Rhode Island
For survivors, Rhode Island clergy abuse report brings vindication and renewed demands
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The sound of the school nurse’s office door opening. Light reflecting off a stained-glass window. Tearful outbursts and fear of getting on the school bus.
For many survivors of clergy abuse, memories like these linger for decades.
A report released this week by the Rhode Island attorney general detailed decades of abuse inside the state’s Catholic Diocese of Providence, identifying 75 clergy members who sexually abused more than 300 children since 1950. The investigation drew on thousands of church records and years of interviews with victims and witnesses. Officials said the true number of victims is likely much higher.
But survivors say the numbers capture only part of the story. Behind each case, they say, are childhood fragments that resurface years later — along with the long struggle to understand what happened.
Many survivors spent decades searching for answers and pressing authorities to investigate. Now some are speaking publicly about what they endured and what they hope will come next: broader support for survivors, help from the church to pay for therapy and counseling, and 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.
Dr. Herbert “Hub” Brennan, a clergy abuse survivor, displays a 1995 newspaper showing a headline that reads “Diocese has no complaints about jailed priest” at his internal medicine office in East Greenwich, R.I., Thursday, March 5, 2026. Credit: AP/Leah Willingham
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.
Dr. Herbert “Hub” Brennan, a clergy abuse survivor, shows at a 1995 newspaper article about the arrest of the Rev. Brendan Smyth while at his internal medicine office in East Greenwich, R.I., Thursday, March 5, 2026. Credit: AP/Leah Willingham
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.”
Rhode Island
Liz McGraw Cries Revealing Unaired Details From Her and Jo-Ellen’s RHORI Clash (EXCLUSIVE) | Bravo
For anyone wondering if Liz McGraw is still reeling from her clash with Jo-Ellen Tiberi on The Real Housewives of Rhode Island, she is, ma. In fact, Liz even broke down into tears while revealing unaired details from their Episode 10 fight on The Real Housewives of Rhode Island After Show.
Although the core drama that ignited during a car ride to South Boston was actually between Liz and Alicia Carmody, Jo-Ellen inadvertently entered the fray by trying to mediate their conflict. Even after they arrived for Rosie DiMare’s husband Rich DiMare’s Frank Sinatra-themed dinner show, Jo-Ellen’s peacekeeping efforts continued to rub Liz the wrong way, culminating with them sparring before, during, and after the performance.
“She’s yelling at me and simultaneously trying to fix my face,” Liz recalled. “Get your f–kin’ hand off me … It’s actually burning a hole through me. I don’t feel the love from your hand right now, or good intentions.”
A Complete Guide to the RHORI Cast’s Families, Friendships, Feuds & More (EXCLUSIVE)
Appearing to become emotional, Liz added, “I think, at the time, with all the s–t I was going through, my heart really just couldn’t handle it. That’s the truth. I just wanted away from it. I was steaming.”
After returning to her home in Rhode Island, Liz admitted that she’d “rage texted” Jo-Ellen, however. “I was just so mad,” she explained.
Why Liz McGraw felt misunderstood amid her arguments with Jo-Ellen Tiberi and Alicia Carmody on RHORI
Ultimately, Liz chalked up her explosive reaction to the fact that nobody seemed to understand where she was coming from as they debated whether or not Alicia was ever actually “homeless” during her childhood.
From Liz’s point of view, the term “homeless” implied that she was living “on the street,” which she felt was insulting to Alicia’s “big, beautiful family” that opened their doors when her father sold their home and “abandoned” her and her mother. Either way, Liz previously insisted during Episode 9 that she wasn’t trying to be “insensitive,” but rather, she simply wanted to protect Alicia’s family members, whom she’d known her whole life.
RHORI Midseason Trailer Teases an Arrest, Video Proof of Cheating, and More Drama
“I don’t know. I just really wanted to be, like, understood,” Liz tearfully added on the RHORI After Show.
When a producer asked why she was getting so upset, Liz elaborated, “Um… I know the way it looks. I know that this looks like I demand this absolute loyalty s–t. I don’t. I don’t need anyone’s loyalty. Just stop f–king with me. That’s it.”
She continued, “My harsh nature makes it easy to say … I’m like the attacker or something. But, like, I really don’t mean to be. I’m not trying to be the heavy-hitter, I’m not trying to, like, get karma on people. I’m not trying to do any of those things. I’m literally just trying to, like, survive and feel OK.”
Where Liz McGraw and Jo-Ellen Tiberi’s friendship stands after their RHORI fight
Jo-Ellen, for her part, doubled down on the After Show that she was simply “trying to deescalate the situation” between Liz and Alicia. She couldn’t help but remember how Liz had referred to her as “the devil” and “a demon,” however.
When Alicia, meanwhile, questioned why she’d let Liz speak to her that way, especially when she’s usually “so strong with everybody else,” Jo-Ellen explained, “Because I care about her and because I want her friendship … We have fun when we have fun. And then when she turns that switch, it’s turned.”
