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	Benedictine Hospital Suspends Priest Accused of Sexual Liaison in NYC Daily Freeman October 30, 2008 http://www.dailyfreeman.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20183626&BRD=1769&PAG=461&dept_id=74969&rfi=6 A PRIEST accused of having a sexual liaison with a parishioner in New York City has been suspended from his role as a chaplain at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston. The Rev. Elvis Elano came to Benedictine, a Catholic hospital on Mary's Avenue, in August and was suspended on Thursday, according to Sean Casey, the hospital's spokesman. "Father Elano has been suspended from his duties at Benedictine Hospital, where he provided pastoral care to our patients since August 2008," Casey said in a prepared statement. Elano has been living in the rectory at St. Joseph's Church in Kingston since moving upstate two months ago, according to Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese on New York. The Rev. Frank Damis, pastor of St. Joseph's, could not be reached for comment. Zwilling said Elano - who apparently was ordained in the Philippines and belonged to a religious order in Texas called the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity - will no longer be allowed to serve as a priest in the Archdiocese of New York, which includes Ulster County. Elano is the subject of a $25 million lawsuit filed by a New York City woman who claims the priest lured her into having sex that he said was "ordained by God." In the suit, filed in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn, Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn says Elano took advantage of her when she sought spiritual solace after her divorce and that the seven-month affair left her feeling "severe stress" and "shame." In the suit, first reported by the New York Post and the Daily News, Rodrigues-Lytwyn, 50, says she went to confession at Our Lady of the Snows Church in Queens and told Elano about her divorce from an abusive husband. Elano then began "encouraging her to engage in a sexual liaison with him to assist her in overcoming her pain associated with her husband and because it was 'ordained by God,'" the lawsuit states. "Elano professed his love, devotion and physical attraction ... stating, 'Your presence struck me like a thunderbolt,'" according to the court papers. Rodrigues-Lytwyn says she was "overwhelmed" by the priest's advances "and soon thereafter succumbed to them." As part of the suit, which was filed on Monday, Rodrigues-Lytwyn provided photographs of Elano - one of him shirtless and kneeling next to her bed, another of the two of them embracing on a Long Island beach and a third showing him clenching a rose in his mouth. The suit says the affair ended earlier this month after Elano sent Rodrigues-Lytwyn an e-mail telling her "that he developed a rash in his groin and legs and believed it was from his sexual liaisons with others." Rodrigues-Lytwyn told the Post that "once I got my head on straight, I realized that he preyed upon me." The Daily News quoted a spokesman for the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Queens, as saying Elano's move to Kingston was not the result of any sex scandal.
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