School removes bishop's name

DAVENPORT, Iowa--St. Ambrose University honored the request of a survivor of clergy sexual abuse and removed the name of the late Bishop Gerald F. O'Keefe of Davenport from the university's 11-year-old library. Davenport Bishop Martin J. Amos is the board's president.

Mark Powell of Indianapolis, the survivor who made the request, was abused in the Davenport diocese in the late 1970s by a priest and two religious brothers. Powell said he reported the incidents to O'Keefe in 1977 and 1981, but the bishop did nothing.

O'Keefe served the Davenport diocese from 1967 to 1993 and died in 2000.

Shortly after the board announced its decision Aug. 3, two workers in a crane removed the letters spelling out "O'KEEFE" from the front of the building, leaving the word "LIBRARY."

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