A man and a woman who say that their father was a Josephite priest have filed a lawsuit seeking $10 million in compensation and punitive damages from the Baltimore-based order.

Carla A. Latty, 56, an attorney in New York, and Adrian Senna, 63, a retired actor and musician in British Columbia, say that DNA tests prove that the late Rev. Francis E. Ryan was their biological father. They say Ryan, who served as a priest in Alabama, Louisiana and the District of Columbia, conducted a long-running relationship with their late mother, Anna Maria Franklin Senna.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in Baltimore Circuit Court, Latty and Senna say Ryan’s order, formally named Saint Joseph’s Society of the Sacred Heart, denied them knowledge of and contact with their birth father and his family and deprived them of child support and other economic assistance. They also accuse the order of negligence in hiring, retaining and failing to properly supervise Ryan.

The lawsuit names the archbishop and archdiocese of Baltimore as codefendants. A spokesman for the archdiocese said Thursday that the archdiocese has asked to be removed from the complaint.

“The fact is that Father Ryan was in no way affiliated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore,” spokesman Sean Caine said. “To our knowledge, he never served a day and never set foot in the State of Maryland.”

A message left for the Saint Joseph’s Society Thursday was not immediately returned. According to a 2007 story in the Boston Globe, the Rev. Edward Chiffriller, head of the society, covered the $500 cost of DNA testing.