US Catholic Archdiocese to reveal confidential files

on 31/01/2013 09:02:56

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles is to reveal 30,000 pages of confidential personnel files without blacking out the names of church leaders who knew about sexual abuse by priests.

Archdiocese lawyer Michael Hennigan said the church had given up on its plan to redact the names and the files would be turned over to lawyers for abuse victims.

The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times, along with victims, went to court to force the archdiocese to reveal the names.

The archdiocese agreed to a $660m (€488m) settlement with victims in 2007 that included revealing contents of the files, but wanted to keep many names secret, citing privacy rights of priests and others.