RHODE ISLAND
NBC 10
[with video]
Updated: Nov 29, 2013
By Katie Davis
An alleged victim of clergy sexual abuse is calling for more transparency from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence after an NBC 10 investigation.
The NBC 10 I-Team uncovered dozens of letters detailing abuse by Catholic priests in local churches going back decades.
A man who grew up in Rhode Island says he found his own case in those files. The letter is the most recent one the I-Team found in Rhode Island State Police files.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence sent it to detectives 10 months ago, but it details an alleged assault from 48 years earlier.
The alleged victim, Joe Corcoran, spoke publicly for the first time to NBC 10.
“It didn’t get easier, like you would think, as time went by. The memories. It got harder,” Corcoran said.
Corcoran grew up Warwick. As a high school student in the late 1960s, he worked at the Providence Visitor, the Catholic newspaper published by the Diocese of Providence.
It was one of the paper’s editors, the Rev. John Ferry, who Corcoran said sexually assaulted him.
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