CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2012
Thousands of pages of previously confidential records related to Franciscan clergymen accused of child sexual abuse have been posted online, three years after a Los Angeles judge ordered the documents released.
Posted by Boston-based BishopAccountability.org, the records were produced by the Franciscan Friars of California as part of a 2006 settlement of civil litigation brought by 25 Santa Barbara abuse victims. The Roman Catholic order also paid $28 million to the victims.
The records include personnel files of nine admitted or confirmed molesters, all Franciscan priests and brothers, as well as transcripts of depositions of supervisors, sex abuse survivors and others, the organization said in a news release.
Much of the abuse occurred at St. Anthony’s Seminary, which closed in 1987, and at Old Mission Santa Barbara. The abusers were accused in lawsuits of molesting children, mostly boys, from the 1950s until the early 1990s.
“This is a victory for all of the brave men and women — terribly abused as little boys and little girls — who have forced this historic disclosure,” Bob Eckert, one of the abuse victims and a party to the lawsuit that led to the records’ publication, said in the news release.
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