OAKLAND, Calif. — A San Francisco woman who says she was molested by the Oakland priest at the center of a case that has raised questions about Pope Benedict XVI’s handling of sexually abusive clergy members described in vivid terms on Sunday how she was sexually abused and intimidated by her attacker.

The woman, Melinda Costello, said she had been abused for several years, beginning at age 7, as a parishioner in nearby Fremont, Calif., where the Rev. Stephen Kiesle was working at a church as a seminarian in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Ms. Costello, now 48 and on disability because of arthritis, says that Mr. Kiesle — who was ordained as a priest in 1972 — first playfully invited her to sit on his lap, part of a youthful demeanor that he fostered, she said, including wearing purple tennis shoes in church.

“He was considered to be the Pied Piper,” Ms. Costello recalled in an interview. “He was a kid. And who doesn’t like a big kid?”