LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
A Superior Court judge has ruled the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles must release the names of high-ranking church officials in 30,000 pages of confidential records about priests accused of abusing children.
In making the order Monday, Judge Emilie H. Elias reversed a key part of a 2011 ruling by a retired judge who said he feared including the names of the hierarchy could be used to embarrass the church further. Elias said the public’s right to know how the archdiocese, the largest in the nation, handled molestation allegations outweighed such concerns. She also reversed retired Judge Dickran Tevrizian’s ruling that priests who had faced only a single allegation of abuse would have their names blacked out.
“Don’t you think the public has a right to know … what was going on in their own church?” she asked a lawyer for the archdiocese, adding that parishioners “may want to talk to their adult children” about abuse alleged in their local church.
The judge and lawyers for alleged victims and the archdiocese were meeting Monday afternoon to discuss how and when the internal church records, which include psychiatric reports, reports of abuse and letters to the Vatican, will be released.
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