Columban Father Francis D. O’Mara, 89, a missionary pastor, died July 21 in Bristol, Rhode Island.

Father O’Mara was born in Queen of Angels Parish and attended St. Margaret Mary School before entering St. Columban’s Minor Seminary in Silver Creek, New York.

After being ordained in 1961, he did postgraduate studies in Rome, receiving a doctorate at the Gregorian University. In 1967, he was sent to Australia to teach at the Columban seminary there. He returned to Chicago briefly in 1978 before being sent to study Spanish in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

By January 1979, he was working in the parish of Santa Luisa, Barrancas, Chile, where he was active in the local prison, which led to his work with those with alcohol addiction.

In October 1983, he was arrested, along with 19 other priests, religious and laypeople after a demonstration against torture under the Pinochet regime. In 1984, Father O’Mara was deported from Chile. After a stopover in Lima, Peru, he arrived home in Chicago.

In 1985, he was sent to a parish in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and in 1992, he was sent to Grand Prairie, Texas, where he served until 1999.

In 1992, after the fall of Pinochet, Father O’Mara was able to visit Peru.

“It’s great to be back, with the people being free and so much less tension in the air,” he said at the time. The Community of John XIII in Pedahuel, where he was working at the time of his arrest and expulsion, gave him a great welcome.

After his assignment in Texas, he became pastor of St. Philomena Parish in Chicago. That was followed by work with fellow Columbans in El Paso, Texas, and across the border in Juarez, Mexico. In July 2017, he retired to the Columban House in Bristol, Rhode Island.

He is survived by his brother, Stephen O’Mara.