PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal [Providence RI]
April 2, 2026
By Katherine Gregg, Providence Journal
Legislation that would allow the victims of childhood sexual abuse to sue the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence and any other institution that failed to stop the abuse or concealed it is headed for a vote by the full House.
The House Judiciary Committee approved the bill on a 9-to-1 vote on Thursday, April 2, setting the stage for a House debate and vote as early as next week. The only nay vote was cast by Rep. David Place, R-Burrillville.
What does the bill do? It allows victims to sue so-called “non-perpetrators” who did not commit the abuse but made it possible by action and inaction, such as moving offending priests from parish to parish. It also removes the expired time limits on lawsuits filed by victims against the church and other “institutions” for a two-year period. This “revival window” would end on June 30, 2028.
If this seems familiar: The House approved a version of the bill in 2025 on a 67-to-5 vote, with Republican Rep. Brian Newberry, a lawyer, raising the only arguments against it during debate. He said it would open Rhode Island to the potential loss of insurance companies that no longer are willing to write policies in states that “revive” decades-old claims.
But the Senate did not take it up, and it remains unclear if Senate leadership is willing to do so this year in the wake of Attorney General Peter Neronha‘s recent bombshell report on decades of hidden child sex abuse by clergy and the now-documented steps the Diocese of Providence took to try to hide it.
This was Senate President Valarie Lawson’s response on Thursday when asked the prospects for passage this year: “I spent my career in the classroom. There is no greater responsibility for those entrusted with the care of children than ensuring their safety and wellbeing.
“Attorney General Neronha’s report documents the extensive, horrifying abuse that took place across Rhode Island and the repeated failures of the Church to protect innocent children. The Senate Leadership met today with two individuals who have shared their stories with the committee in the past, Ann Webb and Hub Brennan.
“Their voices, and the voices of all abuse victims, are foremost in our minds as we consider these bills,” Lawson said. “The Attorney General’s report provides valuable context for the Senate Judiciary Committee as they consider this year’s proposals.”
Senate leaders have, in the past, cited cases where a court struck down a revival window. According to a footnote in Neronha’s report, the advocacy group Child USA has reported that Arkansas, California, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Guam, Maryland, the Northern Mariana Islands and Vermont have temporarily or permanently provided their own revival windows.
More: Here’s the full, updated list of credibly accused priests in RI
Church warns revived lawsuits could bankrupt the diocese
No one from the diocese testified in person about the bill at a hearing in March.
But in seven pages of written testimony submitted to the House Judiciary Committee in advance of that March 12 hearing, the Rev. Bernard Healey warned lawmakers about the financial and legal havoc they could create in Rhode Island’s Catholic world and beyond.
“Nearly forty Catholic dioceses across the United States have gone into bankruptcy as a result of the passage of legislation similar to H. 7200,” Healey warned.
Without doing anything to protect “young people today,” he wrote, “The most obvious practical result of bills such as this is to generate lawsuits against the church and other institutions both public and private. This will result in millions of dollars in legal fees for plaintiffs’ attorneys.”
But the lead sponsor, House Judiciary Chairwoman Carol McEntee, whose sister was abused as a child for years by their parish priest, said: “This is Rhode Island’s Epstein files.”
She said her bill seeks belated “accountability for powerful men … who take advantage of children for their own pleasure and never are held accountable. Never.”
Other bills aimed at helping RI victims of clergy sex abuse
Two other bills that Neronha recommended were also approved by the Judiciary Committee and sent to the full House.
One would extend the statute of limitations on second-degree child sex abuse from three to 10 years from the date of the offense, or 10 years from the victim’s 18th birthday.
In second-degree sexual assault cases, there is typically no sexual penetration but something else the attorney general’s investigation documented – the “touching or fondling the genitals of a person, including over their clothes.”
A third bill approved by the committee would extend the state’s mandatory reporting of abuse and neglect requirement to charter schools, parochial schools, after-school programs, camps and various other programs involving children.