Fr. Oscar R. Ferland

Monsignor. Died 7/8/1998. Named publicly as credibly accused by the Diocese on its list 7/1/2019, noting that allegation(s) were received after Ferland’s death. Included in the 3/4/2026 RI Attorney General’s Report. Accused of sexually abusing little girls and a boy, with incidents occurring 1964-1991. In 2002 the Diocese received a report that in 1994 Ferland watched a 10-year-old girl use the toilet at St. Joseph’s in Hope Valley. He allegedly opened the stall door and stared at her. Ferland was substituting at the parish for a priest who was on vacation. In 2006 a woman told the Diocese that Ferland inappropriately touched her and other girls in the early 1990s. At the time in question, the girl’s father confronted Ferland who didn’t deny his behavior and said “…now I think I’m going to retire.” The man also said he informed Fr. McManus (later Auxiliary Bishop) of Ferland’s behavior, and McManus did not respond. The man said he spoke again with McManus about Ferland’s behavior when McManus became bishop, after Ferland had died. One alleged victim told the Diocese in 2007 that when she was age 10 in the 1980s and attending St. Luke’s School in Barrington, Ferland touched her vagina in a swimming pool, among many similar incidents, and that he would pick up her and other girls and touch their buttocks and thighs. In 2017 a woman reported that she was sexually assaulted by Ferland on multiple occasions at St. Luke School when she was 13 years old in 1983-1984. She said she reported the abuse to the school principal, who told her she was a liar and threatened to expel her from school. In 2018 a man told the Diocese that when he was age 8 or 9 and a student at St. Michael’s in Providence, Ferland sexually abused him, including rape. He said he had disclosed the abuse to Providence Police in 2006.