made, the university said.

In a resignation letter, O’Brien cited personal issues related to “alcohol and stress management” and said he had been approached in March with concerns about his well-being, “based on accounts of my behavior over the past year in certain social settings with adults that did not meet the highest standards of decorum expected of me as a Jesuit.”

Last month, he entered a nonresidential rehabilitation program which “many Jesuits over the years have found helpful in living a full, healthy life of service,” and is expected to take four to six months, he added.

Details of O’Brien’s misbehavior remain a mystery. An investigation into by the Jesuit West Province, launched in March, found that the priest had “engaged in behaviors, consisting primarily of conversations, during a series of informal dinners with Jesuit graduate students that were inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries,” wrote John Sobrato, chair of the university’s board of trustees. 

The Province also said that “alcohol was involved” and “no inappropriate behavior was found in any settings outside of these dinners.”

Mere two months before his downfall, O’Brien delivered the inauguration service for his long-time friend Joe Biden. O’Brien knew the Bidens since 2006, when he was at Georgetown University in Washington, DC – another university run by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order. O’Brien had joined them in 1996, after leaving a career in law.

Located in Silicon Valley, southeast of San Francisco, Santa Clara University is the alma mater of California Governor Gavin Newsom, among others.

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