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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The creak of a school nurse’s office door, the dance of sunlight through stained glass, and the anxiety of boarding a school bus—these are the vivid memories that haunt many clergy abuse survivors.
These recollections persist for years, if not decades, for those who suffered abuse at the hands of clergy.
A newly published report from the Rhode Island attorney general unveils a grim history of abuse within the Catholic Diocese of Providence. It names 75 clergy members responsible for the sexual abuse of over 300 children since 1950. The investigation relied on extensive church documentation and numerous interviews with victims and witnesses, with officials suggesting the actual number of victims could be significantly higher.
Survivors, however, emphasize that these statistics only scratch the surface. Each number represents a life altered, a childhood interrupted by fragments of painful memories that resurface over time, coupled with the enduring journey to make sense of the past.
For many survivors, the quest for answers and justice has been a long one, often spanning decades. Now, as some choose to share their experiences publicly, they express their hopes for the future: increased support for those affected, financial assistance from the church for therapy and counseling, and a demand for accountability from Catholic leaders.
From survivor to advocate
“I can still hear the click of the hardware in that metal door opening to this very day,” said Dr. Herbert “Hub” Brennan, an internal medicine doctor who lives and works in his hometown of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, where he grew up in a devoutly Catholic family.
Brennan was sexually abused in elementary school by the Rev. Brendan Smyth, an Irish priest who arrived in the community in the 1960s. Brennan was an altar server at Our Lady of Mercy Parish when the abuse began in the church sacristy.
Brennan says a nun would pull him from class and send him to wait in the principal’s office until Smyth arrived and led him into the nurse’s room.
“They say that rape is one of the few crimes where the victim feels the shame,” Brennan said. “But the shame is enormous. And then the secrecy that follows to hide that shame gets in the way of healing.”
Brennan confronted it years later when a newspaper arrived on his doorstep in 1995. The headline about Smyth’s arrest in Ireland read: “Diocese has no complaints against jailed priest.”
Smyth was later convicted of assaulting children at least 100 times over four decades.
When Brennan later tried to discuss the abuse with a parish priest, he said he was assured there had been no complaints, only to learn later the priest had been Smyth’s roommate.
The revelation pushed Brennan to seek accountability. He later worked with attorney Mitchell Garabedian and settled in Massachusetts Superior Court.
“I needed to make sure that others knew exactly what was going on in this diocese — if it happened to others, who was responsible and how they were hiding it,” Brennan said.
The report released this week felt like a culmination of that effort, he said: “That allowed me to switch from survivor-victim to advocate.”
Breaking the ‘wall of secrecy’
For Claude Leboeuf, amber light streaming through stained-glass windows still triggers painful memories.
Leboeuf, who was abused by a priest as a child in neighboring Massachusetts and now advocates for victims in Rhode Island, called the report an important step toward dismantling what he calls the church’s “wall of secrecy.”
Leboeuf said his memories resurfaced only a few years ago, prompting him to pursue legal action and speak publicly about what happened to him.
“There’s a need to do something for these people — something real: money, tuition, therapy,” he said. “The effects are real; they last a long, long time.”
In a video statement, Bishop of Providence Bruce Lewandowski said the report describes a “tragic history” of abuse that caused lasting harm to victims and their families. He said he felt “extreme sadness” and “intense shame” while reading it and apologized to survivors for church leaders’ past failures to protect children. Lewandowski said the diocese has since implemented safeguards aimed at responding quickly to allegations and preventing abuse.
Leboeuf rejects that framing.
“It’s not old history. It’s justice denied for more than 60 years for some people,” he said. “These are people who brought their complaints to the diocese as kids in the 1960s, and they were ignored, ridiculed, even punished.”
Fighting to be believed
Ann Hagan Webb remembers the dread she felt before the school bus arrived each morning. Webb was only a kindergartner when her parish priest began sexually abusing her at school in Rhode Island.
The abuse took place between 1957 and 1965, during which Webb — who was abused from the age of 5 to 12 — remembers tearful outbursts before school, sometimes needing to be pulled onto the bus.
It wasn’t until decades later, at 40, that Webb turned to therapy to help process the memories. But when she was ready to report the abuse, Webb was met with hostility.
Initially, she asked only for compensation to cover her therapy bills. Still, she was met with skepticism, with leaders at the Diocese of Providence demanding her medical records and questioning the veracity of her claims.
Webb turned to advocacy, becoming known as a force for survivors of clergy abuse. In 2019, she helped convince the Rhode Island Legislature to enact legislation dubbed “Annie’s Law,” which allows child sexual abusers to be held civilly accountable to victims.
The advocacy has been exhausting, Webb said, and she still faces stigma when speaking publicly. Her abuse is often overlooked, she says, because many assume clergy abuse affected only boys.
“For 32 years, the diocese has called me not credible. I can’t tell you what that feels like,” Webb said.
The release of the attorney general’s investigation has renewed her hope that change and justice are still on the horizon.
“It feels like vindication,” she said.
“I hope the public demands their church be different,” she added.
A long-coming reckoning
The Rhode Island investigation comes at a time when examining possible clergy abuse is no longer unusual.
The shift is a far cry from 2002, when The Boston Globe exposed the Boston Archdiocese’s practice of moving abusive priests between parishes without warning parents or police, prompting investigations around the world.
That reckoning took decades longer in Rhode Island. With one of the highest Catholic populations per capita in the country — nearly 40% — the Diocese of Providence maintained secrecy around clergy abuse even as accusations and lawsuits surfaced over the years.
Attorney Tim Conlon, who has long represented sex abuse victims in Rhode Island, said that when he first filed suits against the Diocese of Providence, many people were unwilling to believe such allegations could be true in their own parishes. At one point in the late 1990s, he said, even his mother questioned whether he was doing the right thing.
State law has also made it difficult for victims to seek justice, Conlon said, citing strict limits on civil suits against institutions like the Catholic Church and narrow statutes of limitations for second-degree sexual assault.
“Clearly there’s a call for reform,” Conlon said. “The magnitude of the need is well documented.”