WILMINGTON (DE)
Reuters

By Dave Warner

WILMINGTON, Delaware | Wed Feb 15, 2012

(Reuters) – A national watchdog group Wednesday began posting on line an estimated 30,000 pages of formerly undisclosed files from the Catholic Diocese here, which went bankrupt to pay damages to victims of sexual abuse.

The Wilmington Diocese paid out $77 million to 146 victims of sex abuse by priests and other clergy last year, forcing it to declare bankruptcy. The documents are being released as part of an agreement with abuse victims to conclude that process, church lawyer Anthony Flynn said.

“It is the largest single release of documents, by far,” in the nation, said Terry McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, who explained that more documents were at one time filed in the Boston Archdiocese scandal, but over a longer period.

“The church itself calls them ‘secret archives,’” he said of the trove of papers, which…