If you were an altar server, a student or a kid in the parish under Father William O'Connell, we believe you.

Thirty-five years a priest of the Diocese of Providence. Eleven parishes, Block Island to Bristol. He is one of the few Rhode Island priests who was actually convicted, on his own plea, in 1986 and again in New Jersey in 1994, and this March the Attorney General's report named him the priest with the most victims in the whole Diocese: 23 boys, 1950 to 1985. Two bishops were warned in 1978 and 1984 and told the priests who warned them to go gather more evidence. If your years in one of his parishes were in that span, this page is about you.

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Looking for the page about the Diocese, not the man? Diocese of Providence survivors.

This applies to you no matter what

He is dead. He died in custody at a New Jersey treatment center for sex offenders on May 12, 1996. The claims that are being filed now are not against him; they are against the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence, the corporation, which is still at One Cathedral Square and not in bankruptcy.
It was a long time ago. Fifty years back, sixty, for some of you more than that. The law Rhode Island passed in June 2026 exists for exactly those years. It brings expired claims back, so long as they are filed by June 30, 2028. Details below.
You weren't one of the two boys in the 1986 case. Almost nobody was. The Attorney General counts 23 and says the figures across the Diocese are likely far higher than the files show. The conviction is the record; it is not the list of who this happened to.
Nobody believed you then, or you never said it. A priest tried, in 1978, and a bishop called it unconvincing. Another tried in 1984. You were a kid. Of course you didn't.
You took a payment from the Diocese in the early 2000s, or your family did. Say so on the call, first thing. Those programs required a release, and a lawyer has to read it before saying anything else.
You are asking for a brother, a husband, a friend who was an altar boy there and can't do this himself. Reach out anyway. The Guardian option is for you.

Father William O'Connell: what the public record says, and when

None of what follows is ours. It's the Rhode Island Attorney General and the State Police, two courts, the General Assembly and the reporters who covered them, and every line links to where it came from. Two things on this page are convictions and we say so exactly: a no-contest plea in Rhode Island in 1986 and a guilty plea in New Jersey in 1994. Everything else, the 23 boys, the warnings the bishops got, the pension paid while the Diocese said it didn't know where he was, is the Attorney General's finding, or a complaint someone filed, and we call it that. The Diocese has not admitted liability in any case.

1950 to 1985

Ordained June 3, 1950. Then eleven assignments in 35 years: St. Andrew's on Block Island, St. Francis in South Kingstown, St. Brendan's in East Providence, St. Michael's in Smithfield, five years in the Navy Chaplain Corps, SS. Peter and Paul in West Warwick, St. Mary's in Providence, St. Joseph's in Central Falls, Sacred Heart in Pawtucket, Holy Ghost in Tiverton from 1967 to 1972, and finally pastor of St. Mary's in Bristol, 1972 until he resigned in 1985. That's the Attorney General's own assignment record for him. Ten transfers, the report says, for one priest. R.I. Attorney General, Credibly Accused Clergy list, O'Connell entry.

1978 and 1984

A fellow priest wrote to Bishop Louis Gelineau and Auxiliary Bishop Kenneth Angell in 1978 with a list of concerns about O'Connell. One of them, in his words, was a "scandal of little boys" he was taking on overnight trips. Gelineau found the report "unconvincing." Angell told the priest to go gather more evidence. In 1984 another priest went to Angell with the same worry. Same answer. Gather evidence. No action. The Attorney General's findings, from the Diocese's own files. R.I. Attorney General, Report Vol. I (Mar. 4, 2026), p. 87.

February to September 1985

He resigned as pastor of St. Mary's in February 1985 and was indicted in April, one of three Diocese of Providence priests criminally charged in 1984 and 1985. Then this. His defense lawyer reached out to Saint Luke Institute in Maryland, and its director wrote to Bishop Gelineau in early September asking permission to treat him, because treatment "may be helpful in establishing important mitigating circumstances relating to the criminal charges." Gelineau wrote back the next day, copying the defense lawyer: "most happy to grant permission," and the Diocese would pay. The Attorney General's words for it: the Diocese helped O'Connell prepare his criminal defense. R.I. Attorney General, Report Vol. I, pp. 143-144.

June 1986

Saint Luke discharged him in May 1986 so he could "face the legal charges against him." In June he pleaded nolo contendere in Rhode Island Superior Court to 26 counts, "over two-dozen crimes" in the report's words, involving two teenage boys at St. Mary's in Bristol between 1982 and 1985. One year, served on work-release, and an order back to Saint Luke when he got out. The report says the short sentence rested partly on Saint Luke's word that anything longer would undo the treatment. A plea, not a trial. Still a conviction, and the one this page stands on. R.I. Attorney General, Report Vol. I, pp. 87, 144.

January 28, 1988

Doe v. O'Connell, Gelineau, Angell, C.A. No. 86-0077. Victims from St. Mary's in Bristol sued the priest, both bishops and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence over the 1982 to 1985 abuse. Superior Court Judge Americo Campanella dismissed the bishops and the corporation: O'Connell "had no authority to do such acts," so the Diocese didn't answer for them. That is the door that stayed shut for 38 years. On April 26, 1988 the Diocese suspended him. It never sought to remove him from the priesthood, the report finds. R.I. Attorney General, Report Vol. I, p. 54 & n. 99.

