Fr. Paul E. Desrosiers

Parish priest; member of Diocesan Tribunal 1959-1968; leave of absence 1/12/1973 – 8/6/1973. Desrosiers died at age 71 in 1984 from injuries suffered in a bus crash during a trip to Granada, Spain. His name was added in 2019 to the Diocese’s list of those credibly accused of the sexual abuse of a minor, noting that the allegations were received after Desrosiers’ death. Included in the 3/4/2026 RI Attorney General’s Report, which shows that Desrosiers was accused of sexually abusing two boys in the early 1960s, while assigned to St. Joseph’s in Woonsocket. The abuse is said to have been reported to the pastor, Fr. Adrien Menard, in the early 1960s and early 1970s. No apparent action. (Menard was later also credibly accused of child sexual abuse.) In 1995 the Diocese received a report from a woman that her son had recently told her that Desrosiers sexually abused him as a boy in the early 1960s; this is the mother had reported abuse to Fr. Menard just after an incident. The boy had gone with Desrosiers on a trip and came home very, very angry and lying in a fetal position on the back seat of their car. The boy told his parents at the time that Desrosiers had licked his face. Another child on the trip said the priest couldn’t keep his hands off of the boy. The victim disclosed further details to State Police in 2/2014. He said he was never contacted by the Diocese regarding the allegations. In 7/2019 a man reported to the Diocese that Desrosiers sexually abused him “regularty” when he was ages 10-13 in the 1960s. He said he told Fr. Menard about the abuse at age 20 and Menard apologized.