Source: The Economist:
THE details will be wearily familiar to any observer of the abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic church in recent decades. Priests accused of horrific crimes are treated by their superiors as victims, while the children who suffered at their hands are seen as administrative headaches to be wished away.
In 2007 the archdiocese of Los Angeles, which serves 5m of the faithful across three southern Californian counties, agreed to a settlement worth $660m with 508 plaintiffs in a vast civil case. The details remained secret. But on January 31st, by court order, the archdiocese published 12,000 pages of personnel documents on 122 priests accused of sexual abuse in cases dating back to the 1940s.
The files showed the efforts of Roger Mahony, who led the diocese between 1985 and 2011, and one of his aides to keep incriminated priests out of trouble. Some were moved out of state; others were urged not to speak to therapists who would be obliged to alert police.