July 6, 1994 to May 12, 1996

Lower Township, New Jersey. A shore town. He'd moved there in 1991 and was taking photographs for the local parishes and Catholic schools right up until police went through his bungalow and came out with thousands of photographs of boys. Arrested on 20 charges. On December 19, 1994, in Cape May County Superior Court, before Judge Carmen H. Alvarez, he pleaded guilty to two felonies, sexual assault and endangering the welfare of children, the rest merged in; the State recommended ten years at the Avenel treatment center. The Attorney General's report records the sentence in February 1995 and his death there, in custody, in May 1996. Four lawsuits by Rhode Island men were still pending against him that December, the Journal noted. Providence Journal-Bulletin, Dec. 21, 1994 (via BishopAccountability.org).

March 4, 2026

The Attorney General and the State Police published, after six and a half years inside the Diocese's files. On O'Connell: 23 boys, 1950 to 1985, the most of any priest in the Diocese, and "perhaps the most notorious abuser priest within the Diocese of Providence." Nearly a decade a priest after the 1986 conviction, with no monitoring. And this. In August 1994 a Diocesan spokesman told the press he had "sort of disappeared into the woods" after his work-release year, while an internal memo noted the Diocese was still depositing his pension into a Rhode Island bank account. The Attorney General's findings, stated as his. R.I. Attorney General, Report Vol. I, pp. 25-26, 96, 225-226.

June 11 to September 2026

On June 11 Governor McKee signed the bill, H 7200 Sub A / S 2616 Sub A. From July 1 it revives expired childhood claims against institutions, filed by June 30, 2028. More than 50 suits against the Diocese in the first three weeks, all on one Superior Court calendar. None we can find names O'Connell yet; if one does, this line changes. The Diocese's answer, July 31: the retroactive law "abandons the prevailing principles of due process enshrined in the Rhode Island Constitution," and the courts "will need to address" it. As of September 13, 2026, no court has, and no bankruptcy petition has been filed. We'll say so here the day either moves. WJAR NBC 10, July 31, 2026.

We checked this on September 13, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from June 11 to September 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who answers for what Father O'Connell did

Not him. He died thirty years ago. What the complaints being filed this summer do, and what the 1988 case tried to do, is name the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence, a corporation sole, the Diocese's legal name in a courtroom, one corporation, one member, the sitting bishop. It ordained O'Connell, moved him ten times, made him pastor of St. Mary's in 1972, and kept his file. The theory isn't complicated. Put a man in charge of altar boys and you have to watch him. When a fellow priest writes to you about a scandal of little boys, you have to act. The Attorney General's report says that in 1978 and 1984 the bishops didn't, and that after the 1986 conviction nobody watched him at all. Where the record shows what the Diocese knew, the case is against the institution.

The parish is a separate corporation, and St. Mary's in Bristol may be named alongside the Diocese, the way parishes have been in this summer's complaints. That is a lawyer's call. Which brings us back to 1988. That judge never said the Diocese was blameless. He said the law, as it stood then, didn't reach it. It reaches it now. Rhode Island put the words into the deadline statute in 2019, negligent supervision, hiring, monitoring, failure to report, concealment, by name, and then in 2026 went further and reopened claims that had already expired. The Diocese says it will fight that in court. It hasn't yet.

One more thing worth saying plainly. The Diocese kept O'Connell on its own list of credibly accused clergy, and the Attorney General found the Diocese kept paying him after his conviction while telling reporters it had lost track of him. A lawyer will know what to make of that. You don't have to.

Your deadline: the Rhode Island statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse by a priest

If you were under 18 at the time, start here. Rhode Island's rule, R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-51, gives you 35 years from the act, or seven from the day you understood what it did to you, whichever comes later, and none of it starts counting until your 18th birthday. Since 2019 that same section reaches the Diocese and not only the priest, by name: negligent supervision, hiring, training, monitoring, failure to report, concealment. That's the good news. The bad news is arithmetic: his last year in Bristol was 1985, the earlier parishes are further back still, and so for nearly everyone this page is written for that first clock has run. Which is the whole point of the next paragraph.

Which is why the new law is the one that counts for you. It reaches back. A childhood sexual abuse claim that "would be time barred" is "revived and shall be commenced by no later than June 30, 2028." Those are the words of the new subsection (a)(3) of § 9-1-51, and read that date twice, because it's the only one on this page that closes something. Governor McKee signed the bill, H 7200 Sub A / S 2616 Sub A, on June 11, 2026, it's been law since July 1, and it doesn't stop at the priest: the negligent-supervision and concealment claims against the institution are in it, there's no age ceiling, and conduct from 1950 to 1985 sits entirely inside it. Now the hard part. Back in 1996 the Rhode Island Supreme Court said the state constitution "precludes legislation with retroactive features permitting revival of an already time-barred action." The Diocese pulled that exact line out on July 31, 2026, and said the courts will have to decide. They haven't yet. In 2023 the same court had the 2019 law in front of it, decided it reached perpetrators only, and never got as far as the constitutional question. So it's still open. As of September 13, 2026 no court has said a word about the 2026 act. What that means for a case filed now, and why filing before a ruling can matter, is a lawyer's conversation, not ours. We'd just rather you knew the question was there.

