Fr. Alfred C. Lonardo

Parish priest, pastor; Diocesan Director of Catholic Family Services; prison chaplain. Named publicly as accused in the 3/4/2026 RI Attorney General’s Report. In early 2022 man reported in to RI State Police and the Attorney General’s Office that he was sexually abused between 1994 and 1996, beginning when he was 15, by Lonardo and Fr. Daniel Azzarone. The priests were assigned to St. Mary Parish in Cranston. Lonardo was pastor. The accuser said that Azzarone began to sexually abuse him after he went to him to disclose an incident of sexual abuse by Lonardo. Azzarone pleaded no contest in 2005 to sexually abusing children. In 2002, after Azzarone was indicted, a parishioner anonymously wrote in a letter to the Diocese that Lonardo was aware of Azzarone’s abuse of children and that Lonardo had also abused children, on his own and with Azzarone. The parishioner said that liquor and drugs were involved, and that Lonardo hosted “young men” overnight in the rectory. The A.G. investigator discovered written on the bottom of the letter “we do not take into consideration anonymous letters.” Lonardo resigned as St. Mary’s pastor two weeks later and went to the North American College in Rome for a few months on sabbatical. In 11/2002 a College seminarian alleged that Lonardo had touched his groin area without his consent. Lonardo was sent to treatment and was returned to parish ministry in RI 5/2003. He retired in 2007 and died 7/9/2022.