Clergy Abuse in Massachusetts
On September 30, 2026, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell released a report documenting decades of child sexual abuse by clergy in three Catholic dioceses, and the institutional failures that allowed it to continue. From our Massachusetts office, Jenner Law represents survivors of clergy sexual abuse and is here to listen.
Key Documents
Named Individuals in the Massachusetts Diocese Investigation
This chart identifies named individuals discussed in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s investigation of child sexual abuse in the Dioceses of Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester. It records identifying locations and abuse dates supported by the report, distinguishing established offenders from other named subjects of allegations.
Credibly Accused Individuals and Established Offenders
The report expressly identifies these individuals as credibly accused, records convictions, or describes them as established offenders. These are distinct evidentiary categories, not a representation that every person appears on a published diocesan list.
| Name | Diocese or identifying location | Approximate abuse dates and qualifications | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| James R. Porter | Fall River; St. Mary School, North Attleboro; St. Mary’s Church, Mansfield. Later New Mexico, Minnesota, Texas, and Nevada. | Early 1960s onward. Specific survivor accounts describe abuse around 1962. Repeated abuse preceded his 1967 transfer to New Mexico; further abuse followed subsequent transfers. Accused of molesting more than two hundred children during a ministry of about 14 years; criminally convicted in 1992–1993 of abusing more than two dozen. | 25, 33, 37–38, 41, 60, 165, 172 |
| Raymond McCarthy | Fall River; also ministered to Boy Scouts during treatment at the Servants of the Paraclete facility in New Mexico. | Not specifically dated in the named discussion. Identified as credibly accused of abusing more than a dozen children. | 32, 36 |
| Edward Paquette | Fall River. | Not specifically dated in the named discussion. Identified as a prolific offender known among children as “Father Pockets.” | 36, 43 |
| Bishop Christopher J. Weldon | Springfield; a survivor’s account concerns his time as an altar boy at St. Anne Parish, Chicopee. | 1960s. A survivor’s account, examined in a 2020 report the diocese commissioned from retired Judge Peter Velis, describes rape and abuse by Weldon and two other priests. Bishop of Springfield 1950–1977; expressly identified as appearing on the diocese’s credibly accused list for raping children. | 20, 46 |
| Bishop Thomas L. Dupre | Springfield. | Abuse dates not specified. Expressly identified as appearing on the diocese’s credibly accused list for raping children. His 2004 indictment is a prosecution date, not an abuse date. | 20 |
| Richard Lavigne | Springfield; identified in cited reporting as a pastor in Shelburne Falls. | Full abuse period not specified. The report discusses numerous child victims and his 1992 conviction on two counts of indecent assault and battery. He was also a suspect in the 1972 murder of 13-year-old altar boy Danny Croteau. | 10, 56, 60 |
| David Holley | Worcester; Douglas, Massachusetts; later New Mexico and Texas, including assignments associated with the Servants of the Paraclete. | Early 1960s abuse in Douglas, including approximately 18 months of abuse of Phil Saviano. Further abuse followed transfers to the Southwest; no complete date range is given. Convicted of sexually abusing eight boys in New Mexico and sentenced in 1993 to 275 years in prison. | 32, 41, 49, 156 |
| Robert E. Kelley | Worcester; Notre Dame, Southbridge; additional encounters in the Sturbridge area. | Approximately 1968–1969 through the 1980s. Abuse began within a year of his 1968 ordination; specific incidents occurred around 1970–1972. A survivor disclosed around 1989 that he had abused her for several years. Convicted in Massachusetts in 1990 and again in 2003. | 36, 39, 60, 91, 158–159 |
| Thomas Teczar | Worcester; Nazareth Home for Boys, Leicester; St. Mary’s, Uxbridge; other Worcester parishes; later Diocese of Fort Worth and West Texas. | Mid-1960s onward. Allegations predated his 1967 ordination. Abuse at St. Mary’s preceded treatment in 1973–1975. After treatment, he abused additional boys at four more Worcester parishes until his 1984 removal, followed by abuse in West Texas, where he was criminally convicted. | 38–42 |
| Brendan O’Donoghue | Worcester; numerous parish assignments. | Allegations were known to the bishops who transferred him twelve times between 1950 and 1965. A complaint was reported in 1979, and additional abuse followed later transfers. Final abuse date not established; 1993 retirement is not an abuse date. | 40 |
| Ronald Provost | Worcester; youth activities and a swimming-pool case investigated by Gardner police. | Nude and semi-nude photographs of boys dated back to the 1970s. About 1980, he admitted to then-auxiliary Bishop Harrington that he had photographed nude boys. The pool photography offense resulted in a 1993 conviction; the exact incident date is not specified. | 26–27 |
| Victor Frobas | Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia; House of Affirmation, Whitinsville; St. Rose of Lima, Northborough, in Worcester Diocese; later St. Louis area. | West Virginia abuse before 1978; approximately 1978–1980 in Northborough, including a late-1970s incident. The report also describes Missouri offenses in the 1970s and 1980s, to which he pleaded guilty after 1988 charges. He appears on the credibly accused lists of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and the Archdiocese of St. Louis. | 34–35 |
Other Named Subjects of Allegations
The following individuals are named in accounts of abuse, but the cited passages do not consistently establish a formal credibility determination or conviction. Preserve that distinction when using this chart.
