SALON

Thursday, Jan 31, 2013 9:15 AM UTC

LA archdiocese says will release files with names

By

Topics: From the Wires,

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has said the names of church leaders who made key decisions on how to deal with cases of sexual abuse by priests will not be blacked out in some 30,000 soon-to-be-released pages of confidential personnel files.

The names of any bishops, vicars for clergy and supervisory parish priests will be included in all the documents and they will be turned over to lawyers for abuse victims soon, archdiocese attorney Michael Hennigan said Wednesday. Vicars for clergy are responsible for priestly discipline and often made significant decisions about how to handle problem priests with input from the bishop or archbishop.

“We have chosen to remove redactions of those key individuals on every document,” Hennigan said in an email. “There will be no ambiguity.”

The commitment to release the documents without significant redactions comes after a five-year legal battle over the priests’ privacy rights and a more recent dispute in court with The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times, along with victims, over identifying those in positions of responsibility within the archdiocese.

A first round of 14 priest files made public in Los Angeles nearly two weeks ago showed that recently retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top officials maneuvered behind the scenes to shield molester priests, provide damage control for the church and keep parishioners in the dark about sexual abuse in their parishes. Those documents, released as part of an unrelated civil lawsuit, were not redacted and provided a glimpse of what could be contained in the larger release expected no later than Feb. 22.

Rochelle Wilcox, the attorney representing the AP and the Los Angeles Times, said the church’s promise was a victory for the public’s right to know how church leaders handled molesting priests.

The media organizations filed an objection Wednesday to a proposed order by the archdiocese that would have allowed it to release the files with the names blacked out, but with a cover sheet on the top of each priest’s file listing the names of top church leaders who handled the case.

Hennigan, in an email, maintained that the proposed order gave the church the option of removing the redactions or providing a cover sheet for each file. The church chose to remove the redactions because it was too confusing to prepare cover sheets, Hennigan said.

A record-breaking $660 million settlement in 2007 set the stage for the release of the personnel files, which contain letters among top church officials, accused priests and archdiocese attorneys, complaints from parents, medical and psychological records and — in some cases — correspondence with the Vatican.

A judge’s order in 2011 said the church could redact the names of the church hierarchy, but the LA Times and AP intervened earlier this month and another judge ordered the archdiocese to provide more transparency.

The confidential files could be turned over to more than 500 alleged victims as early as next week, said Ray Boucher, the lead attorney for plaintiffs. What’s contained in the files is “chilling,” Boucher said.

“Every bishop and every vicar of clergy has been so indoctrinated with the view of protecting the church from scandal that they allowed heinous crimes to be committed,” he said.

“That’s the irony in all of this. In their vain attempts to protect the image of the church, they’ve tarnished it beyond repair.”

More Gillian Flaccus.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
180 points181 points | 6 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
134 points135 points | comment
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
45 points46 points | 8 comments
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
31 points32 points | 16 comments
vote
Obstruction Will Ruin GOP - Playing politics & abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
15 points16 points | comment

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations