It took over seven years, but he finally got the press conference he always craved.
Back in 2019 (!), we reported how Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha was among several AGs across the country seeking to replicate the public relations triumph that Pennsylvania’s AG Josh Shapiro garnered in 2018 with his blockbuster “grand jury report” that gained international attention.
Well, Neronha’s day in the sun finally came to pass last week when he released a 284-page tome (pdf) claiming to chronicle abuse by priests in his state in the Diocese of Providence. But to say that Neronha’s report was underwhelming would be an overstatement.
Nothing New in the Report
Even by Neronha’s own admission, his office scoured records dating back “three-quarters of a century” to 1950, when Harry S. Truman was President and Bing Crosby still ruled the charts. In other words, this was a history report by any standard.
Neronha surprisingly admits that “clergy sexual abuse in Rhode Island appears to have peaked in the 1960s and 1970s and to have declined since” and that “no credibly accused abuser priest is currently serving in active ministry in the Diocese of Providence.” And nearly 97% of alleged abuse occurred between 1950 to 1997, and 42% before 1972.
But most notably, he admits that of the 75 accused priests listed in the report, 64, or 85%, were deceased and thus no longer around to defend themselves. And if that important tidbit were not enough, Neronha then had the gall to fault the Diocese of Providence for both not investigating claims against long-dead priests but also for “destroying confidential files following priests’ deaths unless there was pending litigation involving the priests.”
Imagine that. The diocese did not investigate cases in which the principle actor is already dead, and then it destroyed personnel records of dead employees just like every other institution on the planet, which it is allowed to do under the law. Powerful stuff, Pete.
But Here Comes the Boston Globe
But leave it to the nation’s premier anti-Catholic newspaper, The Boston Globe, to treat Neronha’s report as if it were on par with the Apollo Moon landing.
The Globe naturally published no less than six items about Neronha’s report over a period of just a few days, and that does not include the paper’s glowing profile of Neronha just days after the report.
The Globe, in particular, trumpeted Neronha’s claims about “credible allegations” against a priest named Rev. Francis Santilli. But what neither Neronha nor the Globe told the public was that the diocese thoroughly investigated the claims against Santilli years ago and found them not credible, even by the diocese’s very lenient standards.
Eternal and Natural Law: The Foundation of Morals and Law
Pushing back
While this is just a same-old, tired attack on the Catholic Church, we want to give kudos to Bishop Bruce Lewandowski of the Diocese of Providence for responding to AG Neronha’s bogus report.
Lewandowski reminded the public that the diocese voluntarily agreed to give Neronha all of its personnel files in the name of transparency, and “any view that there is an on-going crisis within this diocese which requires urgent intervention is debunked by the fact that the Report took nearly seven years to be publicly released.” Boom.
Lewandowski also noted, “The Report itself reveals no evidence of recent child sexual abuse by clergy, no credible accusations against those in ministry today, and no instances of the diocese’s failure to meet its legal reporting obligations.” And the diocese added, “the Report itself states that it ‘did not produce evidence of any recent child sexual abuse by clergy’.” Checkmate.
Maybe the next time some publicity-hungry attorney general goes knocking on the door of a chancery to see a diocese’s personnel files, the bishop should tell the guy to take a hike.
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Recommended reading:
– ‘Diocese of Providence Response to the Attorney General Report’ by Bishop Bruce Lewandowski
– ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right: Denying due process to accused clergy is not how to mend mistakes’ (23 Feb 2026) by Fr. Thomas Kocik (Substack)
– ‘Where the Dallas Charter Went Wrong’ (23 Feb 2026) by Michael J. Mazza (First Things)
The story above was published with permission from the Media Report website. The opinions expressed in the article reflect those of the author and not necessarily those of the American TFP.
Photo Credit: © Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0