A multi-year investigation revealed that dozens of Catholic priests molested hundreds of Rhode Island victims over decades

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (AP) — Catholic priests in Rhode Island preyed on hundreds of children for decades, escaping sexual abuse largely because of a system in which bishops prioritized minimizing scandal as the diocese kept a secret archive to hide revelations of more victims.

The findings were among several disturbing details released Wednesday as part of a multi-year investigation into the Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island, led by Attorney General Peter Neroha.

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The report is designed to provoke a “full reckoning” of abuses that have long remained elusive within the smallest state in the United States, home to the nation’s largest Catholic population per capita, where nearly 40% of the state identifies as Catholic. Neronha, a Catholic, sided with victims who said not enough had been done yet to address the problem, more than two decades after it was widely exposed in the nearby Boston Archdiocese.

“There has not yet been a comprehensive review of this painful chapter in our state’s history, with the goal of providing the transparency, accountability, and systemic reforms that I hope will reduce the potential for future child sexual abuse, not only within the Diocese of Providence, but in our community as a whole,” Neronha wrote in the report.

The investigation found that 75 Catholic clergy had molested more than 300 victims since 1950, but officials stressed that the number of child victims and abusive priests was likely much higher.

Abusive priests are able to hide and be transferred to new locations

Diocesan records, which the report described as “damned,” revealed that the diocese often transferred accused priests to new assignments without thoroughly investigating complaints or contacting law enforcement.

This includes the Diocese of Providence opening a “spiritual retreat-style facility” in the early 1950s, where many accused priests were sent for treatment with the goal of returning to work. The practice evolved into sending accused priests to more formal “treatment centers” after it was determined that clergy abuse might be a mental health issue.

The report said the diocese’s “over-reliance and misplaced faith” in treatment centers was at best “ridiculously tainted.”

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By the 1990s, accused priests were sometimes given sabbatical leave.

For example, the report says the Rev. Robert Carpentier was accused in 1992 of sexual assault by the family of a 13-year-old victim. Carpentier confirmed that the abuse occurred in the 1970s and resigned.

Carpentier was sent to a treatment center in Connecticut and eventually matriculated from Boston College. He remained on “sabbatical” until his official retirement in 2006 and received support from the diocese until his death in 2012.

In general, the majority of cases involving accused priests have avoided accountability from both law enforcement and the diocese.

Neronha said his office accused four current and former priests of sexual assault while serving in the diocese between 2020 and 2022. Three of these priests are still awaiting trial. The fourth priest died after being deemed incompetent to stand trial in 2022.

In all, only 20, or about 26%, of the clergy identified in the report faced criminal charges, and only 14 clergy were convicted. Dozens of accused clerics were secularized or expelled from the theocracy.

Some survivors were groomed before abuse

One survivor said in the report that he was groomed before being sexually assaulted by Monsignor John Allard, who served at the Immaculate Conception Church in Cranston in 1981.

The survivor, who was not named in the report, said Allard gave him attention and physical affection between seventh and eighth grade. By ninth grade, Allard brought the young teen to the priest’s bed, undressed the victim and began stroking his penis.

“He never asked me for a hug, he never asked me if I wanted a hug, and his comment to me was always, ‘You need a hug,’ and that’s something I can hear him say very clearly to this day,” the survivor told officials in 2013.

While the review panel deemed the abuse of the victim credible, then-Bishop of Providence Thomas Tobin intervened, asking the Vatican’s powerful doctrinal office to allow Allard to retire without removing him from the priesthood. The Vatican agreed.

Sometimes, even those charged with reviewing abuse cases were also abusers. In 2021, the Rev. Francis Santelli received a child sexual abuse complaint after serving on the Rhode Island Diocese of Review Board. Santelli stepped down from his position, but remained in active ministry even after receiving additional abuse complaints in 2014 and 2021. Santelli will not be removed until 2022.

“Only the diocese can explain why this necessary action has taken so long,” the report says.

The extent of the abuse remains unknown

Neronha first launched the investigation in 2019, nearly a year after a Pennsylvania grand jury report found that more than 1,000 children had been abused by an estimated 300 priests in that state since the 1940s. The 2018 report is considered one of the most extensive investigations into child sexual abuse in US history.

However, unlike Pennsylvania, Rhode Island law does not allow grand jury reports to be released to the public, an obstacle Neronha has long fought to change.

Instead, Neronha had to enter into an agreement with the diocese to access hundreds of thousands of abuse records spanning decades.

While Neronha said that the church cooperated, handing over 70 years of what became known as the “secret archive,” or files containing internal investigations, records of civil settlements for sexual assault cases, treatment costs, and more.

However, Neronha says, the arrangement “was not without important limitations, or without delays.”

“I have repeatedly declined my team’s requests to interview diocesan employees responsible for overseeing diocesan investigations and responding to allegations of child sexual abuse,” Neronha wrote of the diocese.

Furthermore, an unknown number of victims likely died before coming forward, while some church records were lost or even destroyed about potential abusive priests. It is also common for victims of child sexual abuse to take decades before coming forward with their stories.