R.I. Attorney General Peter Neronha P’19 P’22 released a nearly 300-page report detailing over seven decades of Rhode Island clergy members sexually abusing minors — and how the Diocese of Providence allegedly covered up the widespread abuse.
The report, which took almost seven years to produce, found 75 clergy members with credible accusations of sexual misconduct and over 300 documented victims of sex abuse at the hands of clergy members since 1950. Four of the named clergy members have faced criminal charges.
“Child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Providence occurred on an abhorrent, staggering scale,” Neronha said in a press release emailed to The Herald. He accused the Diocese of Providence of “protecting the reputation of the Church and its priests over the welfare of children.”
The diocese acknowledged “serious missteps” by church leadership “generally in the early recognition and handling of this awful period” in a statement shared with The Herald.
The report states that clergy often targeted “especially vulnerable” children, including kids who came from troubled homes, altar boys and those attending Catholic schools. The majority of cases were perpetrated against children between the ages of 11 and 14, and there was a five-to-one ratio of male to female victims, the report found. Incidents peaked in the 1960s and ’70s, and victims took an average of 26 years to report their experiences.
The investigation reviewed 250,000 pages of documents from the past 75 years and involved 150 interviews. Over the course of the investigation, Rhode Island State Police attempted to contact over 300 victims and reached nearly 150 of them.
“Each survivor we spoke with recounted unthinkable trauma at the hands of trusted religious leaders, and yet what stood out most was their bravery, resiliency and commitment to accountability,” Neronha said in the statement. “I also want to honor those who could not come forward, whether due to trauma or because they are no longer with us.”
Rhode Island’s population is close to 40% Catholic — the highest percentage of any state in the nation. The diocese currently includes 364 priests, and nearly 12,000 children attend schools affiliated with the Diocese of Providence.
According to the report, the most recent disclosed instance of sexual misconduct was in 2011. The report counts nine victims of sexual abuse between 2000 and 2019.
“Today’s Catholic clergy here in Rhode Island are good and holy men, serving Christ and His people with devotion and out of genuine pastoral concern,” Bishop Bruce Lewandowski said in a Wednesday video shared by the diocese. He added that no “credibly accused” clergy currently serve in the ministry.
In 2019, then-Bishop Thomas Tobin agreed to turn over the diocese’s records going back to 1950. At the time, the diocese’s public list of credibly accused clergy included 51 names. The updated list from Neronha’s report — included as a 300-plus-page appendix — identifies 72 credibly accused clergy members. Only 10–15% of child sexual abuse cases are ever reported to law enforcement, according to the report.
Neronha criticized the diocese for failing to report the abuse to law enforcement, investigate internally and remove priests from positions where they could access children.
Those accused of sexual misconduct were often transferred to other communities by the diocese — a condemned practice known as “priest shuffling.” Thirty-six R.I. cities and towns were at one point assigned an accused clergy.
“The diocese’s historical failure to timely and appropriately respond to clergy abuse complaints resulted in the sexual abuse of additional Rhode Island children,” the report reads.
The report also accused the diocese of withholding complaints and evidence of some incidents at its discretion, including those it “deemed not credible after an internal investigation” and those that “could be described as ‘grooming.’”
The Diocese of Providence contested in its statement that the report’s existence attests to the diocese’s cooperation in sharing the records, adding that there is “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.”
“The very existence of the Attorney General’s report is the result of the Diocese of Providence’s unprecedented and voluntary agreement to extraordinary transparency,” the statement reads.
The Diocese of Providence’s statement also pointed to changes implemented since the early 2000s to address systemic issues, including a zero-tolerance policy for those credibly accused.
The report alleges numerous holes in the diocese’s current practices, including insufficient supervision of credibly accused clergy, nonstandardized internal investigations and inadequate documentation of those investigations.
Neronha called for the diocese to require regular background checks for clergy, create and support a survivor compensation program and increase transparency by editing the current list of credibly accused clergy members.
In the wake of the report’s publication, Neronha is pushing for legislative reform actions. One of these reforms, a grand jury reporting statute, would allow reports from grand jury investigations to become public even when they do not result in criminal charges.
Due to the lack of a grand jury reporting statute, according to the report, the investigation had to rely on the diocese’s cooperation. Neronha alleges that the diocese sometimes delayed turning documents over, slowing down the investigation.
In its statement, the Diocese of Providence wrote that it “set aside its valid legal objections and willingly endured six-and-a-half years of persistent requests for over 75 years of material.”
Neronha is also advocating to raise the civil statute of limitations to allow victims to bring suit against institutions that covered up the abuse, and increase the criminal statute of limitations for second-degree sexual assault. He also proposed amending the R.I. mandatory reporting laws to include known or suspected clergy abuse.
The Diocese of Providence argued in its statement that the report was an effort to sway legislative debate in favor of Neronha’s reforms, noting that similar policies have led to the bankruptcies of dioceses in other states.
“The diocese would have you believe that this report is historical; that child sexual abuse by clergy members is a thing of the past and not worth drudging up,” Neronha said. “To that I say: the pain that survivors and their families suffer knows no statute of limitations, and history always has something to teach us.”
Talia EgnalTalia is a metro section editor covering the health and environment and community and culture beats. She is a sophomore from Bethesda, MD studying history and international and public affairs. In her free time, she enjoys exploring Providence one wrong turn at a time.