If you were 18 or older at the time, none of the above is yours, because § 9-1-51 was written for children. Rhode Island's general rule for injury to the person is three years, § 9-1-14(b), and when that clock started and whether anything paused it is a lawyer's question, not ours. A seminarian, a young man in a parish job, a sailor in his Navy years: answer the questions anyway and say so on the call.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not a wife, a husband, a confessor. Nobody.
You don't have a word for what it was. Half of you is sure it wouldn't count.
It was a different priest, or a priest who was with him. The report describes O'Connell abusing boys alongside other priests on at least three occasions; the case is against the Diocese either way.
You stayed Catholic. Went back to that church, had your own kids baptized there. Plenty did. It cancels nothing.
A lawyer told you, years back, that it was too late, and in 1988 a judge said the same thing to the people who sued then. It isn't too late anymore, not since June 11, 2026. Ask again.
You live in Massachusetts or Connecticut now, or Florida, or farther. The claim didn't move.

Where he was

Most people reading this will know St. Mary's Church, 330 Wood Street, Bristol, because he was pastor there from 1972 until 1985 and both the 1986 plea and the 1988 civil case came out of it. Its summer missions on Prudence Island and Hog Island count too. Bristol was the end of the road, though. Holy Ghost in Tiverton had him from 1967 to 1972, and before Tiverton it was a new town every year or two: Sacred Heart in Pawtucket for part of 1967, St. Joseph's in Central Falls from 1966 into 1967, St. Mary's in Providence for a longer stretch, 1961 to 1966, and SS. Peter and Paul in West Warwick from 1958 to 1961. The five years before West Warwick were the Navy Chaplain Corps, 1953 to 1958, and before the Navy, freshly ordained, he barely unpacked anywhere: St. Michael's in Smithfield in 1953, St. Brendan's in East Providence the year before that, 1952 to 1953, St. Francis in South Kingstown from 1950 to 1952, and the first of all, St. Andrew's out on Block Island, New Shoreham, in 1950. That's the ten transfers the report counts. It also names his own house, and a cottage in South Kingstown. The Diocese itself, every parish, school and home it ran, has its own page: diocese-of-providence-survivors. It is the defendant on both. If your contact with him was somewhere else, a trip, a pool, another town's rectory, tell us anyway.

Questions people are asking

Can I still sue if Father O'Connell is dead?

Yes, because the claim was never really about him. It is against the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence, the corporation, over what the Diocese knew and did, and the Attorney General's report puts the first written warning in 1978. More than 50 suits against the Diocese went in during July 2026 alone, many over priests long dead. The Diocese hasn't filed for bankruptcy. Nor has it admitted liability, in any of them.

Hasn't the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse in Rhode Island already run?

If you were a kid in one of O'Connell's parishes, then yes, almost certainly, the old one ran out on you a long time ago. It's § 9-1-51. Thirty-five years from the act, or seven from the day you understood it, whichever is later, and nothing counts before your 18th birthday. That's exactly what the 2026 law is for. It takes those expired childhood claims against the Diocese and brings them back, with one string attached: the case has to be filed by June 30, 2028. Will it hold? The Diocese says no, that reviving them is unconstitutional, and points to a 1996 Rhode Island Supreme Court ruling. No judge has said either way about the new law, not as of September 2026.

Who was Father William O'Connell?

The priest the Attorney General's report of March 2026 counts more victims for than any other in the Diocese: 23 boys, aged nine to sixteen, over the whole stretch from 1950 to 1985. Ordained in 1950, he was moved through eleven Rhode Island parishes and a Navy chaplaincy before he became pastor of St. Mary's in Bristol in 1972 and stayed, for once, until 1985. Two convictions, Rhode Island in 1986 and New Jersey in 1994, and he died in custody in New Jersey in May 1996, at 74.

Was Father O'Connell ever convicted?

He was, twice, and both times he pleaded rather than go to trial. The first: June 1986, Rhode Island Superior Court, nolo contendere to 26 counts involving two teenage boys at St. Mary's in Bristol. He got five years, with four of them suspended, and did the one on work-release. If you want the 26 broken down, the East Bay papers did it from the Attorney General's appendix: 12 counts of second-degree sexual assault, 10 of soliciting, two of exploiting minors, two of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The second was New Jersey. Cape May County, December 19, 1994, a guilty plea to sexual assault and to endangering the welfare of children, and ten years at Avenel for it. People ask about the Latin. Nolo contendere is no contest. No contest is a conviction.

Will anyone find out I came forward?

Not from us. Your answers go to one person at ME2, a survivor, not a lawyer or a call center. The 1988 case against O'Connell and the bishops was brought as Doe, and many of the suits filed this summer are John Doe cases too. A lawyer walks you through how that works before anything is filed, and nothing is filed unless you say so.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Nothing, here. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed Rhode Island attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.