Report Lays Out Decades of Child Sex Abuse by Clergy in Rhode Island Diocese

Rhode Island officials have released a report blasting the Catholic Diocese of Providence for what it calls a “well-worn pattern” of failing to remove dozens of priests accused of child sexual abuse and keeping the abuse secret over decades.

“They failed to report the abuse to civil authorities; they failed to properly investigate those complaints internally; and they failed to remove accused priests from positions where they had access to even more children, who tragically paid the price for those failures,” Attorney General Peter F. Neronha commented in releasing the 300-page investigative report that covers 75 years and has been in the works since 2019.

In its response to the report, the Diocese of Providence defended itself and criticized the report as an historical document that fails to acknowledge the changes it has made to protect children. It noted that the report was the result of the diocese’s willingness to cooperate and be transparent.

As a result of its investigation, the attorney general’s office (AGO) said it identified 75 “credibly accused clergy,” including 61 diocesan priests and deacons, 13 religious order members, and one non-resident priest who reportedly abused more than 300 victims from 1950 to 2011.

The AGO brought criminal charges against four current and former priests for child sexual abuse they allegedly committed while serving in the diocese. Three are currently awaiting trial and are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The report’s graphs show that nearly 97% of abuse cases occurred between 1950 to 1997, and 42% before 1972. The investigation found that accused priests were repeatedly returned to ministry, in positions where they had access to, and sexually abused, more children, particularly under Bishops Russell McVinney who served from 1948 until 1971, and Louis Gelineau who served from 1971 until 1997.

According to the report, the failures persisted until “external pressures, such as civil lawsuits against the church, criminal prosecutions of individual priests, and a heightened public awareness of clergy abuse, forced the diocese to begin reforming its responses.”

The report cites how the diocese’s willingness to involve law enforcement evolved. Between 1990 and 1999, the diocese reported only five of 65 complaints to police. However, between 2010 and 2019, it referred 47 of 55 complaints.

Neronha credited the diocese for its cooperation in providing more than 250,000 pages of records including ones pertaining to personnel files of accused priests, records of internal investigations of abuse complaints, correspondence involving bishops and other senior diocesan leaders, “treatment” reports for accused priests, diocesan policies, and other materials. However, he added, the diocese denied his investigators’ requests for in-person interviews.

Neronha said that while the situation has improved, there are lessons to be learned and more work to be done

For its part, the Diocese of Providence complained that the report fails to sufficiently acknowledge that lessons have been learned and that changes have been made to protect children and cooperate with law enforcement.

“The report does not have the force of law but rather offers untested perspectives of the Attorney General — the bulk of which focus on historical cases of abuse from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and which have been previously documented, already subject to civil and criminal litigation, and well-publicized in the media,” the statement from Providence Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski stated.

Lewandowski acknowledged that it is appropriate to critically examine the diocese’s “serious missteps” of the past regarding child sex abuse. However, the bishop said, the report fails to examine the “current state of child sexual abuse in society more broadly.”

The bishop said it is “undeniable” that the diocese has “effectively responded to these issues” with reforms to protect children that “have proven to be overwhelmingly effective.”

He noted that the report itself reveals “no evidence of recent child sexual abuse by clergy, no credible accusations against those in ministry today, and no instances of the diocese’s failure to meet its legal reporting obligations.”

Among its recommendations, the report calls for the diocese to create a monitoring program for credibly accused clergy and a compensation fund for victims.

It also proposes legislative reforms including amending Rhode Island’s civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse to permit plaintiffs whose claims previously expired to sue and increasing the criminal statute of limitations for second-degree sexual assault.

Child sex abuse within the Catholic Church has been a subject of legal actions since the mid-1980s. Cases grew in number in early 2002 after a report by The Boston Globe found widespread abuse. The crisis has affected nearly all U.S. dioceses, some of which declared bankruptcy as claims mounted.

The Diocese of Providence serves hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics throughout Rhode Island, a state where close to 40% of adults identify as Catholic. The diocese includes more than 130 parishes and 364 priests.