ALEXANDRIA (LA)
KALB [Alexandria LA]
June 23, 2024
By Jonathan Kinder
Court documents filed to the Rapides Parish Clerk of Court on, June 11, indicate that the Diocese of Alexandria faces a civil suit for damages caused by a former priest in the 1970s.
The accuser claimed that they were sexually abused as a minor by a priest employed at the Diocese of Alexandria, identified as Father Edmund Gagné.
Father Gagné was among those named by the Diocese of Alexandria in 2019 as having been accused of sexual misconduct and abuse of minors. According to BishopAccountability, Father Gagné was ordained in 1971 and was assigned to a church in Marksville for two months in 1974. He then transferred to Houston, TX, and was removed from public ministry in 1986. Father Gagné reportedly died in 1990.
The accuser alleges that while serving as an altar boy at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in 1971 and 1972, they were groomed and coerced into performing sexual acts with Father Gagné. The lawsuit claims the acts happened at places around Alexandria including at a garage apartment, behind the rectory of St. Francis Xavier Cathedral and at the YMCA. They also alleged that Father Gagné committed sexual battery against them as a minor.
Most disturbing, however, is an account of how the priest lured the accuser to Mexico in June of 1972 under the false pretense of a mission trip to, “deliver clothes to the needy.” The civil suit claims that while in Mexico, the priest and child shared a hotel room. The suit then states, “the events which occurred in that hotel room in Monterey, Mexico were so traumatic that Plaintiff, who was still a minor child at the time, purchased his own plane ticket and flew home alone on an airplane just to escape from Father Edmund Gagné.”
The civil suit argues that the Diocese of Alexandria is liable for damages for failure to, “use reasonable care in the in the screening, training, supervising and retaining of employees and ensuring that minors would not be sexually molested and abused by their agents and/or employees.”
The suit goes on to allege that, “the sexual abuse of Plaintiff was primarily and directly rooted in Father Edmund Gagné’s employment by the Defendant and could not have occurred but for the authority, freedom and trust granted to Father Edmund Gagné by the Defendant.”
The suit claims that they repressed memories of the abuse in Mexico and, “suffered severe harm and permanent life altering damage.”
A statute of limitations does not apply in this case, as was noted in the petition, due to a series of laws in Louisiana which created a ‘lookback window’ for cases related to the sexual abuse of a minor and allowed them to be brought to court without time constraints.
The window was in jeopardy after one of its laws was declared unconstitutional by the Louisiana Supreme Court in March of 2024, but the court later reversed their decision on June 12.
Additionally, the state’s lookback window was set to expire on June 14, 2024, but was extended due to Act 481 of the 2024 Legislative session, which was filed by State Senator Jay Luneau of Pineville as SB 246.
A court date has not yet been set, and the plaintiff requested a trial by jury. The name of the accuser was withheld at this time for their personal privacy.
KALB did reach out to the Diocese of Alexandria’s Chancery Office for comment, but we have not yet heard back.