LAFAYETTE (LA)
Acadiana Advocate [Lafayette LA]
August 24, 2023
By Ken Stickney
The Rev. Stanley Begnaud’s more than two-decade career as an ordained priest in the Diocese of Lafayette is proving problematic for those he left behind.
Begnaud, born in Lafayette in 1921, ordained in 1958, retired in 1982 and deceased three years later, is a key though largely missing figure in a continuing lawsuit against the Diocese of Lafayette filed by a plaintiff, known in court only as “Sam Doe,” who says the priest sexually abused him more than 60 years ago. The plaintiff would be in his late 70s now.
Sam Doe charges that he was a parishioner at St. Stephen Catholic Church in Berwick, near Morgan City, in the early 1960s when Begnaud, then a parish priest who was giving the 16-year-old a ride home from a social event, attempted to molest him — first in the moving vehicle and then by the side of the road. St. Stephen’s was Begnaud’s fourth assignment as a diocesan priest.
Doe’s attorneys contend the diocese is liable for the sexual abuse the plaintiff suffered and the resulting mental and emotional struggles the plaintiff endured as an adult because the diocese acted negligently by not protecting Doe from Begnaud.
“Begnaud was a diseased pedophile who raped and sexually assaulted many young boys, was secretly labeled a ‘known pedophile’ by the Diocese of Lafayette, yet he was moved frequently throughout the various parishes within the Diocese of Lafayette,” the lawsuit says.
The priest eventually served in St. Peter the Apostle, Gueydan; St. Joseph, Rayne; Our Lady of Perpetual Help, New Iberia; St. Stephen, Berwick; Our Lady of Fatima, Lafayette; Our Lady of Mercy, Opelousas; St. Margaret of Scotland, Lake Charles; St. Edward, Richard; and St. Thomas, Savoy; Sts. Peter and Paul, Scott; St. Leo IV, Roberts Cove; and the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Lafayette.
New life was breathed into the old memory in 2020, almost 60 years after the plaintiff said the incident occurred. Begnaud’s accuser said he had received long-term counseling because of the incident he described. In 2019, the Diocese of Lafayette revealed that Begnaud, long dead, had been “credibly accused” of sex abuse but offered little more concrete information.
The following year, the plaintiff filed suit against the diocese. The case might have ended due to the expiration of the old statue of limitations for such crimes except for 2021 legislation — Act 322 — that provided a new three-year window that allowed civil claims to be filed on long-ago sex abuse charges.
The diocese disagreed — it contended the legislation was unconstitutional — and asked that the suit be halted. But, first 15th Judicial District Court Judge Laurie Hulin in January and then the 3rd Court of Civil Appeal in Lake Charles last week ruled civil action could continue.
The diocese’s recourse last week appeared to be an appeal to the state Supreme Court; the diocese’s attorney, Gilbert Dozier of Lafayette, did not return a call Wednesday asking whether the diocese would appeal. Nor did the diocese’s spokesperson, Blue Rolfes.
kstickney@theadvocate.com