GLENS FALLS (NY)
Post-Star
June 15, 2020
By Michael Goot
https://poststar.com/news/local/late-priest-from-lake-luzerne-parish-among-those-named-in-child-sex-abuse-lawsuits/article_12bb280b-e5b2-58f6-8ae8-613c41fc4c6f.html
Lake Luzerne – A late priest that served at a church in Lake Luzerne was named in one of 52 sex abuse lawsuits filed Monday against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.
The Rev. Charles A. Gaffigan, who retired from Holy Mother and Child Parish in 2011, is accused of sexually abusing a minor from 1992 to about 1994 at what was then Holy Infancy Church in Lake Luzerne, according to a news release from Jeff Anderson & Associates. The law firm has filed a total of 74 lawsuits against the diocese.
Gaffigan died in 2015 after battling cancer.
Gaffigan was appointed to serve as pastor of what was then Holy Infancy Church in Lake Luzerne in 1991, according to his obituary. In 2003, he picked up the responsibility for Immaculate Conception Church in Corinth. The churches ultimately merged in 2009 to form Holy Mother and Child Parish. He retired as pastor in 2011, but continued to fill in throughout the diocese.
Gaffigan died on April 19, 2015, at the age of 79 at the Gateway House of Peace in Ballston Spa.
He also served as associate pastor in St. Michael’s in South Glens Falls in the 1970s and at St. Mary’s in Glens Falls in the early 1980s.
Three new lawsuits were also brought against Gary Mercure, who was sentenced to more than 25 years in prison in Massachusetts on child sex abuse charges. Mercure served at Our Lady of Annunciation Church in Queensbury and St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Glens Falls.
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