Negotiations Continue over Effort to Extend Sex-abuse Statute of Limitations

By Katherine Gregg
Providence Journal
June 20, 2019

https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20190620/negotiations-continue-over-effort-to-extend-sex-abuse-statute-of-limitations

With the legislative session nearing an end, a handful of Rhode Island victims of childhood sexual abuse came to the State House to beg Senate leaders to remove a potential new barrier to lawsuits against the church and any other “youth-serving” institutions that failed to stop past abuse.

The Rhode Island Catholic Church lost one major State House battle with the historic passage on Wednesday night of an abortion-rights law, but it is still waging war on a second legislative front: the potential cost of clergy sex abuse.

With the legislative session nearing an end, a half dozen or so Rhode Island victims of childhood sexual abuse came to the State House to beg Senate leaders to remove a potential new barrier to lawsuits against the church and any other “youth-serving” institutions that failed to stop past abuse.

They included long-ago abuse victim Josephine O’Connell of Providence, 78, who came with a sign that said: “Justice for Childhood Victims.?

Kathryn Robb — a lawyer, victim and executive director of the national advocacy group Child USA — told a news conference: