LOS ANGELES (CA)
Huffington Post
Michael D’Antonio
After years of delay, orchestrated by some of the most able lawyers in the country, the Catholic Church may soon reveal more truth about how it dealt with priests who sexually abused hundreds of children in the sprawling Archdiocese of Los Angeles. A court order issued Monday, in a case joined by the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press, requires the release of more than 30,000 pages of documents, with the names of abusers and their superiors un-redacted. Considering previous actions by higher courts, Judge Emilie Elias’s decision is likely to survive appeals and the deluge of new facts could occur in weeks, if not days.
At the very least, the memos, personnel files and psychiatric reports will give the public an unprecedented look inside the process followed by then Cardinal Roger Mahony and his fellow officials, as they received complaints about priests whose crimes included the serial rape of minors. The papers will also reveal something of the Catholic hierarchy’s mindset as it weighed the imperatives of the law against the needs of the Church. At times in the decades-long, international sexual abuse crisis, top churchmen did cover-up crimes and protect perpetrators. It’s hard to imagine this did not occur in America’s largest diocese, where more than $700 million has been paid to compensate men and women who were sexually violated as boys and girls.
It’s hard to imagine, too, that the files on notorious priest abusers, who continued in service after complaints were lodged against them, won’t raise serious questions about the conduct of their supervisors including Cardinal Mahony. As the recent conviction of Monsignor William Lynn of Philadelphia showed, high-level Catholic leaders risked being charged with serious crimes as they sought to protect the Church from scandal and neglected their duty to protect the public. The self-protective impulse, reinforced by the oath cardinals take to avoid scandal, has inclined some clerics toward unconscionable cover-ups and evasions including the transfer of priests out of jurisdictions where their arrest was imminent. Transfers, including international reassignments, have permitted priests to escape arrests. Others have been hidden in psychiatric treatment centers out of the reach of police and prosecutors.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.