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	Judge Sets Dec. 1 for Release of Diocesan Sex-abuse Records By Daniel Tepfer Connecticut Post November 10, 2009 http://www.connpost.com/ci_13756757 WATERBURY -- A Superior Court judge Tuesday ordered the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport to release thousands of pages documenting allegations of sexual abuse by priests on Dec. 1. Judge Barry Stevens ordered the diocese to copy the documents, minus those that are allowed to remain sealed, such as priests' medical records, on a compact disc to be given to lawyers for four newspapers -- the Hartford Courant, New York Times, Boston Globe and Washington Post -- that had filed a lawsuit seeking to force the diocese to open the records to public inspection. The newspapers had battled the diocese all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to win the release of the documentation of priest sex-abuse cases dating back several decades. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ended nearly a decade of appeals by the diocese in its efforts to block public access to more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against six priests. While the nation's highest court ordered the diocese to turn over the documents, it let stand a lower court ruling that a small segment of the records dealing with priests' medical records and seven priests not named in the lawsuits could remain sealed. Under Stevens' ruling, the diocese must first provide the judge with an index identifying the documents that its officials believe should remain sealed. The judge said he would then review that list. In March 2001, the diocese agreed to pay about $15 million to two dozen people who claimed they were abused by priests in the 1970s and early '80s. Since 1998, the diocese, under court order, had to turn over to the court documents requested by the lawyers representing people who said they suffered abuse at the hands of priests. The documents, however, remained sealed. They were part of the diocese's so-called secret archive, and detail complaints of abuse brought to the attention of diocesan officials and what actions were taken by those officials, specifically then-Bishop Edward Egan. Some documents that have previously come to light show that Egan re-assigned priests accused of abuse to other posts in the diocese
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