California courts have not been very accommodating to the Roman Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America this past week, refusing to let them shield their files on child abusers in their midst from public scrutiny.

Last Thursday, the California Supreme Court cleared a path for release of two decades worth of confidential child molester files when it refused to overturn a Santa Barbara County Superior Court decision that was upheld by an appellate court in December. The files contain information on volunteers and employees who have been expelled by the Scouts for suspected sexual abuse. The files were maintained for internal use and rarely shared with the public.  

The Oregon Supreme Court forced the Scouts to make public last October more than 1,200 self-labeled “perversion files” from 1965 to 1985 that included California victims. The Los Angeles Times, which has spearheaded the effort to expose the secret files, published a searchable database of files from 1961 to 1991.   

On Monday, it was the Catholic Church’s turn when Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Emilie H. Elias reversed a decision by a private mediator and ordered that L.A. Archdiocese files on children abused by its employees be released without all the names blacked out. The mediator, retired federal Judge Dickran Tevrizian, had allowed for names to be redacted to prevent the church from suffering more embarrassment and unfair guilt by association.

The 30,000-page cache of church documents are being released as part of a 2007 settlement between the archdiocese and more than 500 victims. As a result of court cases resulting from publicity surrounding scandalous church activities over the decades, more than 200 priests have been accused of abuse and insurers have paid more than $720 million in claims.

Representatives of the church were stunned by Judge Elias’ decision and offered a compromise: publishing the name of just Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney, who was archbishop until 2011. “He is prepared to take personal responsibility for everything that’s happened since the beginning of time,” church lawyer J. Michael Hennigan told the judge.

She thought otherwise.

“Don't you think the public has a right to know . . . what was going on in their own church?” the judge asked.

–Ken Broder 

To Learn More:

Judge Orders Archdiocese to Restore Names in Abuse Files (by Harriet Ryan and Victoria Kim, Los Angeles Times)

L.A. Diocese Told to Identify Officials in Abuse Cases (by Michael Winter, USA Today)

California Supreme Court Denies Scouts’ Bid to Halt Files’ Release (by Kim Christensen, Los Angeles Times)

Church Can't Withhold Names in Calif. Priest Files (by Greg Risling, Associated Press)

Boy Scout Files on Suspected Abuse Published by The Times (by Jessica Naziri and Nell Gram, Los Angeles Times)