PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal [Providence RI]
April 7, 2026
By Katherine Gregg
For the second year in a row, the House has approved a bill to allow victims of sexual abuse by clergy to sue the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence and any other entity that knew, but failed to stop – or concealed – the abuse they suffered as children.
The legislation would also provide the victims with a two-year window to revive claims currently barred by expired time limits.
The vote was 67-to-5 along party lines, after one lawmaker after another expressed their disgust at the decades of abuse of children by trusted clergy who, in the words of one lawmaker, Rep. Teresa Tanzi, had been told were their mortal “connection to God.”
The legislation sponsored by Rep. Carol McEntee reflects one of several legislative actions that Attorney General Peter Neronha recommended in his scathing report on the sexual molestation of more than 300 Rhode Island children by at least 75 Catholic clergymen and the culture of secrecy that surrounded these crimes.
“Read it,” McEntee told colleagues. “This report documents decades of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and concluded that church leaders systematically protected accused priests and prioritized the institution’s reputation over the safety and protection of children.
“They failed to report abuse to the authorities. They failed to properly investigate and they shuffled abusive priests around to unknowing and unsuspecting parishes where they would … once more abuse children. The report makes it clear that these actions of church leaders was knowing and intentional.
“It’s yet another example of people in powerful places abusing children for their own gratification and failing to own it … Please send a message today that we value our children over the institutions that enable these pedophiles. Give the survivors a chance at justice,” she said.
The Rhode Island House approved the same bill last year on a 67-to-5 party line vote but it died for lack of action by the Senate amid stated concerns about the legality of allowing civil suits now to recover damages for long-ago crimes against children.
McEntee, the House Judiciary chair, reintroduced the bill this year.
Her sister, Ann Webb, 73, was among the first to go public with what her family’s parish priest did to her over a seven-year period that began when she was in kindergarten at the Sacred Heart elementary school in West Warwick. But there were many others.
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 revival windows.
The diocese has again this year led the opposition, warning of bankruptcies that similar legislation precipitated in dioceses in other states.
Republican Rep. Brian Newberry, a lawyer, raised the only objections to the bill during the brief House debate.
“I’m not here to defend the Catholic Church or any particular institution. I’m here to defend due process of law,” he said. “Statutes of limitations exist … because it becomes almost impossible to defend yourself” against decades old claims.
“These cases are not going to go to trial. Maybe one will … [but] vast bulk of them will be settled and there’ll be costs extracted. … [that] are not going to be limited to the Catholic Church,” he said, noting that a similarly broad law in Maryland “opened the door for alleged survivors to pursue decades old claims involving state-run juvenile facilities, public schools, foster care systems, and other government agencies.”
The Rev. Bernard Healey raised similar arguments in written testimony to a House committee: “Statutes of limitations promote fairness and closure by preventing stale claims in which evidence is lost, memories change, and witnesses disappear.”
Also: “Placing time limits on the filing of civil claims for damages guards the targets of lawsuits against false claims, and “allow[s] defendants an ability to plan for the future without uncertainty inherent in potential liability,” wrote Healey, who is the pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Church in East Greenwich.
How did we get here?
In 2019, state lawmakers passed legislation to give the victims of sexual abuse more time to sue the priests, teachers, coaches and others who molested them when they were children. The new law gave them 35 years to sue after reaching adulthood, which means age 53.
The new 35-year time limit only applied to civil suits against “perpetrators,” meaning those who committed the actual abuse. Against institutions, the new 35-year rule was prospective only in most cases.
In 2023, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that the 2019 law that extended time limits for filing suit against priests who molested children did not also change the time limits for filing suit against church higher-ups who supervised the offending priests.
The ruling upheld the decision of Superior Court judge Netti Vogel who, in dismissing three lawsuits, acknowledged that the allegations the men made against the abusive priests were “hideous and appalling” and said their lawsuits against the diocese’s leaders set out a “most compelling series of acts and omissions that defy explanation.”
But she said the 2019 law did not allow retroactive suits against institutions if the deadline had already run out under the old law.
The three men, who said they were sexually abused by Rhode Island priests when they were boys, said that the conduct of diocesan leaders was so egregious – actively thwarting criminal investigations, for example – that it rose to a criminal level that made them “perpetrators” under the new law.
What would the proposed new law do?
The legislation (H7200) – co-sponsored by House Speaker K. Joseph Shekarchi – very specifically allows what the 2019 law did not: lawsuits for a limited period of time against those whose negligent “conduct caused or contributed to the childhood sexual abuse by another person.”
The “wrongful conduct” could include: “negligence or default in supervision, hiring, employment, training, monitoring, or failure to report and/or the concealment of sexual abuse of a child.” The deadline for filing these look-back lawsuits would be June 30, 2028.
During last year’s House debate, McEntee told colleagues her two-pronged bill recognizes that “these kinds of abuses are so difficult to bear. The survivor, the victim is ashamed, humiliated, and they’re groomed to be quiet because there’s always a threat.”
By the time they feel ready to seek justice in the courts, she said, the statute of limitations has shut down their opportunity. She said the two-year “revival” window gives them that opportunity.
Following the release of Neronha’s long-awaited report, McEntee said: “This report is a long time coming, and it should be clear to anyone reading it that the systematic coverup of this pervasive and appalling behavior is just as bad as the actual assaults of countless helpless children.”
“Revealing the truth about this immoral corruption is the first step to delivering real justice for so many victims, and I will continue to support our victims’ rights and quest for justice through legislation that will hold both the abusers and the institutions that protected these predators accountable in the courts.”
This was Senate President Valarie Lawson’s response a week ago when asked the prospects for passage of the “revival” bill this year: “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 voices of all abuse victims are foremost in our minds as we consider these bills,” Lawson said.
Other bills headed for votes
Two other bills that Neronha recommended were approved.
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 – “touching or fondling the genitals of a person, including over their clothes.”
In 2022, 2023 and 2024, the House passed McEntee’s legislation to extend or outright eliminate the statute of limitations for second degree sexual assault. It has not yet cleared the Senate.
A third approved bill 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.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI bill could let clergy abuse victims sue diocese