The question: Will the Diocese of Providence prevail again this year, in the state Senate, in the wake of Attorney General Peter Neronha's scathing report on the "culture" of secrecy and concealment within the church that hid decades of child sexual abuse by clergy members?
A number of victims trekked to the State House again to recount what had happened to them and the shabby way they say they were treated by the diocese when they reported their abusers.
No one from the diocese signed up to testify in person.
But in seven pages of written testimony submitted to the House Judiciary Committee in advance of the March 12 hearing on proposed legal remedies for long-ago victims, the Rev. Bernard Healey warned lawmakers about the financial and legal havoc they could create in Rhode Island's Catholic world – and beyond.
What would the legislation do?
The legislation would lift the expired time limits on lawsuits by victims against the church and other "institutions" for a two-year period ending on June 30, 2028, known as a "revival window."
It would apply to civil suits "alleging negligent supervision" or conduct that "caused or contributed" to the abuse of a child, including the "concealment of sexual abuse of a child."
Warning that RI's Catholic diocese could go bankrupt
"Nearly forty Catholic dioceses across the United States have gone into bankruptcy as a result of the passage of legislation similar to H. 7200," Healey told the lawmakers. "Just last week, the Catholic Diocese of El Paso filed for bankruptcy to shield itself from massive potential liabilities in cases stemming from priest abuse of children stretching back to the 1950s."
Without doing anything to protect "young people today," he wrote, "The most obvious practical result of bills such as this is to generate lawsuits against the Church and other institutions both public and private. This will result in millions of dollars in legal fees for plaintiffs' attorneys."
"In other states, retroactive changes to the law [also] resulted in dioceses declaring bankruptcy and placing parishes, schools, and charitable ministries at risk. In short, this legislation will severely undermine the Catholic community's ministries in Rhode Island and is likely to result in lost jobs and impaired programs and services to the poor and needy."
Priest says other organizations would be vulnerable to lawsuits
"This issue is not unique to churches," wrote Healey, who is the pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Church in East Greenwich.
To make his point, Healey attached to his testimony a 10-page list of "sex abuses cases" since 2019 in public schools in Rhode Island where a teacher, an athletic coach, custodian, a bus monitor or, in at least one case, other students, inappropriately touched a child, indulged in indecent exposure or were charged with other sex-related crimes.
He said passage of H.7200 would "likely to result in numerous lawsuits against the state of Rhode Island, its cities and towns, and school districts placing serious financial stress on state and local finances," he said.
In his testimony, Healey also cited the findings of a 2025 Los Angeles Times investigation that found unscrupulous law firms advertising, recruiting and "even offer[ing] to pay individuals to file fraudulent claims alleging sexual abuse as children," which included former foster children and children who had spent time in the county-run juvenile hall, knowing "Los Angeles County could not verify the claims and would settle them."
"Such advertisements by law firms are already appearing in Rhode Island in anticipation of this legislation," Healey claimed.
Among Healey's key points against the bill that was introduced by House Judiciary Chairwoman Carol McEntee:
"Statutes of limitations promote fairness and closure by preventing stale claims in which evidence is lost, memories change, and witnesses disappear."
Placing time limits on the filing of civil claims for damages guards the targets of lawsuits against false claims, and "allow[s] defendants an ability to plan for the future without uncertainty inherent in potential liability."
Victims and a former prosecutor speak
Several victims spoke, among them: Psychologist Ann Webb, the victim, advocate and sister of McEntee, the lead sponsor of the bill,
She recounted, as she has every year since 2018, what was done to her at the Sacred Heart School in West Warwick from the time she was 5 years old, and years later, being sent by the diocese's compliance officer, Robert McCarthy, to another known abuser to report what happened to her when she was a child.
"Over the years, I have been appalled by the power that the diocese’ lobbyists have had in these halls of our state capital. The diocese aggressively lobbies House and Senate leadership as if the church deserves a seat at the table in deciding its own fate," she said.
McEntee said the attorney general's report laid bare how the diocese "shuffled around pedophile priests to unknowing parishes throughout the state," where more children were abused and then "silenced in the name of God" and told "if you talk, it's hell in damnation."
"This is Rhode Island's Epstein files," said McEntee, making the case that her bill seeks belated "accountability for powerful men ... who take advantage of children for their own pleasure and never are held accountable. Never."
Rep. Robert Craven talked about the lengths to which the diocese went in the mid-1980s to try to convince him, in his earlier role as a state prosecutor, to seek a suspended sentence for the Rev. P. Henry Leech, a former assistant pastor at two Rhode Island churches, who was accused of sexually assaulting four boys.
Craven said the bishop sent a priest he knew personally into the courtroom to try to "influence me to give [Leech] a suspended sentence." Craven said he was offended by the attempt, given what Leech was accused of doing.
"I said, 'There's no way that I'm going to give a suspended sentence to a man who was having sex with a 6-year-old and 11-year-old boy in [their] home on the pretense [he was] counseling them on the loss of their father."
"That offends me on so many levels," Craven said. Decades later, he said it's time for the General Assembly to say "Enough is enough. We're going to send a message."
Priest says diocese has accepted responsibility for clergy sex abuse
"The understanding of child abuse in the mid-1960s was not remotely comparable to the understanding of the problem today," Healey wrote.
But he also reiterated the regret the leaders of the diocese feel today for what happened in the past.
The last documented instance was in 2011, though Neronha cited more recent evidence that the church may not yet have "owned" the problem.
"The Diocese of Providence accepts their responsibility for the abuse that occurred within our ranksand will support survivors as long as necessary," Healey said.
"It has paid over $21 million in legal settlements to victims of clergy sex abuse. It has provided and continues to provide millions of dollars for direct financial assistance for victims' counseling. Programs are in place that continue to reach out to victims and their families and provide the resources for healing," he continued.