A new lawsuit filed in Providence County Superior Court alleges that former Providence Bishop Louis E. Gelineau raped an altar boy at St. Luke’s Church in Barrington during the 1980s. The plaintiff, identified only as John Doe, is a 56-year-old Newport man who says he suffered abuse not just from Gelineau but from two other priests assigned to the parish where he served as a child.
The lawsuit, filed Friday, is one of more than 100 filed against the Diocese of Providence since July, according to The Boston Globe. John Doe says he was about 10 years old when he began serving as an altar boy at St. Luke’s in the early 1980s, under a priest named Oscar Ferland. According to the lawsuit, Ferland’s abuse began soon after the boy started serving at the altar, starting with groping and fondling before progressing over time to rape.
Bishop Allegedly Assaulted Boy in Priest’s Bedroom
The suit alleges that Gelineau himself assaulted the boy twice, both times in Ferland’s bedroom at the rectory. The first assault is alleged to have happened during a visit Gelineau made to St. Luke’s in 1983 or 1984, when he met the boy; the lawsuit says Gelineau sexually assaulted him again about a year later, also in Ferland’s bedroom. John Doe alleges that St. Luke’s was the center of what he describes as a ring of pedophiles led by Gelineau, per the lawsuit described by the Globe.
A third priest, the Rev. Clifford J. Cabral, allegedly molested the boy during outings to Rocky Point Amusement Park with groups of altar boys, the lawsuit states. Notably, Cabral is not on the Diocese of Providence’s list of credibly accused clergy, while Ferland is — with complaints dating back to 1964 alleging he sexually abused boys and girls, according to a state investigative report cited by the Globe. Ferland died in 1998, and Cabral died in 2023.
A 25-Year Tenure Over a Diocese in Crisis
Gelineau became the sixth bishop of the Providence Diocese in December 1971, at a time when roughly two-thirds of Rhode Islanders identified as Catholic, the Globe reports. Over his 25-year tenure he oversaw 157 churches and 62 schools in the state’s only Roman Catholic diocese — and, according to the newspaper’s reporting, a system in which priests accused of abuse were moved among parishes and treatment centers rather than removed from ministry.
It wasn’t until 1990 that Gelineau promulgated the diocese’s first written policies and procedures for responding to complaints of sexual misconduct. Those same policies required that a priest could not disclose to authorities or act on a confession of child sexual abuse. A March report from the state attorney general found that diocesan policy also kept confidential any allegations and admissions of child sexual abuse made outside of confession, under a rationale called “Internal Forum.”
In 1997, Gelineau testified that his conversation with a priest accused of rape was confidential under canon law, and a Superior Court judge ruled that he could not be compelled to testify at that priest’s trial, the Globe reported. He retired later that year and died in 2024 at age 96.
Lawyer Calls It the First Public Accusation Against Gelineau
John Doe’s attorney, Steven Kelly, said the lawsuit marks the first public accusation that Gelineau himself sexually abused someone.
A revival window opened Wednesday, July 1, and lawsuits against the Diocese of Providence were expected, according to the Providence Journal.
Diocese Says It Will Respond in Court
A spokesperson for the Diocese of Providence said the diocese’s responses to the lawsuit would be confined to the court forum.
The scale of the litigation facing the diocese has been described differently across reports. Rhode Island Current reported that 72 deacons and priests faced credible abuse accusations dating back to the 1950s, with only 14 still alive when the attorney general’s report was published, while the Globe’s earlier coverage put the number at 75 clergy credibly accused of abusing more than 300 children between 1950 and 2011. The diocese, citing the attorney general’s findings, has said nearly 97 percent of abuse cases occurred between 1950 and 1997, and 42 percent before 1972.
Rhode Island’s revival window has echoes of similar legal reckonings elsewhere. In California, the San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese agreed to pay $395 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits after a 2019 state law allowed decades-old abuse claims to proceed, the Globe noted, while the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to an $880 million settlement in 2024. Whether the Providence Diocese faces comparable exposure remains to be seen as the claims filed under Rhode Island’s new law make their way through the courts.