| Name | Diocese or identifying location | Approximate abuse dates and qualifications | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Bagley | Worcester. | Late 1960s. A survivor reported the abuse to Bishop Harrington in 1994; Bagley was transferred and remained in active ministry until 2002. | 91 |
| David Blizzard | Worcester; alleged connection to abuse involving the House of Affirmation, Whitinsville. | Approximately late 1970s, inferred from the account placing alleged group abuse during Frobas’s Worcester tenure. Exact dates are not separately given for Blizzard. | 34–35 |
| Jean-Paul Gagnon | Worcester; account connected to Holy Name of Jesus parish. | Beginning in the mid-1980s, continuing for three to four years. The report says he began abusing a boy who disclosed another abuser’s conduct to him in confession. Removed from ministry in 2002 after the survivor’s lawsuit. | 91 |
| John Geoghan | Boston priest; alleged participation in abuse connected to the House of Affirmation and locations in Worcester and Boston. | Approximately late 1970s, inferred from the Frobas-era account. This is not a chronology of Geoghan’s other offenses. | 34–35 |
| Thomas Kane | Worcester; co-founder of the House of Affirmation, Whitinsville; nearby parish connections. | A former employee who left the House of Affirmation in 1975 testified that Kane had sexual relationships with minors from a nearby parish; no incident dates are given. A survivor also alleged group abuse during Frobas’s late-1970s Worcester tenure. | 34–35 |
| Raymond Messier | Worcester; St. Joan of Arc parish, Worcester, and a camp in Charlton. | 1970s allegations at St. Joan of Arc. A separate camp-abuse allegation was reported in the early 1980s; the exact incident date is not stated. | 96–97 |
| Raymond Tremblay | Religious education teacher at Holy Name of Jesus parish, Worcester. | By the mid-1980s, when the child disclosed Tremblay’s abuse to Gagnon. | 91 |
| “Sister Marie” | Surname not supplied. Mt. Saint Ann’s Orphanage, Massachusetts; the statement does not identify the diocese or religious order. | Approximately late 1960s to early 1970s, inferred from the survivor’s stated age and childhood placement. No exact years or formal credibility finding are supplied. | 178 |
Additional Offenders Named as Background Examples
| Name | Diocese or identifying location | Approximate abuse dates and qualifications | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Shanley | Archdiocese of Boston. | Described as a prolific abuser; no abuse dates supplied. His recommendation of Porter’s 1967 transfer is not itself an abuse date. | 33 |
| Eugene O’Sullivan | Archdiocese of Boston. | Incident date not specified; the report identifies a 1984 guilty plea involving an altar boy. | 60 |
| James Hanlon | Archdiocese of Boston. | Incident dates not specified; the report identifies a 1994 conviction for raping two boys. | 60 |
| Gilbert Gauthe | Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana. | Abuse of as many as 39 children between 1972 and 1983. Allegations became public in 1983; he was criminally convicted in 1985. | 52, 60, 90 |
Scope and limitations. The report counts 275 accused clergy but expressly states that this count is not filtered by any assessment of credibility (p. 22). Many perpetrators remain unnamed. The dates below are not necessarily each person’s complete abuse history. Complaint, conviction, transfer, and retirement dates are distinguished from incident dates. Anonymized perpetrators have not been assigned names based on circumstantial clues.
