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Political Scene: R.I. Lawmaker Details Torment of Her Sister’s Molestation

By Katherine Gregg
Providence Journal
February 17, 2019

https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190217/political-scene-ri-lawmaker-details-torment-of-her-sisters-molestation

“I want to explain and paint for you a picture of my family and how this injustice rocked us to the very core.”

So begins Rhode Island lawmaker Carol Hagan McEntee’s account of what the repeated sexual molestation of her older sister, Ann, by their parish priest in West Warwick over a period of time that began in 1957, when Ann was 5 years old, did to their deeply Catholic family.

McEntee stayed up most of the night, one recent night, writing it out, so she’d know what she wanted to say at the public hearing the House Judiciary Committee is holding on Tuesday, Feb. 26 on her bill to give the victims of childhood sex abuse more time than current law allows them to file civil suits against their abusers.

Her now 66-year-old sister, Ann Hagan Webb, a psychologist, was one of several victims of priests and other trusted elders, including staff members at the elite St. George’s School in Middletown, who told their stories to the state’s lawmakers last year. Ann has told The Journal she plans to tell her story again next week.

This is a shortened version of what Carol McEntee, a three-term member of the R.I. House of Representatives, wrote:

“When I filed this bill last session I knew that there were many victims in RI who were suffering, some silently. Never did I imagine that the world would explode as it did this past summer and which continues to shock us daily with story after story in state after state of the systematic abuse of children that has occurred within the Catholic Church.

“The mere fact that those in charge knew that the abuse of children was happening under their supervision and did nothing to prevent it and in many cases covered it up should shock and enrage all of us.”

“This is my personal story from a sister’s perspective.”

 

 

 

 

 




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