Lawsuit says priest abused boy in 1960s

Lawyers: Man was ‘suffering in silence for over 50 years’

LAS CRUCES — A man who says he was sexually abused as a boy by a priest in New Mexico in the 1960s sued the church and diocese this week, the latest case to surface in the state as the Roman Catholic Church wrestles with the global clergy sex abuse scandal.

The suit filed Tuesday in state District Court in Las Cruces seeks unspecified compensation for the unnamed victim. His lawyers say he is now 62 and has been “suffering in silence for over 50 years.”

The complaint names as defendants St. Joseph Parish in Lordsburg and the Catholic Diocese of El Paso, which oversaw the Southern New Mexico parish before the creation of the Las Cruces Diocese in the 1980s. It alleges abuse by the Rev. Lawrence Gaynor, who died in 1978 at age 75. Gaynor was included in a list of accused priests that was released by the El Paso diocese in 2019.

Many clergy abuse allegations in New Mexico date back decades. In 2022, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, the state’s largest diocese and one of the nation’s oldest, reached a $121.5 million agreement to settle nearly 400 abuse claims.

The new lawsuit says the plaintiff was the victim of sexual abuse and exploitation by Gaynor from around late 1967 to early 1968 when the priest was at St. Joseph Parish, with the abuse stopping only when the boy and his family moved away.

According to the suit, the El Paso Diocese was aware of Gaynor’s “proclivity for child sexual abuse since 1965.” It says Bishop Sidney Metzger — who served the diocese in the post from 1942 to 1978 and died in 1986 — disregarded explicit warnings from psychologists Gaynor should be placed under indefinite supervision at an isolated monastery in Jemez Springs. St. Joseph Parish is alleged to have done “nothing to warn vulnerable parishioners” when Gaynor was placed in Lordsburg.

The El Paso Diocese is aware of the lawsuit, spokesman Fernando Ceniceros said. He declined to comment further.