Source. Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General, Report on Diocese Investigation (released September 30, 2026), concerning the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester. All page references below use printed report pagination, not PDF viewer numbering.
For fuller listings, see the credibly accused lists published by the Diocese of Fall River and the Diocese of Springfield. The Diocese of Worcester has not published one.
What Is Happening in the Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester Dioceses?
In 2019, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation into how the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Fall River, Springfield, and Worcester handled allegations that clergy sexually abused children. Investigators reviewed more than 300,000 pages of records, including every available personnel file of accused priests, and interviewed more than 100 people, among them survivors, diocesan officials, clergy, and attorneys who represent survivors.
The resulting report, released on September 30, 2026, is the first comparable public accounting for these three dioceses of what earlier investigations exposed in the Archdiocese of Boston. It finds that for more than half a century, under successive bishops, church officials knew children were being abused and did not take effective action to stop it.
The Attorney General could not bring criminal charges for most of what the investigation uncovered. Much of the conduct predates the 2002 laws that made reckless endangerment of a child a crime and made clergy mandated reporters, and other conduct falls outside criminal limitations periods. The report states plainly that civil claims would allow survivors to seek a measure of justice, but that current Massachusetts law makes those claims difficult, if not impossible.
That is why the report has renewed attention on legislation to remove the civil filing deadline for child sexual abuse claims and on the Attorney General’s call to end the $20,000 cap on damages against charitable institutions in these cases.
Scope of the Abuse Documented by the Attorney General
| Diocese | Accused clergy | Survivors |
|---|---|---|
| Fall River | 92 | 469 |
| Springfield | 93 | 259 |
| Worcester | 90 | 216 |
| Total | 275 | 944 |
Accused clergy include bishops, priests, religious brothers, deacons, and nuns, including members of religious orders. The Attorney General presents these figures to show how widespread the abuse was, not as an exact count; they are not filtered by any credibility assessment, and incomplete diocesan records and underreporting mean the true scope cannot be determined.
Which Diocese Covered Your Parish or School?
Diocese of Fall River
Bristol, Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket Counties, plus Marion, Mattapoisett, and Wareham in Plymouth County. Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod, and the Islands.
Diocese of Springfield
Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden, and Hampshire Counties in western Massachusetts. Before 1950, the diocese also included Worcester County.
Diocese of Worcester
Worcester County. It remains the only Massachusetts diocese that has not published a list of credibly accused clergy.
Abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston was not the subject of this report. If you are unsure which diocese, religious order, or school was responsible, we can help you sort that out.
Who Will Speak for Massachusetts Survivors of Clergy Abuse?
The abuse of hundreds of children is deeply disturbing. Just as disturbing is the pattern of institutional response the Attorney General documented. Before 2002, according to the report, church officials in all three dioceses:
- Moved abusers instead of stopping themTransferred priests to new parishes, and to dioceses in other states and countries, without warning the communities that received them.
- Relied on treatment centers to clear priestsSent accused priests to facilities in New Mexico, Maryland, Connecticut, Canada, and the Worcester Diocese’s own House of Affirmation, then returned them to ministry, where many abused again.
- Concealed the reasons for removalDescribed removals as “sick leave,” “health,” “stress,” or retirement, leaving parishioners and even fellow priests unaware of the danger.
- Silenced survivorsDiscredited children who came forward and conditioned settlements on nondisclosure agreements that barred survivors from discussing their claims.
- Kept law enforcement outFailed to report abuse to police or prosecutors, which allowed accused priests to pass background checks and keep their access to children.
- Left records incompleteKept abuse allegations out of files or used coded language. The Attorney General concluded the Springfield Diocese’s records are not complete.
