Fr. Biagio Samuel Turillo

The Diocese announced on 6/30/2016 that Turillo, age 96, was “prohibited from exercising the sacred ministry” due to a credible allegation against him of sexual misconduct with a minor. The misconduct was alleged to have occurred about 60 years previously.  Included 7/1/2019 on the Diocese’s list of credibly accused. Included in the 3/4/2026 RI Attorney General’s Report. Per the report, in 2/1952 a boy told the Diocese in a letter that in 1/1952 Turillo inappropriately touched and kissed him at a CYO basketball game at West Warwick Junior High School. Turillo was moved to Sacred Heart in Natick. There were more complaints of the sexual abuse of young boys in 1953; Turillo was sent to a Brighton MA monastery for two weeks for “spiritual exercises,” then assigned to St. Mary’s in Cranston. After allegations of sexual misconduct with an adult male surfaced in the 1962 Turillo was “severely admonished,” then assigned to a hospital chaplaincy and to St. Anthony’s in Woonsocket. In 1965 St. Anthony’s pastor asked the bishop to move Turillo out of the parish “as a matter of conscience.” Diocesan records to not specify a reason. Turillo retired in 1994. In 2016 a man reported to the Diocese that when he was 11-years-old at some point between 1956 and 1958, Turillo molested him at Maple Avenue School in Barrington, which was across the street from Turillo’s then-parish, Holy Angels. The man said that Turillo pulled down his pants and fondled him. He was sentenced by the Vatican in 2016 to a “life of prayer and penance.” Turillo died 7/17/2023, at age 103.