SINCLAIR – David Gagnon of Ottawa will get to tell his story about sexual abuse at the hands of a local priest when he meets Saturday with the parish council that oversees the parishes where the Rev. Michael Doucette is pastor.

Gagnon, who claims to have been abused for three years between the ages of 15 and 17, wanted to speak to Doucette’s parishioners, but the parish council decided instead on Wednesday night that the meeting would be with them.

Kevin Lavoie, acting president of the three-parish group, said Friday that the meeting would be with 12 or 13 members of the 15-member council. Doucette will not be present at the 2 p.m. session, which being held at the fire station in the village of Sinclair in Township 17, Range 4.

Gagnon, 37, was traveling Friday from Ottawa and could not be reached for comment. In a recorded message he sent Thursday, Gagnon simply said he was traveling to northern Maine for the Saturday meeting.

“He will meet with the majority of the parish council,” Lavoie said. “Some members cannot make the session.

“We want to hear his details of what happened,” the parish council official said. “We want his own story. We will listen with compassion and an open mind.”

An anticipated weekend meeting with an official of the Diocese of Portland has been postponed to next week or next weekend, Lavoie said.

The diocese is seeking feedback from parishioners about two St. John Valley priests who have abused children. Earlier this month, the diocese announced that two active Maine priests, Doucette and the Rev. John Audibert of St. Thomas Aqu-inas Parish in Madawaska, had been involved in cases that are 22 and 26 years old.

The planned session with Monsignor Marc Caron, co-chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, was to garner the local reaction to Doucette since the announcement was made two weeks ago by the diocese that Doucette had abused a minor 22 years ago.

A similar session was held last weekend at Madawaska.

Last week, Gagnon came forward to say he was the minor whom Doucette sexually abused in Biddeford prior to 1980.

Gagnon has said he wants Doucette’s parishioners to have all the information they need to make an informed decision about the priest’s remaining in the parish. Gagnon claims that parishioners have only one side of the story, the side of the abuser.

Gagnon’s request, made last week to Bishop Joseph J. Gerry, head of the Diocese of Portland, which serves the entire state, was turned over to the parish council where Doucette is pastor.

Doucette actually is pastor of three parishes in the St. John Valley. Because of the low number of priests in the diocese, he became pastor of St. Luce Parish in Frenchville and St. Joseph Parish in Sinclair when he was named last July to the St. Agatha post.

Gagnon had reached a financial settlement with the diocese after confronting church leaders about his abuse in 1992 and had agreed to not discuss the incidents.

In a letter sent last week to Gagnon, Gerry again offered to pay for more counseling for Gagnon and offered a face-to-face meeting with Doucette and both their counselors. Gagnon said he refuses to meet with Doucette.

The diocese is paying for Gagnon’s travel to St. Agatha.

Gerry also wrote Gagnon that if the local parish council recommends that it is inappropriate for Doucette to continue in ministry, “I will abide by that recommendation.”

Gagnon, an unemployed lay pastoral worker in Ottawa, holds a master’s degree in pastoral sciences. He lost his job with the church in Ottawa in 1992 after disclosing his abuse by a priest in Maine. He was living in Ottawa when he contacted the Diocese of Portland about the sexual abuse he had suffered.

Gagnon said he has come forward because the diocese continues to be deceitful. He said the church was supposed to name the priest who abused him in 1992, but never did.