PROVIDENCE – Within hours of a new state law taking effect on Wednesday, allowing for victims of clergy sex abuse to file previously expired claims, there were more than two dozen lawsuits filed against the Roman Catholic Church in Rhode Island.
As of Wednesday afternoon, at least 30 claims had been filed in Rhode Island Superior Court against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence by individuals alleging they were abused as children and teens.
Twenty-nine of the lawsuits were filed by clients of the law firm Decof, Mega & Quinn, according to attorney Mark B. Decof.
Many of the allegations date back decades. In some instances, clients had retained the firm for years, in hopes this moment would someday come, Decof said.
“They have gone through lifetimes of suffering without any meaningful relief,” Decof said.
The new legislation, signed into law by Governor Dan McKee last month, extends the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse in civil actions filed against institutions by 35 years from the date of a victim’s 18th birthday, or to the age of 53.
The measure also opens a two-year window allowing for lawsuits involving previously expired claims against institutions and supervisors responsible for enabling or covering up sexual abuse. Victims in those claims will now have until June 30, 2028, to file complaints.
While the law does not apply exclusively to lawsuits against the Catholic church, the changes were anticipated to trigger claims against Providence Diocese.
Decof said his Providence-based firm anticipates filing between five and 10 more lawsuits this week, and more than 100 in the weeks to come. They have 130-plus clients in total, he said, adding, “Our client list is growing daily.”
States that have passed similar legislation have seen a surge in complaints. For example, the San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese has agreed to pay $395 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits filed after California approved a 2019 law allowing decades-old claims to be brought in court, attorneys for the plaintiffs said on Monday, according to the Associated Press. The payout follows a record $880 million settlement agreed to by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2024.
A report issued earlier this year by Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha outlined the scope of the issue, finding that for decades the Providence Diocese had failed to protect hundreds of children from clergy sexual abuse. The diocese, the report said, handled accusations of misconduct through “inaction, concealment, and revictimization.”
The report identified 75 clergy, including 61 diocesan priests or deacons, 13 religious order priests, and an extern priest, who were credibly accused of abusing more than 300 children between 1950 and 2011.
The dozens of lawsuits filed Wednesday include allegations against children as young as 6 years old, up through the teenage years.
In one case, a man who is now in his 60s said he was abused by multiple priests at St. Mary’s Church in Newport in the 1970s, a parish famous for being the site of President John F. Kennedy’s wedding to Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953.
The victim said he was forced to perform oral sex on more than one priest when he was 12 years old and served as an altar boy at St. Mary’s. He said he was also abused at St. Joseph Cluny School in Newport, which is now closed. One priest would force him to “perform oral sex under the guise of enlisting his assistance with preparations for Mass,” the suit claims.
One of the priests was Father Roger Belhumeur, who was on the list of “credibly accused” priests in Neronha’s report. A second priest accused in the suit is not a named defendant and has not been charged with anything, according to court records.
“The nightmare that the Diocese permitted his childhood to become has never fully left the Plaintiff,” the lawsuit, filed by Sweeney Merrigan Law, says. “He has and will continue to suffer psychological, emotional, and physical harm from the sexual abuse he was forced to endure as a child.”
In another case filed against the church and Bishop Hendricken High School in Warwick, a now 59-year-old man claims he was sexually abused by Father Joseph Rocha when he was 15 for his entire freshman year at the school.
Rocha, who is dead, is on Neronha’s list of “credibly accused” priests.
The suit says the diocese and the school, which employed Rocha, “failed to meaningfully address the systematic child sexual abuse by clergy members,” and “as a result of these failures, Plaintiff has had to endure lifelong pain, embarrassment, anguish, guilt, sorrow, fear, anxiety, depression and other issues directly attributable to the sexual abuse he faced as a child.”
Dozens of other parishes from Woonsocket to Portsmouth face similar allegations.
Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney who has represented victims of clergy abuse for decades, said Wednesday he currently represents 15 clients in Rhode Island, but he did not plan to file any lawsuits on Wednesday as he was still conducting background research on priests, their supervisors, and historical data.
In a statement, Garabedian said that “Finally, clergy sexual abuse survivors in Rhode Island will be able to obtain transparency and validation and the Catholic Church will be shown as a corrupt institution which [h]as practiced an immoral cover up.”
The diocese did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday regarding the new law and pending lawsuits. The Rev. Bernard A. Healey, chairman of the Rhode Island Catholic Conference, had urged lawmakers not to pass the legislation, writing the measure “does nothing to protect children and the vulnerable from exploitation and abuse despite what the sponsors of this unconstitutional legislation claim.”
“In other states where similar legislation has been passed has only resulted in bankruptcy for church and other nonprofit organizations, huge financial payouts by state and local governments, rising insurance costs, and of course large profits for law firms,” Healey wrote.
Speaking on the Globe’s Rhode Island Report podcast last month, Jim Scanlan, who was sexually abused by the Rev. James “Mad Dog” Talbot at Boston College High School in the late 1970s, said, however, the new law will protect children for years to come.
“A financial consequence will change behavior,” said Scanlan, a former R.I. resident who now lives in Boston. “That will save lives.”
Material from previous Globe stories was used in this report. This story has been updated to include comment from Mark Decof and Mitchell Garabedian and information from lawsuits filed on Wednesday.
Christopher Gavin can be reached at christopher.gavin@globe.com. Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado.