The Freedom From Religion Foundation commends Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha for releasing a long-awaited report detailing decades of clergy sexual abuse and for taking steps to hold the perpetrators accountable.
The 284-page report, made public on Wednesday, March 4, found that at least 75 clergy within the Catholic Diocese of Providence sexually abused more than 300 children in Rhode Island for more than 75 years. Investigators emphasized that the true number of victims is likely much higher and documented how church officials repeatedly transferred accused priests and shielded them from law enforcement rather than protecting children.
The report described diocesan records as “damning,” since they include evidence of sending accused priests on retreats and “sabbaticals” rather than protecting abused children. The report also details how the diocese failed to report suspected abuse, instead allowing accused priests “to remain in ministry, where they continued to have access to and frequently did abuse more children.” The state’s investigation also outlines reforms to improve investigations and remove barriers that prevent victims from seeking justice.
The report represents an important step toward transparency and accountability for survivors. FFRF and other victim advocacy groups for years have called on state attorneys general and the U.S. attorney general to launch similar investigations, as some nations and states have done. Pennsylvania led the way after an investigation there resulted in a sweeping grand jury report in 2018. Several states inaugurated investigations at the time.
The investigation followed a multiyear probe by the attorney general’s office and relied on decades of church records obtained through an agreement with the diocese. The report documents widespread abuse and systemic failures by church leadership to report allegations or remove abusers from ministry. FFRF notes that public reports like Rhode Island’s are critical to exposing the full scope of clergy abuse and ensuring that survivors are heard.
“Sunlight is essential,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor, who wrote the first nonfiction exposé on clergy abuse of children, published by FFRF in 1988, and who inaugurated the standing “Black Collar Crime” section of FFRF’s newspaper tracking sexual abuse by members of the clergy before the phenomenon was widely tracked.
“It’s not just the heinous betrayal of trust and lifelong harm to victims,” Gaylor adds, “but the decades of systematic cover-ups. It’s way past time for congregation members to withdraw support and respect from an institution that has harbored molesters.”
FFRF will be giving its “Clarence Darrow Award” this year to Peter Isley, co-founder of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who will accept it at its national convention in October in Milwaukee. FFRF urges other states that have not yet done so to follow Rhode Island’s example and applauds it for confronting this painful history and working toward accountability.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 41,000 members nationwide, including in Rhode Island, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
