PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal
February 26, 2019
By Katherine Gregg
In an effort to demonstrate to Rhode Island lawmakers how seriously it takes sexual misconduct allegations, an arm of the Catholic Diocese of Providence has acknowledged paying “over $21 million in legal settlements,″ and another $2.3 million for counseling to “resolve″ more than 130 claims of abuse by clergy in church-run schools and parishes.
The diocese reported the payouts in written testimony the Rhode Island Catholic Conference filed with the House Judiciary Committee in advance of Tuesday night’s hearing on legislation — co-sponsored by 58 of 75 House members — that would extend the time for filing civil suits against the perpetrators of child sex abuse, and the institutions that employed them, from seven to 35 years.
The diocese does not spell out the time period the 130 claims encompassed, or the number of victims to whom the settlements were paid. Nor does it name the priests or church staff implicated in these long-hidden crimes.
But the diocese laid out its case for a massive rewrite of the legislation that Rep. Carol Hagan McEntee has championed in a 15-page filing with the committee submitted in recent days, at the same time as graphic accounts emerged of alleged sex abuse by clergy that the Diocese of Providence have provided the Rhode Island State Police since 2011.
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