CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A man who says he was molested as a boy by Paul Shanley, the now-defrocked priest at the center of the Boston Archdiocese sex scandal, tearfully testified yesterday that Mr. Shanley would pull him from catechism classes and rape and fondle him in the church pews, the confessional, and the rectory.

His voice cracking, a hand over his face, the 27-year-old man also said Mr. Shanley would wait for him in the bathroom with the lights off. He recalled seeing Mr. Shanley silhouetted against the hallway light, his hands outstretched in a priestly pose.

He said the abuse began at age 6 and continued until 1989, when he was 12.

Mr. Shanley’s lawyer has said the man made up the story to cash in on the multimillion-dollar settlement paid to victims of the Boston sex scandal.

The testimony came on the second day of Mr. Shanley’s rape trial, one of the few cases in which prosecutors have been able to bring charges against priests accused of molesting boys decades ago.

Mr. Shanley, 74, is one of the central figures in the scandal that erupted in the Boston Archdiocese three years ago and quickly spread across the nation. Personnel records were released showing church officials knew that Mr. Shanley advocated sex between men and boys, yet they continued to transfer him from parish to parish.

Mr. Shanley faces three charges of raping a child and two charges of indecent assault and battery on a child. He could get life in prison.

The case hinges on the concept of repressed memory, in which past experiences are suppressed in the subconscious until a trigger brings them back.

Mr. Shanley’s accuser said news reports about the scandal in Boston triggered his 20-year-old memories of being molested. But Mr. Shanley’s lawyer, Frank Mondano, has questioned the timing and validity of those memories and said he would call expert witnesses to debunk the science behind repressed memories.

Mr. Shanley’s accuser testified that three years ago, when he was a military police officer stationed at an Air Force base in Colorado, he got two calls from a girlfriend who said she had seen articles about Mr. Shanley. One of the stories was about “a very good friend of mine” who claimed to have been raped by Mr. Shanley.

“I started crying,” the witness said. “I dropped the phone. I started having all kinds of memories….I felt like my world was coming to an end.”

Asked by a prosecutor to identify Mr. Shanley in the courtroom, the man glared at the former priest and pointed.

Prosecutors have said Mr. Shanley’s modus operandi was to take the boys from catechism classes, saying he needed to discipline them, then sexually abuse them. However, a woman who taught at Mr. Shanley’s parish testified that she could not remember the priest pulling students from her classroom.