During their meetup at the end of Episode 10, however, Jo-Ellen and Liz were unable to work through their issues. In a separate RHORI After Show clip, Jo-Ellen echoed her earlier comments about caring about the friendship, while Liz opened up more about their dynamic and why their initial reconciliation attempt had failed.
“Every time we have these fights, this is what ends up happening,” Liz said. “She’ll do something really f–ked up to me … And when I react or retaliate or say ugly things back, she will become the victim and be like, ‘You really hurt my feelings with that.’”
She added, “If you didn’t do it, there would be no feelings to be hurt, like, you know what I mean? And she rapid-fired these insults at me that I was not prepared for at all. I thought we were, like, trying to, like, work it out. But what did you expect from what you were just saying to me? I’m ‘so mean and nasty.’ I don’t hear that often. But do I feel the need to defend myself when it comes my way? Yeah.”
As Liz concluded, “I think I show how much I care by being hurt. I want you to understand me. I want you to understand where I’m coming from. But I think I am learning that people don’t have to understand me all the time. You know, I’m like, whatever. I am who I am.”
As you wait to see if Liz and Jo-Ellen can repair their friendship, don’t miss a sneak peek at more drama ahead in the RHORI midseason trailer.
In Charlestown, a garden village called the Fantastic Umbrella Factory sells no umbrellas. What it has instead is bamboo paths, a flock of emus, and a greenhouse of carnivorous plants, all down a back road as though it needs no explanation. That matter-of-fact oddness runs through the nine towns here. Some keep working relics going rather than roping them off as exhibits, like a windmill in Jamestown still open to the climb and a portrait painter’s birthplace in North Kingstown with its waterwheel still turning. Others trade in the genuinely strange: troll sculptures hidden in the woods, and a stretch of open sand that locals call Rhode Island’s desert. None of them sit far apart, which is the quiet advantage of a small state.
Little Compton
Little Compton’s village of Adamsville holds Gray’s General Store, founded in 1788 and run by the same family for seven generations until it closed in 2012. Rhode Island officials once proclaimed it the oldest continuously operating general store in the country, and its marble soda fountain and penny candy still live in local memory. The store sold johnnycakes made from cornmeal ground at Gray’s Grist Mill, which sits about 100 yards down the road and just across the state line in Westport, Massachusetts. Elsewhere in town, the Whitehead Preserve at Dundery Brook runs a boardwalk trail through ponds and wetland forest. Sakonnet Gardens opens its tightly planted garden “rooms,” hidden pathways, and water features by limited reservation, so anyone hoping to see it should book well ahead.
New Shoreham
New Shoreham is the town that covers Block Island, reached by ferry from the mainland. The Southeast Lighthouse, built in 1875, stands above the Mohegan Bluffs on the island’s south side, where a long stairway drops to a beach beneath the clay cliffs. People scoop the natural wet clay, let it dry in the sun, and rinse it off in the surf, a ritual that has become part of a Block Island summer. Inland, the 1661 Farm keeps a small menagerie of exotic animals, including alpacas, emus, and kangaroos, and rents rooms on the property along with a wellness center. Cars come over on the ferry, though the island is small enough to cover by rented moped or bicycle.
Charlestown
Charlestown is a quiet coastal town whose strangest stop is the Fantastic Umbrella Factory, the garden village named at the top of this list. Bamboo paths wind past small teepees and rock mazes to pens of emus, goats, and ducks, with bohemian shops and a greenhouse selling carnivorous plants such as the Venus flytrap. A few minutes away, Ninigret Park holds two of the giant recycled-wood trolls that the Danish artist Thomas Dambo has installed around the world, and tracking them down feels like a treasure hunt. The same park is home to Frosty Drew Observatory, which opens on Friday nights under some of the darkest skies in the state for views of the Milky Way, the planets, and distant nebulae. East Beach adds clear water and white sand for a quieter afternoon.
Jamestown
On Conanicut Island, the Jamestown Windmill is the town’s signature landmark, a three-story octagonal mill built in 1787 to replace an earlier 1730 windmill on the same hill. Its sails turned until 1896, and the structure still stands in the Windmill Hill Historic District, open for a climb up the winding stairs into the bonnet where the gears sit. The town marks it with Windmill Day each July. The shoreline carries a different kind of history: Beavertail, Fort Getty, and Fort Wetherill state parks hold concrete passageways and gun emplacements left from the island’s coastal defenses, with coves below for swimming and offshore wrecks for certified divers. Watson Historic Farm, a 265-acre colonial-era farm, runs hiking trails toward the water.
Lincoln
Lincoln Woods State Park is studded with glacial boulders that climbers know by name, among them Ship Rock, Buddy Boulder, and Bear Hug. Deeper in, an overgrown section locals call the “post-apocalyptic” woods hides old stone walls, abandoned structures, and roadbeds swallowed by trees. Olney Pond anchors the park with hiking, horseback riding, and mountain biking, and the whole place stays quiet because it takes some effort to reach. Along the Blackstone River, the Blackstone River Bikeway follows the old canal past preserved 19th-century mill villages such as Ashton, including an elevated boardwalk over the Lonsdale marshlands.
