BishopAccountability.org
	Louis Diogo WPRI Channel 12 November 11, 2005 PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Diocese of Providence has ordered a priest accused of child abuse to stop saying Mass. Louis Diogo had been saying Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church in East Providence for several years, but the diocese was not aware of it, Monsignor Paul Theroux said. Diogo officially retired and moved out of state in 1993, after his cousin Ana Farias told the diocese that he had abused her and her sister in the 1950s and 1960s. The statute of limitations had run out by the time Farias came forward, and Diogo was never charged criminally. He has denied the accusation, but Theroux said the diocese found Farias credible. Farias contacted the diocese recently after learning from another cousin that Diogo, now 85, had returned to Rhode Island and was celebrating Mass again. She wanted to help other parents protect their children, she said. Farias, 58, said she was abused from age 5 through her teens. "I can't be around a priest," she told an NBC affiliate. "I haven't gone to church for years. I've lost my faith. Sometimes, I think he got my innocence so badly that he got my soul." Theroux said the diocese has told Diogo that he cannot say Mass or function publicly as a priest.
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