An 81-year-man who says he was repeatedly raped by an Episcopal priest more than 60 years ago is now suing the Diocese of Pennsylvania. When Ralph White was a teenager at All Saints Parish in Wynnewood, he says, he was sexually abused on a number of occasions by the Rev. Gibson Bell.

Rev. Bell influenced White's mother to have her son placed in a mental institution. Later, White's mother disowned her son and willed her estate to Rev. Bell.

Rev. Bell died in 1979, and the church now owns the property.

At 81 and in poor health, Ralph White Jr. is not confident he will live to see a dime from the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania.

But White voiced relief yesterday that a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court had ordered the church to respond to his lawsuit alleging his pastor sexually abused him in the 1940s, when he was a boy, and later took his inheritance. ....

"I . . . encourage others to speak out and tell the truth of what has happened - and is happening - to them," he said at a small news conference outside Episcopal Church House, the diocesan headquarters, near Independence Mall.

Suffering a heart condition and "fighting depression," White supported himself with a cane while he read a statement.