Johnston
Johnston keeps its oddities in the woods. Snake Den State Park is scattered with ruins and relics that turn an ordinary walk into a low-key treasure hunt, while Johnston Memorial Park adds more open ground for a morning outside. Dame Farm and Orchards works year-round, with apple picking and a corn maze in fall, blueberries and peaches in summer, and wagon rides through the orchard’s wooded hills. The farm’s apple cider donuts have a following of their own.
Bristol
Bristol runs the oldest continuous Fourth of July celebration in the country, first held in 1785 and still drawing crowds that dwarf the town. Its Main Street is painted red, white, and blue year-round, and on the holiday the bands and floats parade for hours before the fireworks close the night. The rest of the year, Bristol looks the part of a waterfront New England town, with historic architecture, the 18th-century Coggeshall Farm Museum at Colt State Park, and the open-air Chapel-by-the-Sea. The East Bay Bike Path runs 14.5 paved miles through coastal and wooded stretches, and the Beehive Café serves pastries and lunch by the water. On the strength of that July tradition, Bristol has been called America’s most patriotic town.
West Greenwich
West Greenwich holds something a small New England state has no business having: a patch of open sand dunes that locals nickname The Dunes, or “Rhode Island’s desert.” It sits inside the Big River Management Area, roughly 8,300 acres where dunes meet woods and green swimming holes. Stepstone Falls is a multi-tiered cascade with an accessible swimming hole, and Breakheart Ponds opens onto horseback and mountain-biking trails. Just outside town, another of Thomas Dambo’s trolls hides near Browning Mill Pond in the Arcadia Management Area.
North Kingstown
North Kingstown was the birthplace of Gilbert Stuart, the painter behind the portrait of George Washington that appears on the dollar bill. His restored 1750s home and mill still run a wooden waterwheel and gristmill, set among gardens, a millpond, and a stream where river herring migrate in from the Atlantic Ocean each spring on their way to Carr Pond. Nearby, Smith’s Castle preserves nearly four centuries of history on a site that traces back to a 1630s trading post, which makes the present house one of the oldest standing in Rhode Island. Casey Farm, an 18th-century working farm, overlooks Narragansett Bay, and the seaside village of Wickford, laid out around 1709, fills its blocks with eclectic shops and local eateries.
The Quieter Side of Rhode Island
What ties these nine places together is not a postcard version of New England but the opposite: working mills, a year-round painted Main Street, troll sculptures in the trees, and a desert that has no business existing. The state’s size means a person can string several of them together in a single day without much planning, and each one repays the detour with something genuinely its own.
The Rhode Island Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at May 30, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from May 30 drawing
01-27-35-44-52, Powerball: 12, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Numbers numbers from May 30 drawing
Midday: 0-6-8-1
Evening: 7-6-1-2
Check Numbers payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Wild Money numbers from May 30 drawing
01-11-21-25-36, Extra: 05
Check Wild Money payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from May 30 drawing
05-14-22-28-30, Bonus: 01
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes less than $600 can be claimed at any Rhode Island Lottery Retailer. Prizes of $600 and above must be claimed at Lottery Headquarters, 1425 Pontiac Ave., Cranston, Rhode Island 02920.
- Mega Millions and Powerball jackpot winners can decide on cash or annuity payment within 60 days after becoming entitled to the prize. The annuitized prize shall be paid in 30 graduated annual installments.
- Winners of the Millionaire for Life top prize of $1,000,000 a year for life and second prize of $100,000 a year for life can decide to collect the prize for a minimum of 20 years or take a lump sum cash payment.
When are the Rhode Island Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 10:59 p.m. ET on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 11:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 10:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Millionaire for Life: 11:15 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Midday): 1:30 p.m. ET daily.
- Numbers (Evening): 7:29 p.m. ET daily.
- Wild Money: 7:29 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Rhode Island editor. You can send feedback using this form.
-
Oklahoma2 minutes ago
PHOTOS: NCAA Regionals vs. Oklahoma (5/31)
-
Oregon9 minutes agoSuspect in custody, shelter-in-place lifted after shooting investigation in Sandy, police say
-
Pennsylvania11 minutes agoLuzerne County Sports Hall of Fame induction June 7 at Mohegan Pennsylvania
-
Rhode Island17 minutes agoLiz McGraw Cries Revealing Unaired Details From Her and Jo-Ellen’s RHORI Clash (EXCLUSIVE) | Bravo
-
South-Carolina24 minutes ago‘It’s very emotional:’ hundreds of SC National Guardsmen deploy to D.C.
-
South Dakota26 minutes agoPHOTOS: Storms hit South Dakota Sunday night
-
Tennessee32 minutes agoHow Texas is preparing for rematch vs Tennessee softball pitchers in WCWS semifinals
-
Texas39 minutes agoTexas A&M’s Regional Final revealed ahead of Sunday night matchup
