CALIFORNIA
Ventura County Star
Church personnel records made public last week reveal how badly some officials with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles bungled the response to priests accused of molestation.
And the decades-old records, totaling about 3,000 pages, are just the tip of the iceberg. Roughly 30,000 pages of documents are expected to be released in the near future as part of the Los Angeles archdiocese’s $660 million settlement in 2007 with clergy-abuse victims.
The newly released documents show church officials expressed great concern about keeping alleged molesters from facing criminal and civil charges. Deliberate steps were taken to keep them beyond the reach of prosecutors.
But, with only a few exceptions, the records contain scant evidence of official concern about the victims of abuse or taking steps to help them deal with the psychological and emotional scars from abuse.
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