LOS ANGELES (CA)
National Catholic Reporter
May. 10, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee
A letter from 1985 recently released by British media muddies the record of when officials with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles became aware of alleged abuse by clergy there, and the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office has asked for a copy to “review it and make a determination on what it means,” a spokesperson said.
The letter, which several media outlets in the United Kingdom reported on over the weekend, indicates that the archdiocese was warned as early as 1985 that one of its priests had been accused of having an “unwholesome relationship” with a British male.
According to the advocates, that revelation complicates the timeline of when the Los Angeles archdiocese says it first became conscious of accused clergy in its midst. A widely cited 2004 report from the archdiocese, which states that “from 1986 forward” it became archdiocesan policy to “promptly interview” victims, does not mention the priest or the allegations against him from the year before.
A report Sunday in the Sunday Mercury of Birmingham, England, states that the 1985 letter, recently obtained by the paper but not released to the public, was sent from the then-vicar general of the Birmingham archdiocese, Msgr. Daniel Leonard, to the then-chancellor of the Los Angeles archdiocese, Msgr. John Rawden, concerning Fr. James Robinson, a British priest who fled to the United States that year after a report that he had abused a child years earlier.
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