Fr. William J. O’Neill

Named publicly as credibly accused by the Diocese on its list 7/1/2019. Suspended 7/10/1971, laicized in 1972. Allegations were received after O’Neill’s death. Included in the 3/4/2026 RI Attorney General’s Report. In 1994 the Diocese received a report that O’Neill sexually abused a 10-year-old boy in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1995 a man told Bishop Gelineau that O’Neill sexually abused his then 12-year-old sister in the late 1960s during a camping trip in ME. O’Neill was working at the time of the reports as a lay music director for St. Jude’s in Lincoln. He denied abusing the boy, but admitted to abusing the girl. He was allowed to continue in his role at St. Jude’s, with “a no closed door policy” while working with children. In 1996 it came to light that O’Neill had told St. Jude’s pastor of an incident involving his slapping the buttocks of two girls at an agency in Cranston. A new St. Jude’s pastor in 1997 told the Diocese that he had recently found O’Neill alone with a girl in the church with his “hands on her face.” He died 5/3/2000.