The Problems Did Not End in 2002
The report credits the dioceses with real reforms since 2002, including safe environment training, background checks, review boards, and victim assistance offices. But it also found that written policies were not consistently followed. In each diocese, priests remained in ministry for years after reports of abuse. Accused priests were allowed to retire or resign instead of facing review, and suspended priests largely went unsupervised, with some continuing to receive church salaries, housing, and benefits.
What Would Change Under House Bill 1829?
House Bill 1829, filed by Representative John J. Lawn, Jr. and co-sponsored by Representative Natalie M. Blais, would eliminate the civil statute of limitations for claims alleging sexual abuse of a minor. It would also eliminate the deadline for claims that another defendant negligently supervised the abuser or that its conduct caused or contributed to the abuse.
The bill would revive claims that have already expired under Massachusetts law. For a revived claim against an entity that employed or supervised the abuser, the bill requires a finding of negligence before damages may be awarded against that entity. Removing a filing deadline does not by itself establish liability.
Status as of October 2, 2026
H.1829 has not been enacted. The Legislature’s bill history shows that on March 26, 2026, it accompanied study order H.5281. It is a proposed reform, not a right survivors can rely on today.
The Attorney General’s Call
With the report, AG Campbell asked the Legislature to consider eliminating the civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse claims and creating an indefinite lookback period for survivors whose claims have already expired.
The $20,000 Charitable Cap
The AG also called for eliminating Massachusetts’ $20,000 charitable immunity cap for these claims. The cap can sharply limit recovery against qualifying charities even when negligence is proven. H.1829 as filed does not change it.
Jenner Law supports legislation that gives survivors a meaningful opportunity to present their claims and hold negligent institutions accountable. Rob Jenner advocated for Maryland’s Child Victims Act, which eliminated the civil filing deadline for child sexual abuse claims, and worked with co-counsel to defend it before the Supreme Court of Maryland, which upheld the law. We urge Massachusetts lawmakers to act on the Attorney General’s recommendations.
What the Attorney General Asked the Dioceses to Do
The report recommends best practices for all three dioceses. Every Worcester survivor the Attorney General’s Office asked named a public list of credibly accused clergy as the change they most wanted.
- Publish lists of credibly accused clergy, including in Worcester, the only Massachusetts diocese without one
- Monitor and supervise credibly accused priests, and enforce the restrictions placed on them
- Investigate every allegation thoroughly and promptly, and document the process
- Bring independence and professionalism to review boards and credibility decisions
- Close the gaps that let religious order priests fall through the cracks
- Enter agreements with law enforcement on reporting allegations
- Strengthen protections for whistleblowers who report abuse
- Put survivors first with trauma-informed support
- Affirmatively release survivors from confidentiality provisions in past agreements
You Are Not Alone. Jenner Law Is Here to Help.
If you experienced childhood sexual abuse involving a priest, religious brother, nun, or another person associated with a Massachusetts church or school, we invite you to contact us. You may have questions about whether a claim is still possible, whether an institution can be held responsible, or what proposed changes in the law could mean for you.
Do not assume that the passage of time automatically rules out a claim, and do not assume that proposed legislation has already reopened one. Your options depend on the facts and the law that applies. Speaking with us can help you understand them without committing you to file a lawsuit. You do not need every date, document, or answer before reaching out.
If you signed a confidentiality agreement as part of a past settlement, or were told years ago that it was too late, we can review your circumstances with you.
What We Are Doing for Survivors
We believe sexual predators, and the institutions that enable them, must be held accountable. Our lawyers and trauma-informed staff pursue justice to the fullest extent of the law while supporting clients as they move toward healing.
Our work for clergy abuse survivors in Maryland informs our commitment to survivors in Massachusetts. We represent survivors in cases involving Catholic schools, parishes, and religious orders, and we have secured millions of dollars for survivors of clergy sexual abuse and other forms of sexual abuse. We have seen how institutional secrecy and legal barriers can delay accountability for decades.
Founder Robert K. Jenner is a member of the Massachusetts bar, and the firm maintains an office in the Commonwealth, so survivors here work directly with a lawyer licensed where their claims arise.
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Support and Reporting
To report child sexual abuse by a member of the clergy, the Attorney General directs survivors to the Massachusetts Children’s Alliance, which lists Children’s Advocacy Centers by county.
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