A woman is suing her parish priest, claiming he lured her into having sex that he said was "ordained by God." Instead, she says, he took advantage of her when she sought spiritual solace after her divorce.
Judith Rodrigues-Lytwyn filed her $25 million lawsuit in Brooklyn state Supreme Court. She says the seven-month affair left her feeling "severe stress" and "shame."
The 50-year-old parishioner charges the priest with using his collar -- and Viagra -- to seduce her.
She had gone to confession at Our Lady of the Snows Church in Queens and told the priest about her divorce from an abusive husband, when she says he 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,"' according to the lawsuit.
"Elano professed his love, devotion and physical attraction to (Rodrigues-Lytwyn), stating, 'Your presence struck me like a thunderbolt,"' according to the court papers, and she was "overwhelmed" by his advances "and soon thereafter succumbed to them."
As part of the suit, filed Monday, she provided photographs of him -- one of him shirtless and kneeling next to her bed, another of the two of them embraced on a Long Island beach, and a third showing him clenching a rose in his mouth.
The relationship ended earlier this month, after she received an e-mail from the priest telling her "that he developed a rash in his groin and legs and believed it was from his sexual liaisons with others."
