The Rev. Daniel O’Hare, administrator of the Holy Name of Mary – Assumption Parish serving Montgomery and Maybrook, has been relieved of his pastoral duties while the Archdiocese of New York investigates an allegation that he sexually abused a minor.

The abuse is alleged to have occurred in the 1990s. O’Hare reportedly has denied the accusation, but has agreed to step aside while the investigation is conducted. He did not say Mass last weekend at either of the two churches that comprise the parish, the Holy Name of Mary in Montgomery or the Church of the Assumption in Maybrook. His name had been removed from the Parish website as of Tuesday afternoon.

Parishioners were informed of the allegations in a letter, dated Friday from the Archdiocese of New York and signed by Cardinal Timothy J. Dolan, Archbishop of New York. In the letter, Dolan told the parishioners that he wanted them to hear the “unpleasant news” first from him and not the news media.

O’Hare has been in the Montgomery-Maybrook communities since 1996, when he was appointed pastor of Assumption, founded in 1907 as a mission church to St. Mary’s in Washingtonville. He was named pastor of Holy Name of Mary and administrator of Assumption in 2005, and was appointed parish administrator in 2015, following the formal merger of the Montgomery and Maybrook Parishes in 2015. The following year he was appointed Dean of Orange County and last year was re-appointed pastor of the Holy Name of Mary – Assumption Parish. Previously he had served in parishes in Port Jervis, Poughkeepsie and at St. Patrick’s in Newburgh.

In December, the archdiocese suspended the Rev. Donald Timone, a retired priest living at the Church of St. Joseph in Middletown, while it re-investigates a 15-year-old allegation of sexual abuse against him. Timone, a former member of the Mount Saint Mary College faculty, had also said mass at the Montgomery Church while at the college.