Fr. Rene Guertin

Named publicly as credibly accused by the Diocese on its list 7/1/2019. Allegation(s) were noted to have been received after Guertin’s death. Included in the 3/4/2026 RI Attorney General’s Report, which shows that Guertin was accused of the sexual abuse of at least five children, boys and girls. Most of the abuse is said to have occurred at St. Alyosius Home in Smithfield, where Guertin was assigned 1946-1969. In 2007 a woman reported to the Diocese that Guertin raped and physically abused her for 7 years while he was assigned to Our Lady of Good Help in Burrillville, beginning when she was 10-years-old in 1970. She said that she would often cook and clean at the rectory and spend the night, that Guertin would recruit other children from the parish to help in the rectory, and that many former St. Aloysius residents also slept there. Diocesan records show that in 1973 a parishioner reported to the Diocese that Guertin was living with a young girl in the parish rectory. In 2014 a woman told the Diocese that she was sexually abused at St. Aloysius Home by Guertin from age 4 to 7. She said that a nun would deliver her to his room and wait outside the door. In 2015 her sister described a similar scenario, and added that Guertin would give her candy after abusing her and that the nun who delivered her to his room would take the candy from her while leading her back to her bed and call her a “dirty little girl.” Another report to the Diocese in 2015 was from a man who said that when he was 10-years-old in 1950 and living at St. Aloysius Home, Guertin stripped him naked and beat his buttocks with a stick to reprimand him for trying to report that older boys at the Home sexually abused him. In 2022 the Diocese received a report from another man alleging physical and sexual abuse by as a child by Guertin in the 1950s at St. Aloysius Home. Guertin died 1/23/1982. St. Aloysius Home closed in 1994 due to multiple reports of child sexual abuse.