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	Baltimore Catholic Order Faces Lawsuit Siblings Claim Deceased Priest Was Their Biological Father By Frank D. Roylance Baltimore Sun May 29, 2009 http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/baltimore_city/bal-md.lawsuit29may29,0,3435860.story Two people who claim that DNA tests prove they are the biological offspring of a now-deceased Roman Catholic priest have filed a lawsuit seeking $10 million in damages from his Baltimore-based order. Carla A. Latty, 56, of New Jersey and her brother, Adrian Senna, 63, of British Columbia, say the Rev. Francis E. Ryan, a member of Saint Joseph's Society of the Sacred Heart, had a long-running relationship with their birth mother beginning in Montgomery, Ala., in the 1940s. But rather than acknowledge his paternity and take financial responsibility for his children, the plaintiffs argue, Ryan and his superiors in the order concealed the sexual affair and instead moved Ryan to a succession of assignments in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans. Senna was placed in an orphanage. He and Latty were later separately adopted. Latty, now a labor attorney in New York, said she was 54 when her search for her birth parents led her to her sibling, and revealed her mother's story and her father's identity. A DNA sample provided by Ryan's nephew confirmed the genetic link in 2007. An article in The Boston Globe quoted a half brother of Latty saying the $500 test was paid for by the Josephite order. "What upsets me most," she said, "is that I never got to meet my mother. I believe she felt compelled to put her children in orphanages to protect the identity of my father." Latty said her mother, Anna Maria "Ria" Franklin Senna, was a 19-year-old church organist in Montgomery, Ala., when she and Ryan met. Latty said their affair continued after Ryan was moved to new assignments; Ria Senna eventually moved to Boston, where Ryan had roots. Their civil suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City seeks compensatory and punitive damages from the Archdiocese of Baltimore and from Ryan's order. They allege negligence in the church's hiring and supervision of Ryan, intentional infliction of emotional distress and fiduciary fraud. Also named as defendants in the suit are the archbishop of Baltimore and Ryan's estate. Ryan died in 1995. Ria Senna died in 1972. A spokesman for the archdiocese said it asked the plaintiffs Thursday to drop the archdiocese and the archbishop from the suit. Ryan was never affiliated with the archdiocese, spokesman Sean Caine said. "To our knowledge, he never ... set foot in the state of Maryland," Caine said. The Rev. Edward Chiffriller, head of the Saint Joseph Society, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
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