Priest removed for abuse dies in Lithuania

PORTLAND – An 80-year-old former priest who was removed from the ministry due to accusations of sexually abusing minors in Maine has died in Lithuania, the Portland Diocese said Wednesday.

Raymond Lauzon died on Monday following a brief illness. At Lauzon’s request, his funeral and burial took place in Lithuania the following day. Word of his death was sent to the Roman Catholic diocese from the Franciscan Province of St. Casimir in Lithuania.

Lauzon’s name surfaced publicly as the Portland Diocese and others around the country confronted a wave of child sexual abuse allegations spanning recent decades.

For 15 years, Lauzon conducted a ministry in a thrift shop in Portland’s waterfront district. He also was assigned to a number of other parishes throughout Maine, and in 1990 he joined a Franciscan monastery in Kennebunk.

During the 1990s, several civil suits were brought against Lauzon alleging he abused children in the 1970s and 1980s. Church leaders, hoping to protect the church from scandal, defended him fiercely and Lauzon denied the allegations.

In one case, Lauzon pleaded guilty to witness tampering and agreed to serve a jail term, but the sex charges were dropped. The diocese settled other cases in 1997 for amounts that weren’t disclosed.

A Biddeford native, Lauzon served in the Navy before entering St. Paul’s Seminary in Ottawa, Canada, in 1950.