Ex-altar Boy in N. Providence, Alleging Abuse, Sues Church Leaders As ‘perpetrator Defendants’

Providence Journal
October 1, 2019

https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20191001/ex-altar-boy-in-n-providence-alleging-abuse-sues-church-leaders-as-perpetrator-defendants

The statute of limitations has long expired on his right to sue the Catholic Church as an institution, so he names Diocese of Providence leaders as personally responsible, saying that they concealed abuse, shuttled pedophile priests from parish to parish and interfered with criminal prosecutions.

A former altar boy who says he was sexually abused by a North Providence parish priest filed suit Monday, outlining a novel legal argument that casts the Diocese of Providence and church leaders as accessories to his private torment

Philip Edwardo’s lawsuit appears to be the first litigation over Catholic clergy sex abuse filed after the state gave victims more time to sue over such claims. Edwardo says the Rev. Philip Magaldi, then a pastor at St. Anthony Church, inappropriately touched, molested or abused him 100 to 300 times. The abuse spanned the late 1970s to the early 1980s, when Edwardo was 12 to 17 years old, he says.