Rhode Island lawmakers near deal on clergy abuse lawsuits

PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal [Providence RI]

June 1, 2026

By Katherine Gregg

An apparent agreement has been reached in the years-long battle by the victims of clergy sex abuse in Rhode Island for the right to sue the Catholic Church for failing to protect them.

Senate leader have called a press conference for 5 p.m. “to discuss progress related to legislation that would revive previously time-barred civil claims arising from childhood sexual abuse.”

While the advisory does not spell out the details of the compromise hammered out over the weekend, the lead House sponsor of the bill – Rep. Carol McEntee – told The Journal that “if the changes have been relayed to me are the only changes” in the legislation, that has won House approval two years in a row, “then I am in agreement.”

The lineup of speakers at the press conference speaks volumes. Besides Senate Judiciary Chairman Matthew LaMountain and other top players on the Senate leadership team, it includes Attorney General Peter Neronha, retired U.S. District Court Judge William Smith, prominent doctor – and outspoken clergy abuse victim – Herbert “Hub” Brennan and Sen. Mark McKenney, the Senate sponsor of the so-called “revival legislation.”

Conspicuously absent: anyone representing the Diocese of Providence, which has fought the legislation for years.

The compromise – after years of pleas and inaction – follows the long-awaited release on March 4 of Neronha’s report detailing the systematic cover-up by the Catholic Church of the sexual abuse of more than 300 Rhode Island children.

The legislation that passed the House on April 7 would, most basically, allow the 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.

His report laid bare, for the first time, the scope of over half a century of alleged child sexual abuse by Rhode Island Catholic clergy, and the breadth and depth of the alleged coverup, which often included destroying key files or shuffling priests from parish to parish, where they would re-offend.

The legislation at issue would provide the long-ago victims – many of them in their 60s and 70s now – with a two-year window to revive claims currently barred by expired time limits.

It passed the House on a 68-to-5 vote and then ran into a potential roadblock in the Senate when LaMountain, the powerful chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced his own measure to require an opinion from the Rhode Island Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the revival legislation, before any further action was taken on it.

Neronha reminded the lawmakers that they had relied on his office to fight for legislation, in court, when necessary. “On balance, we have prevailed time and time again. And I would submit that if we submit to this committee that this legislation is constitutional I would ask you to take it on faith that we are correct.”

McEntee, who had been briefed but had not yet seen the proposed compromise in writing, said the four proposed changes to the bill did not appear to change the thrust of the legislation, among them: a restatement of the $100,000 cap on damages from suits against the state and its cities and towns.